Don't wait around to draw something, play Sketch W Friends now on your BlackBerry PlayBook!

By Michelle Haag on 17 Mar 2012 06:13 pm

The recent craze on iOS and Android devices is a new game called Draw Something. Modeled after the classic game of Pictionary, you play against an opponent, taking turns drawing a picture for the other person to guess. Draw Something is not available on BlackBerry yet, though it is likely it will be brought to our platform in the future.

How about, instead of worrying about what apps we don't have, let's look at one that we do have. Sketch W Friends is a real-time, multi-player game also based on Pictionary. I tried this game out on my PlayBook, and I have to say, it's super addicting. Instead of only being paired with one person, you play in a room full of other people. Each takes a turn drawing while the rest of the players guess. You earn points not only by guessing correctly before the time runs out, but also when people correctly guess your drawing. It's fast paced, it's challenging, and it's a whole lot of fun!

Sketch W Friends is available not only for the BlackBerry PlayBook, but also for Android tablets and the iPad, so you can play with your friends no matter what platform they have! You can link your Facebook account to the game and keep track of your score and the competition. This game was developed by XLabs, the same team that brought you Groovy Notes, among other apps. You can pick up Sketch W Friends for just $1.99 in BlackBerry App World, and it's worth every penny.

For more information and to purchase Sketch W Friends
Discuss Sketch W Friends in the forums

Topics: Social Paid Game BlackBerry PlayBook Games Draw Something Sketch W Friends Pictionary News & Rumors PlayBook Games

Michelle Haag 1142 (articles) 1620 (forum posts)

49 comments

RocPlayr Mar 17, 2012 at 6:25 pm

Can it play using BlackBerry Bridge or do you need wi-fi to play with others?

XLabz Mar 18, 2012 at 9:43 am

For most of it you can use your bridged connection but then we highly recommend playing it on a WiFi connection for the simple reason that the latency is low.

On that note, the single most important factor for the game is to be on a low latency connection. Even your download speed doesn't matter so much but your latency does. This is the main reason for some people complaining about server disconnections.

jlrust Mar 17, 2012 at 6:30 pm

First of all I love Blackberry and have always been a Blackberry user. My only question is why are most of Blackberry apps not free? I might be wrong but what I have heard is that Android has a lot of apps that are free. Am I wrong?
Thank you and God Bless,
Jeff

BB_Bmore Mar 17, 2012 at 6:38 pm

The "free" apps on android usually are not the full app ,its missing things and also they are chock full of annoying ads. With a paid app you get the whole app and no ads.

jlrust Mar 18, 2012 at 3:50 am

Awesome, that answers my question. I was wondering because I have a lot of friends with android phones and always talking about the apps and I wasn't sure!
Thank you for the response!
God Bless!

cjterminator Mar 17, 2012 at 9:11 pm

Xlabs are going to release the free version soon also.
but $2 is very less for this game. Its awesome.

jlrust Mar 18, 2012 at 3:51 am

I am going to pay for it and try it! I have never paid for an app yet so I will give it a try!
Thank you and God Bless!

guerllamo7 Mar 18, 2012 at 2:36 am

I think BlackBerry is actually doing quite a bit here. In the last 12 months, I've received $177.00 in free apps from BlackBerry.
Nice apps too. But that is not all. In addition to those apps, we also have DocsToGo Premium, it costs 14.95 on iOS or Android ( think it is the most popular word, excel and PP in mobile) and it comes preloaded with every new BB and PB. Also, the very neat app Scrapbook, which I use all the time, is only available on the Playbook not on iOS or Android.

Also, Bridge feature saves us money every month and it is only available with BB. BlackBerry has organic voice navigation available with all new BB and iOS does not. They do have apps that provide it but not organic and they don't go through BB servers.

So here is the bottom line in my view, there are certainly apps that we have to pay for that other platforms don't and there are apps that are not available on our BB platform but we are getting a pretty good deal because when I add it up the amount of money I've saved with BB is far more than I would spend with other platforms to get the same level of performance with BlackBerry.

However, you are correct. I think there are apps that we have to pay for that others don't but how many are there and how much has BB given away free?

