The premise of Pencil Nose sounds simple: try to get your teammates to guess objects and phrases by drawing them. That task gets a bit harder — and a whole lot sillier — when you find out you’ll be drawing those pictures, as the name implies, with your nose.
Designed for kids ages 8 and up, Pencil Nose from Fat Brain Toys is a clever take on a classic party game.
Four or more players divide into two teams, and each team gets a pair of special glasses, complete with an adjustable head strap and a peg on the nose that perfectly fits the end of a dry erase marker.
There’s also a drawing board, which players doodle on during their turn by holding it vertically in front of their face and moving their head to draw with the marker.
Because the board is clear, everyone else can see what the player is drawing, just reversed (which shouldn’t matter because letters and numbers aren’t allowed!).
To determine what they should draw, players choose a card from the stack and place it in a slot at the top of the board so they can see it but their teammates cannot. Be careful when putting the card in the slot so it doesn’t bend.
The card has six words or phrases on it — fairly generic words such as wave, cupcake, sock, and stairs that make the game work for all ages. Each player has the length of the included timer to get their teammates to guess as many of the words/phrases as possible.
The catch is that players can’t erase the board during their turn. It’s pretty tough to control the pen with your face, so you run out of space on the board more quickly than you’d expect!
Teams earn points based on the number of words they correctly guess, and there are handy scorekeeping wheels at the bottom of the drawing board to help keep track of the score.
The game does come with two fun, Pencil Nose-branded dry erase markers, but any generic dry erase marker should work with this game, should the included markers need replacing.
Pencil Nose is certainly a silly game, but it is one the whole family can have a great time playing! Definitely have a camera ready to capture all of the nosey action.
