Sketch
by Seth Johnson and Brian Schomburg
Product Code: CSR-0500, ISBN 0-9658422-9-0
Corsair Publishing, $6.95
Sketch is a small and simple game that can be played with only a pencil, paper, a copy of the rules and some six-sided dice. The book itself is only 48 pages long, but there is a lot of stuff packed in to make this a complete game, from simple to advanced rules, and even a section for game masters.
The premise for Sketch is that your characters have traveled to the planet “Sketch” to become rich and famous super heroes and super villains. Character creation consists of drawing a superhero-type character and then letting the other players vote on the attributes your character appears to have, on a scale from one to ten. The attributes your character has are speed, muscle, power, gear, mind, and toughness. The numbers are added up and divided by the number of players. The advanced rules add such things as Popularity Points, Skills and Perks for your characters.
I've tried out the rules, and they seem easy enough to follow. The advanced rules especially leave a lot of room for craziness. In fact, they stress that ANYTHING is possible, and fun is emphasized over rules. In some ways, this game reminds me of a good game of Paranoia, if you know what I mean. The most fun of this game, though, is drawing up characters. Even if you can’t draw, you can have fun with this game. Spot member Jake Grill and I had a ball with the generic body templates provided in the back of the book, making up strange characters with ease. Even if you can’t draw you can play this game. It doesn’t matter if your character is a stick figure or a fully drawn- out masterpiece. Along with the templates are various drawing of gear or other things to suggest attributes for your character. If you want, you can just copy and paste what you want on your creation.
This book is filled with all kinds of illustrations showing all the different kinds of characters that can be created. Some look like they were drawn by professional artists, some by children. In fact, several pictures were drawn by a second grade class, showing that this is a proverbial fun-for- all-ages type of game. Indeed, this would make an exceptionally good game to start your children out on. You gamer families could definitely have fun playing together.
Sketch would be especially good if your group likes things a bit on the campy side and can handle the unstructured nature of the game. Sketch is not for rules lawyers among you. Picture a game similar in tone to the Tick comic book and cartoon series. If you like that, you’d like this. I could see the bizarre characters from the Tick fitting in quite nicely here. And for a mere $7, how can you go wrong. I definitely recommend seeking this little game out.
(review (c) October 2001 / Erica Woollums)