You make a good point but when you look at the whole picture I think with BB you actually save money net net.

jlrust Mar 18, 2012 at 3:54 am

Thank you for your reply. So every platform basically have there certain apps that they give for free is what it seems like then. I do love my apps that they have given us for free! I do love all my BB devices. This has helped me better understand.
Thank you and God Bless!

eve6er69 Mar 18, 2012 at 10:44 am

Yes rim has given us a lot of apps recently for free starting with the ones as a thank you and sorry for the outage. The next batch were to try and lure people into buying new devices as they were only os7 capable. Right after os2.0 on the playbook they offered 2 pretty good games.
But every os has its ups and downs. Ios games are pretty much full profit for the developer because apple doesn't charge them a lot if any money to be in the app store. Androids apps can be buggy because they are open source and don't have to go through a rigrious testing phase like berry and ios apps, and again not being charged a lot. From what I understand berry apps are more expensive because rim wants something like 30% of the profits causing the developer to have to charge more to make more.

Yes we have blackberry traffic which is a free navagation app and yes it goes through the rim servers which makes it unique but not in either a good nor a bad way. Other os's have their nav apps as well. All android phones have free turn by turn nav by google maps and iphone has a free garmin like app.

At the end of the day its not about apps or navigation its about what you like and need. I can get around every os but I can do what I NEED to do on a blackberry faster.

Ohh and once you buy an app you won't be able to stop. I couldn't justify buying one for the longest time but now I buy the 1 and 2 dollar apps even just to try them.

123berryaddicted Mar 18, 2012 at 11:57 am

I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure Apple's ratio for apps in their store is 30/70 (70 being for the developer, 30 for apple), which is the same as RIM's (or pretty close anyway)....

smartie88 Mar 18, 2012 at 1:12 pm

I don't think RIM did "rigrious testing phase" for their apps, I found not only most apps are not free,but also buggy too

LegenJERRY Mar 17, 2012 at 6:33 pm

Can it play with people on iPhones?

shemaree09 Mar 19, 2012 at 11:19 am

Yup, it's on iPhone and Androids

Update: ahh okay, so those are iPad users playing.

XLabz Mar 18, 2012 at 9:48 am

Not yet. The iPhone and Android handheld version is on the works and will be released soon. As of now Sketch W Friends is available for PlayBook, iPad and high-end Android Tablets.

BB_Bmore Mar 17, 2012 at 6:35 pm

Why not just port over the android version if you can wait? This is qnx ; the multi OS - OS!

joski Mar 17, 2012 at 6:56 pm

I haven't read many great comments yet so I'd like to chime in and say how great this game is! You can even see if your opponent is playing on an Android or iOS device, so it's nice that it's multi-platform!

shemaree09 Mar 17, 2012 at 6:59 pm

This game is sooooo fun.

I've seen a lot of Android and iPhone users in the game rooms as well.

Forget Draw Something! No more begging when we have an even better app brought to US!

AflownwiZ Mar 17, 2012 at 7:27 pm

oh nice, i didnt know about this.... love this site! thanks guys

thecsman Mar 17, 2012 at 8:31 pm

This game is REAL TIME FUN. It's also nice to see a lot of people using their PlayBooks!

Steelers Mar 17, 2012 at 8:38 pm

Is this game already out yet cause I tried to download and can't find it yet???

cjterminator Mar 17, 2012 at 9:15 pm

Yes its out, check the link in the post.

Maxey05 Mar 17, 2012 at 8:54 pm

This is why I like Blackberry! They don't need to copy and draw what everybody else has.. They have their own creativity and come up with their own unique qualities..

BLACKBERRY FOR LIFE!!!

cjterminator Mar 17, 2012 at 9:16 pm

Draw with Friends is kinda bore after I played with it for few days on my iPod touch (not real time, have to wait for others to play and send the result to you) but Sketch with Friends is awesome and in realtime and its nail biting fun.
I have not put my PB down from yesterday.
Its soon going to be top games on iOS and Android also as this is much more exciting.

dusdal Mar 17, 2012 at 9:33 pm

Awesome game. To be honest, I do think play many games, but this one sucked me in and me and my better half have wasted about 3 hours of our Saturday on it :S

robtanz Mar 17, 2012 at 9:49 pm

Really great game. Highly recommended.

