Players: 3-8
Time: 20-30 minutes
Difficulty: 1 (of 10)

The Components

Squint Junior comes with:

• 168 squint cards
• card viewer
• 42 shape cards
• 40 scoring chips
• timer rules

Squint Cards: Half-sized cards printed on medium-light cardstock. Each card shows a name at the top, then shows a picture at the bottom, revealing how to depict the card's subject with the shape cards. The coloring on these cards is simple, but attractive.

Ultimately these cards will limit how many times the game can be played, but if you hit that limit, you can probably find a simple word list, and just move up to Squint Junior Expert (as discussed below).

Card Viewer: A sturdy plastic box which the squint cards sit in. You can place a card in the "viewscreen" in the back so that you can easily reference how to construct a subject.

Shape Cards: Transparent plastic cards, each printed with simple shapes such as lines, arcs, waves, and circles. Because they're transparent you can stack these cards on top of each other to form pictures from the shapes.

Scoring Chips: Light green plastic chips (printed with the "Out of the Box" logo).

Timer: A one-minute or so timer. It's got cool-looking blue sand inside, and the ends are metallic green, making it look all-around neat (and also matching the dominant colors of the game).

Rules: A three-panel rulesheet printed full-color on glossy cardstock. The rules are simple and easy to follow.

Overall the components in Squint Junior are of average to good quality, easy to use but not particularly beautiful. However the use of the plastic transparent cards is superb--perhaps the best use I've seen on this type of component to date, and as a result Squint Junior earns a full "5" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

The object of Squint Junior is to make legible pictures from shapes and to guess what pictures other players are depicting.

Making a Picture: Each player is going to form 1-3 pictures over the course of the game (depending on the number of players). Players will take turns during this, around the table.

When it's a player's turn to make a picture he looks at a squint card which shows a name (e.g., "star") and a method to create that picture using the transparent shape cards (e.g., five lines laid out in a star).

After the active player has looked at the card for a moment, the player to his left then flips over the timer, and the active player has about a minute to create a picture which other people will guess. He does this by using the transparent shape cards, laying them in the middle of the table, perhaps overlapping them, perhaps connecting them, to create the depicted picture.

As other players guess, the active player can say "yes", "no", "hot", or "cold", or point to a part of the picture.

if someone guesses the picture before the time runs out, both the guesser and the artist get a scoring chip.

Winning the Game: After the designated number of rounds, whoever has the most scoring chips wins.

Squint Junior Expert: Creating a picture as shown on a card is, honestly, pretty simplistic. There is still some skill in the game, but it's based on the guessing (and identifying) skills of the other players; there's no pressure on the artist.

If you want a more advanced game then, when you draw a card, just look at the title, not how to draw it. This allows for a game that's entirely enjoyable for adults.

Relationships to Other Games

The original Squint (2002) was a more adult game. Each squint card had three topics on it, and you could choose the simple, medium, or hard one to depict. There were also no drawing instructions. On the downside, however, the cards weren't transparent, making them a bit more awkward to use. Hopefully these new Squint Junior shape cards will be used to upgrade the original game at some time.

Squint Junior is one of many party drawing games, the most famous of which are Pictionary and Win, Lose, and Draw. Squint Junior tries to equalize the field a bit by giving everyone the same level of artistic ability, based on the simple shapes that can be used; of course, some players will still be better at artistic visualization than others.

The Game Design

Squint Junior is a pretty simple game. It generally shines in its development as a kid's game--because kids will be able to play it easily--while still allowing for a more adult play method. In addition, not only does it do a great job of alleviating any "stage fright" which people might feel in more open-ended drawing games, but it also provides a really different methodology for a drawing game.

Based on these factors, and the fact that I had a lot of fun, I give it a "4" out of "5" for Substance.

Conclusion

Squint Junior is a kid's party drawing game, using transparent shape cards which are laid out on the table, rather than a pencil. It's easy for kids to play, but can be enjoyable for adults too, and overall is a fun and different drawing game.