7 Online Drawing Games With Friends: Browser and Group Ideas

Someone on the Discord call says “let's play one of those drawing things,” and now you're searching. You did Gartic Phone last week. skribbl.io lost one person at the room-settings screen. And every time there's one friend who says “I can't draw, I'll just watch.”

Online drawing games look alike but play completely differently depending on what the drawing is for: a clue for the next person in a chain, something for the room to guess, a picture to compare with everyone else's, or one piece of a shared artwork. This guide sorts seven games you can play in a browser or on a phone into those four types, with a table of players, time, what you need, whether being bad at drawing matters, and how well each works on a phone. After that: which one to pick for your situation, how to draw with a finger, and 20 new prompts written for calls.

Four kinds of drawing game — sort by what the drawing is for

For comparison, we group these games into four broad styles. Once you know which one you want tonight, head count and devices narrow it to a single game.

• Telephone (Gartic Phone): sentence, drawing, sentence, drawing. The drawing is a clue for the next player, and the further the chain drifts, the funnier. Skill not required.
• Guess (skribbl.io, Gartic.io, Drawize, and Drawful 2 with a bluffing twist): one person draws, everyone else races to guess. The drawing has to communicate. Turns mean waiting in big groups.
• Match (MindMatch): everyone draws the same prompt at the same time, and the result is how alike the drawings are. No guesser needed, so it works with two people.
• Co-op (a collaborative drawing relay): one picture split between players. Nothing to guess, nobody wins.

Decide whether tonight is about laughing, competing, comparing or making something. Then pick inside that type by how many you are and what you're holding.

The seven at a glance

Player counts below are suggested group sizes, not platform limits. Times are planning estimates; allow extra time for setup and discussion. Check current plans and language options before inviting everyone.

Telephone games — the further the drift, the bigger the laugh

1. Gartic Phone: “Write a sentence; the next person draws it; the next describes the drawing”

The host makes a room and shares the invite link. Everyone writes a sentence (“a gorilla making sushi”). You then receive the previous player's sentence and draw it; the next player sees only your drawing and writes what they think it is. After as many rounds as there are players, the album replays every chain from first sentence to final guess.

1. Make a room at garticphone.com. No account.
2. Paste the invite link into the call's text chat and wait for everyone to join.
3. Host starts. Write, draw the sentence you're handed, describe the drawing you're handed, repeat. Then watch the album together.

Nothing much happens while you draw; the album is the game. Keep the voice call open and let the host flip through one panel at a time, so every reveal lands on everyone. The worst artist produces the biggest swerve in the chain, which is why this is the game for the friend who planned to watch.

Players work in parallel, but total time varies with group size, mode, timers and the replay. We suggest four or five people or more for a longer chain; that is a recommendation, not the minimum allowed. Leave time to watch the results instead of spending the whole session drawing.

Guessing games — one draws, everyone races

2. skribbl.io: “Pick one of the offered words and draw; the others guess in the chat”

A private room lets friends take turns drawing and typing guesses. Choose the language and drawing time in the room settings instead of assuming the defaults will suit everyone. Begin with familiar objects and a practice round so players can find the canvas and chat controls.

The thing that makes a room: type your own custom words when you create it. Twenty or thirty inside jokes warm a group faster than any default list. Need words? The Pictionary word list has 500 by difficulty.

The catch: free, nothing to install, but on a phone the canvas and the chat box share one small screen, so drawers are happier on a laptop or tablet. Turns rotate, so past eight players each person rarely draws. skribbl.io.

3. Gartic.io: “The same race, with themed rooms and an app”

Same loop as skribbl.io. The differences: public rooms sorted by language and theme, and an iPhone app. Want to play with strangers right now, join a public room; with friends, make a private one with a password.

The catch: public rooms attract scribblers, so keep friends in a private room. Free with ads. gartic.io (iPhone app).

4. Drawize: “Open the site and you're drawing”

Same type again: make a room for friends or jump into a public game. The controls are close enough to skribbl.io that nobody needs a tutorial, which makes it the easy pick when the group has never played any of these.

The catch: free, English-centric word lists, so for a group that wants to guess in another language skribbl.io's custom words are the simpler route. drawize.com.

If the group mixes phones and computers, start with a browser option and test it on the smallest screen. Apps can also work, but check that everyone can install the same app and use its language before choosing one.

Matching games — same prompt, same moment, how alike?

5. MindMatch: “Everyone draws the same prompt without looking; the score is how alike you were”

Two-player rooms reveal a round when both answers arrive. Group rooms reveal after the required submissions arrive or the deadline passes; missing answers are treated as empty. Disconnected players may not be waited for.

Make a room and invite with a URL, a QR code or a six-character room code. Everyone gets the same prompt (drawn from 39) and 30 seconds, and nobody sees anyone else's canvas. When the round is revealed, the drawings are overlaid and compared on five things — shape, placement and size, orientation, stroke style and rhythm — for a sync score out of 100. The final result also includes a reading chosen from 71 prewritten texts. Two people play five drawing rounds. Three to eight people in the same room switch automatically to group sync: three drawing rounds, every pair scored, and the round's “best pair”, the most in-sync pair overall and a “past-life rivals” candidate at the end.

