Luck of the Draw

Luck of the Draw is described as "a game for the artistically challenged." And I am happy to tell you that this turns out to be a remarkably accurate description of the very people who will have the most fun playing it: the people who don't like games that make them draw.

Which is exactly what Luck of the Draw does. It makes you draw. Things like: a monkey or a space shuttle or a bad hair day; a piranha, a used car or a dream date (there are three things to draw on each card, see, and the roll of the die tells you which one).

But the part of the game that makes the drawing actually fun and the fun actually Major, comes from another deck of cards, called "categories." Categories like: "most over the top," "most dramatic," "stands out like a sore thumb."

For it turns out that these cards, these "category" cards, serve as the criteria by which the drawings are judged, don't you know. So, pretty much despite my assiduous efforts at a 45-second 3-D rendering of the Eiffel Tower in perspective with enticing hints of a chiaroscoro-like Parisian dawn, if the category turns out to be "Best Example of Minimalism," I have no myopic critics to rail against, and nothing to show for my outstanding efforts but unrequited artistic angst. Whilst you, who only managed to draw a large, narrow, and somewhat crooked "A," bask in the applause of your peers.

And for those players who have professional artistic aspirations, Luck of the Draw is a preternaturally poignant experience, capturing, with unavoidable clarity, the famously fickle fortunes of those who stake their livelihood on the currentmost definitions of "good art."