SNAP Review – Caution Signs

Andrew, you had to draw something in 20 seconds. What did you come up with?

I came up with this.

All right…

Would you have been able to guess what this was if you didn’t know it was supposed to be a “melting crocodile”? That’s the game we’re talking about today.

This is a SNAP review for Caution Signs.

Game

Caution Signs is a party drawing and guessing game for 3-9 players by Danielle Reynolds and Scott Brady. It’s published by Wacky Wizard Games, the family-games imprint of Wise Wizard Games; and you’ll play a whole game in 30 minutes or less.

Art

Now let’s talk about the art in this game.

This is a game where YOU make the art. All that’s in the box are these dry erase squares, and these triangular cards. The cards are pretty cool. You fit pairs of them together – a descriptor and a subject – to create a random caution sign.

There’s also a dry erase scoreboard for keeping track of everyone’s scores… and it’s got this handy little reminder at the top for how scoring works.

Mechanics

So, how does scoring work? Let’s talk about the mechanics and how to play Caution Signs.

Give each player a dry erase board and a marker. Put out the decks of descriptor and subject cards, face-down. Finally, make sure you put everyone’s names on the scoreboard!

The person who most recently saw a road sign in person is the first Guesser. Give everyone else a face-down descriptor card and a face-down subject card. The Guesser sets a timer for 20 seconds and says “Go!”

All the Sketchers look at their caution sign combination and try to draw it, quickly, on their board. They can only use imagery, no letters or numbers.

When the 20 seconds are up, the Guesser yells “STOP!” and everyone must put down their markers.

Every player who drew displays their sketch. Combine all the cards used this round into a face down pile, then add two more cards from each deck to that pile and mix it all up before giving it to the Guesser.

The Guesser flips over all the cards and tries to match the cards to the sketches on the table. They’ll put a descriptor card and a subject card for each sign, and once they finalize their choices, it’s time to score!

Every Sketcher puts up fingers for how many of the cards assigned to their sketch (“3, 2, 1, go!”) are correct – this could be zero, one, or two.

The Guesser gets two points this round for every sign they got ENTIRELY correct. A Sketcher gets three points if the Guesser got their sign completely correct, and one point if the Guesser got it partially correct. No one gets points for incorrect guesses.

Once scoring is complete, discard all the cards and pass the scoreboard and timer to the player on the Guesser’s left to be the new Guesser.

Once everyone has been the Guesser once, the round is over. The rulebook suggests playing two rounds if you have 3-5 players, and just one round if you have more players than that. Tally up the scores and see who is the best caution sign creator!

Expectations

So what did we expect from Caution Signs?

Well, I knew what Caution Signs was, because I played it when it was in development, and I played it a couple of times before we even got a copy for review. This is a fun, silly party game.

And that’s what I expected too, a silly drawing game. Pretty much exactly what’s on the cover – make quick drawings that express your silly or bizarre caution sign.

Surprises

So, let’s talk about some surprises, since we kind of nailed the expectations.

Caution Signs feels like it combines the clueing we love from games like So Clover with the quick-sketch skills from games like Happy Little Accidents. Everyone is laughing and groaning at the table all of the time. It’s a lot of fun and people can drop in and drop out, because – let’s face it – nobody really cares about their score anyway.

I was really surprised by how short the time was to draw. 20 seconds is NOT long, and for our first game we actually allowed a little bit more time than that – but it turns out that for most people, 20 seconds is plenty of time to create a workable sketch, and that time pressure keeps the game challenging and keeps it moving forward.

The sketches don’t need to be GOOD. They just need to get the point across.

I love that this is a competitive game where everyone is just doing the best they can, rather than trying to be better than everyone else. We even had a game that ended in a perfect tie, and no one really cared because we had so much fun guessing each other’s drawings.

And like I said before – who cares about the score?

Recommended?

We recommend Caution Signs for families looking for a game that’s easy to get into and that will get everyone rooting for each other.

If you’ve got younger kids or non-native English speakers, we recommend letting everyone look at their cards before starting the timer – this gives players a chance to replace a card if they don’t know what it is.

That said, I think this would be a great game for family gatherings or to play a single round after dinner on a school night.

We’re going to give Caution Signs four and a half street signs out of five.

You can do that with this game.

And that’s Caution Signs – in a SNAP!

Get Caution Signs from Wacky Wizard Games, on Amazon, or ask for it at your friendly local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Caution Signs from Wise Wizard Games for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?