Chinese whispers in images

Chinese whispers in images is a creative variant of the game chinese whispers. You need to prepare something and the game takes longer as the original variant, but often ends with astonishing results and can help to demonstrate the effects or rather the shortcomings of communication.

The game can be played with any number of players. However, as only two players are active at any point in time, if too many (say, more than 15 to 20) take part, you'd rather want to split them in two groups playing independently in parallel.

Equipment

 * paper and pens
 * a simple drawing prepared (see below)

Preparation
A drawing has to be prepared beforehand. The complexity of the drawing has to be adapted to the age (or rather: the skills) of the participants. Start with something not overly complex, like a "house with two windows, a door and a chimney, two trees next to it, a mountain in the background". It should be easy to recognize, and easy to draw; depending on the level of complexity you'd like to introduce, you can add more objects, of course (or several different images at once).

Procedure
All participants leave the room. They do not see the image.

The first player enters the room. He may take a look at the image for some time (e.g., one minute). Then, the image is removed, and the second player comes in. The first now explains the image to the second player. After that, the second player makes a drawing based on the description.

When the third player enters the room, he may take a look at the image of the second player. He memorizes the drawing, then explains it two the fourth player ... who makes a new drawing again, and so forth.

It is astonishing, how the image changes over time. After the last player, have a look at the differences of the image over time

Variants

 * A stricter variant may rule that the player describing the image may not be interrupted by the one who gets the description, and that this player may not ask questions. Of course, the drawing player may only start to draw once the explaining player has finished with his explanation.

Stille Post in Bildern