Pictionary (NES)
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Pictionary (Also known as Pictionary: The Game of Video Quick Draw) is another video game adaptation of a board game. This is one of the better games that LJN published. In this game, you can play from one to four players. Like the board game, your goal is to get to the finish square first. This game however has some strange elements. When you play one player mode, instead of the game instantly giving you an image to guess, you must play one of four games. In those four games, you must complete a goal constantly to reveal more of the picture you must guess, whilst avoiding enemies that drain your time to reveal more of the picture.
Attack of the Paint Zombies is a clone of the famous Space Invaders; you play as a paint bucket and must shoot all the paint zombies off the screen. The more you clear, the faster the zombies are. The Warehouse Shuffle consists of you playing as a worker who must bring up to six boxes at a time to the right of the screen. Meanwhile, you must avoid what the game manual calls gremlins. Four Alarm Rescue has you playing as two firemen reminiscent of the Game and Watch game "Fire". People will jump out of their windows and you must catch them. This is the hardest game because it's impossible to make it from one side to the other when there's two people jumping out the windows of the opposite ends of the screen. In Leapin' Energy Capsules, you must collect orbs for your spaceship while avoiding laser cannon shots with eyes.
The game was made by only three people: Tony Pomfret for programming, Craig Houston for graphics, and Tim Follin for music and sound.
Screenshots
Music
The music was composed by Tim Follin, so the listener can already expect a great soundtrack. The game's soundtrack is the definition of "quality over quantity", in that there's only six songs, and some sections of the game have no music whatsoever, but the few songs that are in the game are a work of art. Each song has a funky feeling to them, typical of Tim's style. The songs are pretty lengthy so they won't get too annoying. There are only two songs shared across the four minigames. Many people have compared Game Theme 1 to Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust".
According to Tim, there was little discussion as to what the developers wanted for music, so he wrote what he saw fit. The result of the high-quality music for such a mediocre game spawned the meme phrase, "It was just Pictionary, Tim!" In addition, people have joked that it was nice of them to include a free game with Tim's music.
Tim wrote the music in assembly using a sound driver by Stephen Ruddy.
Recording
| # | Title | Composer | Programmer | Length | Listen | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Title Screen | Tim Follin | Stephen Ruddy | 1:33 | Download | |
| 02 | Drawing Practice | Tim Follin | Stephen Ruddy | 2:45 | Download | |
| 03 | Game Theme 1 | Tim Follin | Stephen Ruddy | 2:43 | Download | |
| 04 | Game Theme 2 | Tim Follin | Stephen Ruddy | 2:36 | Download | |
| 05 | Board | Tim Follin | Stephen Ruddy | 1:27 | Download | |
| 06 | Ending | Tim Follin | Stephen Ruddy | 0:11 | Download |
Credits
- Ripper: Gil Galad
- Recorder: Doommaster1994
- Game Credits:
- Musician: Tim Follin
- Uncredited Sound Programmer: Stephen Ruddy
As LJN prohibited putting on-screen credits in the games they published, Pictionary doesn't contain any. However, like with some other Software Creations' NES games made between 1989-1992, a staff list (along with the company address) can be found by viewing the contents of the game's ROM image. The text is not encoded in ASCII, so you will have to make a table file and load it into your hex editor to see things properly.
Game Rip
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This rip is missing songs. |
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Releases
Links
- mobygames.com/game/nes/pictionary-the-game-of-video-quick-draw - MobyGames.
- gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/587510-pictionary - GameFAQs.
- w.atwiki.jp/gamemusicbest100/pages/5401.html - Atwiki.jp (Japanese).
