The Echo game mode

Echo is the mode ColorMari started with, and the right one for most rounds: everyone writes a sentence, and the others draw it. If you play several drawing rounds, every sentence is drawn several times - by different people. Like an echo it comes back more than once, a little different each time.

How it goes

1. Write. Everyone thinks up a sentence - a drawing prompt for the others. What a good one looks like: Writing good prompts.
2. Draw. ColorMari hands the sentences out at random. You draw someone else's sentence, never your own.
3. Draw again. If there are several drawing rounds, you get a different sentence each round. And every sentence goes to someone new - nobody draws the same sentence twice.
4. Watch. In the reveal, each sentence comes with all its drawings, one after another. That's where the fun is: the same sentence, three completely different pictures.

For the host

In the lobby, click the Echo card under Game Mode - it's the default. Then you set:

• Drawing rounds: how often each sentence is drawn, from 1 to 10. There can't be more rounds than players minus one - at some point everyone would have drawn every sentence.
• Time per drawing: how long each drawing round lasts.
• Topic: a theme for all sentences, say "Under water". Ideas in Theme ideas for your round.
• VIP mode: whoever writes @! in their sentence gets one of the VIPs you've chosen put in.

All settings at a glance: Game options for hosts.

How many people does it take?

It starts at two - then each draws the other's sentence. Echo really gets going from four or five people, when a sentence is drawn two or three times and the pictures try to outdo each other.

Tips

• One round to start with. With a single drawing round the game is over quickly - good for getting to know ColorMari. From two rounds on, comparing comes in.
• Shorter and more often. Two rounds of three minutes are usually more fun than one of ten.
• Tag fellow players. An @ in the sentence brings someone from the round into the picture - especially funny in Echo, because that person is then drawn by several people.