What makes it funny is the opposite of a guessing game: the good artist doesn't necessarily win. The round where everyone put the sun top-right. The one cat facing left. The same house with the chimney in six different places. The overlay and the stroke-by-stroke replay show where each person started, so the conversation ends up being about people, not drawings.

MindMatch suits pairs and groups of up to eight, with language chosen on each device. Prompts come from its built-in collection. Names and answers are stored temporarily in the room, which expires after six inactive hours or at most 24 hours from creation. For a work device, follow the organization's rules for external services. See how MindMatch works.

Bluffing and co-op — the two that don't fit, and are worth it

6. Drawful 2 (Jackbox Games): “Draw a ridiculous prompt; the others write fake titles; everyone guesses the real one”

The host owns the game and runs it on a screen; everyone joins from a phone browser with a room code. You draw your secret prompt on your phone, each drawing is shown in turn, and the others type a convincing fake title. Guess the real one for points; fool someone for more. Half the fun is writing, which is why it suits a group where some people would rather make jokes than draw.

The catch: one purchase by the host, and remote play needs the host to share their screen over Discord or Zoom. Three to eight players. jackboxgames.com.

7. Collaborative drawing relay

For a simple cooperative alternative, agree on a character, then assign a head, body and background to different people. Draw separately on paper or in a drawing tool already available, and share the images in the call chat. Arrange them together when everyone is ready; no particular app or scoring system is required.

Use a five-minute timer and agree on the connecting points before drawing. Two people can split the head and body; a larger group can make a scene. This is a suggested activity rather than a named service, so pick a sharing method that everyone can already use.

Same drawing game, different room — pick by situation

Two people (couple, best friend, long distance)

Two people can take turns drawing and guessing, although there is no race between guessers. Choose MindMatch if both want to draw simultaneously and compare the results. A shared drawing exercise is another option when nobody wants a score.

Three to eight on a call

Want a winner: skribbl.io. Someone's shy about drawing, or you want to know who thinks alike: MindMatch group sync, three rounds with every pair scored. Five or more and in it for laughs: Gartic Phone. Run them in that order and an hour fills itself.

Ten or more

Parallel drawing can work well for a large group, but allow extra time for the replay. For guessing games, splitting into smaller rooms gives each person more turns. MindMatch holds up to eight per room, so larger gatherings need multiple rooms and one host in each.

With small kids

With children, check the prompts and help with reading or typing. A collaborative relay can use paper. A finger-friendly canvas does not mean every instruction is suitable for every age, so start with a shared practice attempt.

Remote-team icebreaker

For a work meeting, include joining, instructions and comments in the time budget. MindMatch requires no account but temporarily stores room names and answers. Follow your organization's rules for external services, and offer Image Choice or a written activity if drawing is a barrier.

Drawing on a phone — making a finger drawing read

• Set a thicker line. Thin lines show every tremor of a fingertip. Go thicker still if some players are on a PC.
• Put the phone on a table and draw with your index finger. One-handed thumb drawing has a tiny range. Move the whole arm, not the wrist, and straight lines stay straight.
• Turn landscape for wide canvases. Gartic Phone and skribbl.io give you far more room sideways. Switch off rotation lock first.
• Decide the composition in the first three seconds. What, where, how big. In a 30-second MindMatch round or a one-minute guessing turn, there's no time to start over.
• Outline first. Eyes and patterns last. In telephone and guessing games the outline carries most of the meaning.
• A cheap stylus changes more than you'd think. A dollar-store one is enough for detail. Not required.
• Silence notifications. A banner mid-stroke is the most common disaster. Start the voice call on Discord or Zoom first and paste room links into that chat.

20 prompts that work on a call (new, by type)

Use these ideas for a manually hosted activity or a service that accepts custom prompts. MindMatch uses its built-in prompt collection, so this list cannot be imported into a room.

Over a call, prompts with a situation get more movement into the drawing and more laughs out of it. Sentences for telephone games, words that are funny to draw for guessing games, “right now, right here” prompts for matching. Need more? 100 drawing challenge prompts and the 500-word Pictionary list.

For telephone games (one sentence)

1. A penguin who fell asleep in a meeting
2. An old man slurping ramen in space
3. A dinosaur running through the rain without an umbrella
4. A mountain taking a selfie
5. A whale that missed the last train
6. A robot whose birthday everyone forgot
7. A phone relaxing in a hot spring

For guessing games (single words, funny to draw)

1. Low battery
2. Forgot to unmute
3. Left on read
4. Snooze button
5. Working from home
6. Fan merch
7. Frozen video call

For matching games (everyone draws at once)

1. The drink next to you right now
2. Your mood today as weather
3. Your ideal sandwich, fillings included
4. Payday
5. The front of your nearest grocery store
6. The earliest riser on this call, from memory

FAQ