Mixed Messages

Genre: Party Game

Players: 2-24 (Local Alternating)

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Review:

Mixed Messages is a Party game released on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2009 and then grandfathered into the Nintendo 3DS eShop when that system was released. This game has players alternate between writing words on the touchscreen and then drawing what the last person wrote, with the idea being that everyone is theoretically trying to accurately represent what the person before them wrote or drew, but with the natural conclusion being that things will become more and more inaccurate as play progresses, and hilarity ensues.

In short, if you’ve ever played the party game Telestrations, this is a version of that. I’ve played Telestrations in a group before, and it does indeed make for hilarity, but there are limitations to this formula, and this version of the formula brings its own problems.

Firstly, while this game can technically be played with only two players, it’s at its most ideal with a large group, at least 6 people or so, and preferably twice that amount. Any less and you’re not really giving the message much opportunity to be garbled and re-garbled over iterations, missing much of the point of the game. However, the more people you have, the longer the game will take to make a complete circuit of all players, dragging out the game.

This is less of an issue in the actual game Telestrations, where every player has their own little book of whiteboards, but since this game was designed to use one Nintendo 3DS, that means that everyone will be waiting around doing nothing while the current player is doing their turn. I suppose you could theoretically have a whole group of players each with their own Nintendo 3DS, and each passing their system around the group, but with the game costing $5 per copy, with no download support (not to mention the cost of the 3DS systems), that will get expensive pretty quickly.

Another issue with this version of the game is that there is no option to set a timer in-game, meaning that unless you want to incorporate one of your own, participants can wait any amount of time before getting a turn. What’s more, this version doesn’t have any sort of scoring, unlike Telestrations which rewards correct guesses.

I could go on, but this all boils down to one overarching issue – a lack of options and features. No ability to draw in color, no option to have the game provide prompts instead of the first player, no option to have multiple games going at once on the same session… there are any number of ways this game could have been improved, and this game simply does not do it.

I suppose I should mention the game’s presentation, which features a colorful interface with sketchy, crudely-drawn images with a little animation, backed by whimsical music. It works, but this isn’t really the point of the game.

While I appreciate the thought of getting a videogame version of Telestrations, Mixed Messages only really covers the bare basics of that game, and lacks countless features that could have improved this game, or at least brought it up to the same standards as Telestrations. As-is, I just cannot recommend this game, as you’re much better off… well, just getting Telestrations instead, and setting down your Nintendo 3DS to play that.

tl;dr – Mixed Messages is a Party game where players pass around a Nintendo 3DS taking turns drawing pictures and trying to interpret the pictures drawn by the prior player. This game plays very much like the game Telestrations, only worse, and it is so lacking in features that you’re much better off just getting Telestrations instead.

Grade: C-

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