An animal is an easy thing to draw. A job is an easy thing to draw. Put the two together and you get a puzzle that makes a table of adults shout. A penguin who is a bus driver, a cat who is a dentist, a goldfish who is a lifeguard: each of these needs two ideas in one picture. They make some of the funny pictionary words I like most in a drawing game. The list below is fresh, written for this article.
Why do animals with jobs work so well?
There are two reasons. The first is that the picture has two parts, and a drawer has to decide which to draw first. The table then guesses in stages: first the animal, then the job. You can watch the room get closer.
The second is that a job comes with a tool. A dentist has a mirror, a pilot has a cap, a chef has a hat. A single prop turns a pig into a pig who cooks. Drawers who think in props finish faster and guess faster.
Which animal jobs are the easiest?
The easiest are jobs with a clear object to hold or wear.
Penguin bus driver
Cat dentist
Goldfish lifeguard
Sheep hairdresser
Frog chef
Duck postal worker
Pig firefighter
Bear lumberjack
Rabbit magician
Cow referee
Start with these in a first round. Even a weak drawing will have a hat or a mirror to point the table in the right direction.
Which animal jobs are harder?
These need a better prop, or a pose that says what the animal is doing.
Giraffe window cleaner
Octopus typist
Snail courier
Owl night guard
Hedgehog tailor
Crocodile accountant
Elephant ballet teacher
Monkey tour guide
Kangaroo boxer
Whale lighthouse keeper
Try the giraffe and the whale late in the evening, because their size is the joke.
Which animal jobs need a drawing trick?
Snake plumber, drawn as a long pipe with eyes
Worm tape-measure seller, drawn as a tape with a face
Spider web designer, drawn as a laptop inside a web
Centipede shoe shop assistant, drawn as many shoes on one body
Fox detective, drawn as a coat, hat and a magnifying glass
Mole surveyor, drawn as a hill with two eyes peeking out
These are the ones people remember.
How do hints and one-letter-off help?
Two-part answers are long. The dashes show the length of the word, with a gap between the parts, so the table can see "three letters, then six". Up to three hints then reveal letters as the seconds tick away, and the last letter is never given.
There is a second help. If a guess is one letter off, only the guesser is told they are close, and nobody else sees. Players who spell "plumber" wrong, or write "dentst", get a nudge without the table learning the answer.
What clock and settings suit this round?
I would use the default 100 seconds, or the longest option, 120, if the table is new. Five word choices is the default, and a drawer can pick the animal job that suits their skill. A host can set the words from two to five.
How do you play it online?
This works as an online drawing game on a video call. A host can paste the list into the custom words of Boardit's Draw and Guess and play it with friends. Guests need only a name, and up to twelve people fit in one room.
What if you want more?
Write your own. Take a list of animals and a list of jobs, shuffle them, and pair them at random. A crab accountant is funnier than a crab sailor, so the odder the pair, the better the drawing.
Ahmed Moaz builds Boardit, a free browser game site.