Kingkracker Mar 17, 2012 at 10:37 pm

Awesome game! It's pretty cool to see so many PlayBooks out there. My daughter and I had a blast for hours on our PBs. Highly recommended!

moyjoy Mar 17, 2012 at 11:43 pm

Fun fun fun!

XLabz Mar 18, 2012 at 4:55 am

Thank you CrackBerry for featuring Sketch W Friends on your home page! A special thanks to the author Michelle Haag for taking the time to review the game and for the wonderfully written post!

We are absolutely overwhelmed by the response we've been receiving from the CrackBerry community and the BlackBerry community and thank all of you for being such a supportive bunch!! We are super thrilled to know that all of you are loving Sketch W Friends and can't get enough of it :)

More cool features are on the works. We'll keep everyone posted!!

Thanks again,
Team XLabz

AfroLoGeek Mar 18, 2012 at 6:07 am

Hi Team XLabz,
Wonder if this game is multi-language supported.
Could you please advise?I'm looking for french options in there.

Thanks!
PS:Pro Insights improvements is awesome,just waiting next!

XLabz Mar 18, 2012 at 9:38 am

We are looking at the possibility of adding more languages - we have French, Danish & Italian on the long term plan. This is going to take a little while though and could happen in the 3rd or 4th update from now.

pblakeney Mar 19, 2012 at 9:31 am

Hello Team XLabz,

I've not played this game but was wondering if you are working on a related or similar app that allows you to jot or write notes free hand for the PB?

Double_J75 Mar 18, 2012 at 7:29 am

I picked this game up and was very surprised. It kicks ass!!

iSin Mar 18, 2012 at 9:03 am

Best game i've played in a while.

grreyes24 Mar 18, 2012 at 9:32 am

Awesome game, get it!

Cynamonne Mar 18, 2012 at 9:52 am

This game is so addictive and fun to play..One of the best games on my PB.

doxa sub750T Mar 18, 2012 at 10:02 am

Gr8t game! I and my wife both love it. Thanks fro making such an awesome game available for us PB users.

jdelvalle56 Mar 18, 2012 at 10:48 am

Stylus needed? Looks like fun.

Cynamonne Mar 18, 2012 at 11:15 am

So cool Crackberry Kevin and I were in the same room and he guessed my drawing lol...

00stryder Mar 18, 2012 at 1:58 pm

jpro757 Mar 18, 2012 at 12:13 pm

Bb is trying. I just hooked up a iphone I had sitting get on my dresser because I did not want to sign a new contract I already miss my berry but I need new features and apps thy were not available to us. I'm holding out for bb10. Plus the iphone mail is not as easy setting up work email the world will come back around. Long live the rimpire

Innerchild Mar 18, 2012 at 2:07 pm

Does the game give you something to draw for others to guess like Pictionary? I would really like a local option to just play with your friends in the room, or is that there already?

Michelle Haag Mar 18, 2012 at 2:50 pm

When it's your turn to draw you have 3 words to choose from. And no, there isn't a local option yet.

Innerchild Mar 18, 2012 at 3:21 pm

Thanks! Just bought it!

sk8er_tor Mar 18, 2012 at 4:55 pm

A great, very addictive game!

joogi Mar 18, 2012 at 7:25 pm

yes, very addictive.. played for hours non-stop! need more sleep -_-

catwoman66 Mar 19, 2012 at 8:34 am

The only thing that is spoiling this game atm is people cheating and not drawing but writing the word, although there is a report button unless 2 users report the person cheating they can still go on to win. I'm not sure what the devs have in mind to overcome this, but personally it's starting to take the spark out of a great game. That said the devs have already mentioned in a future version there will be the possibility to have private rooms so as to overcome at least the possibility of choosing who you play with. I cannot stress enough what a great game this is. And finally we get something to rave about on the BB platform. :))

jpro757 Mar 20, 2012 at 9:55 am

this is cool but draw something is free that why it is the it app. The # of ppl playing

Alt-F4 Feb 15, 2013 at 11:28 pm

^^ maybe because draw something isn't for the playbook....

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