Jackbox's Drawful 2 is free to keep right now

If you fancy some daft fun with your mates from a safe distance, I strongly recommend nabbing a free copy of Drawful 2. It's a sequel to the daffy drawing game from one of those there Jackbox Party Packs, and its makers are giving it away for free for the next few weeks. It's basically Pictionary but with some real silly prompts. While Drawful is made for couch co-op, these days it's easy to play online using Steam Remote Play and such. Round up some pals, hop on Discord, and have a few laughs over how terrible you all are at drawing.

Drawful is a party game where each player gets a prompt to draw something silly, then everyone suggests what might have been the prompt, and finally they all have to guess what the actual prompt was from all the options. I played a few rounds with pals only a few weeks ago and had felt such pride as when everyone could tell I was drawing "drinking the liquid from a Magic 8-Ball". I have never felt such shame as when I attempted to depict "Pride & Prejudice" with Colin Firth emerging from the lake and... ah, it didn't come out so well. Drawful's tools are intentionally scrappy enough that everyone's drawings come out wonky. Sometimes the best you can do is just stop before you make it any worse.

The original Drawful was in the first Jackbox Party Pack, then Drawful 2 became a standalone sequel because it was the breakout hit. It added options to create your own prompts, so you can tailor it to your pals.

You have until April 11 to grab Drawful 2 free from Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's on Apple TV too, and has a 99% discount on Nintendo Switch. Only the host need run it, as all players input answers through a website on their own computer, phone, or whatever. In these days of self-isolating and social distancing, you'll want to set something up to stream the host's view remotely. It's easy to do.

Jackbox said in the announcement:

"To put it mildly, this is a difficult time for everyone. The silver lining has been seeing so many people sharing our games while on video calls with family and friends. Our games have always been about bringing people together and the fact that they are being played in this way to help people cope is comforting.

"We want to help make it easier for people to experience these moments of connection and happiness during a dark period."

Hey, it's a laugh.