by fernando marecos

I'm Fernando Marecos, an industrial designer, teacher, illustrator, and for the past few years, also a board game designer. In 2025, I published Pintó, the game of drawing bad. A party game where whoever draws the worst wins.

All You Need Is a Deadline

I have fantasized about designing my own games since 2009. When I finally did, I did it as a hobby. I had many incompleted secret projects that never saw the light of day. But by the end of 2023, I had published my first little game, Flyswatter, which encouraged me to take this "hobby" more seriously.
There are many reasons to participate in a design contest. For me, the most important one is the deadline. I came across the contest by the Chilean publisher Fractal, “Llevalo a la mesa” party games edition of 2024, and I decided that I was going to participate. I had never designed a party game, so I had to start from scratch against the clock—a big challenge.

How Difficult Can It Be to Design a Party Game?

From the beginning, I knew I wanted to design a game that, from my point of view, was lacking in the market. I felt drawing had to be a central part of the game's premise so I thought about some classic games that, while popular, had something about them that didn’t work out for me.

With drawing games like Pictionary, many people feel they don't have the skill to win. As a drawing teacher, I know everyone can make themselves understood through drawing, some better than others. This made me realize I'd never heard of a game where drawing badly actually increases your chances of winning.
Everyone knows Telestrations is lots of fun, but for it to be hilarious there must be bad drawers playing. I also have always been bothered by the scoring system—yes, it has one. It doesn´t incentivize players to draw in a way that makes the game better. If points did matter, how would it be implemented?
On this matter, the points system in Dixitperfectly incentivizes players to tell ambiguous stories. But what interested me the most was the fact that, as a passive player, you earn points for players who incorrectly voted your card. I realized that this aspect wasn't being fully explored: couldn't players be incentivized so that the fewer people guess your card, the better?

Taking Shape

I was onto something here. I made some conclusions that guided the direction of the game:
The scoring system had to encourage players to draw badly: you earned points for each player who didn’t guess correctly, but at least one person had to guess right. If the focus is on how the drawing is done rather than what is drawn, then players can choose what to draw. This adds an important decision and allows players to self-regulate the difficulty.
To make the drawings guessable, I needed to narrow down the universe of drawable words, so defining a common category was necessary.
It was important that everyone drew at the same time; simultaneous play is essential in games with high player counts.

Since the game involved intentionally drawing badly, I thought of Joan Miró, a Spanish painter who drew like a child. "Miró" felt like a good title. Once I had established my guidelines, I grabbed some paper, sketched the playing areas, and playtested the game as soon as possible with my family while on summer vacation.

For such an early-stage concept, it worked remarkably well. It was important to confirm that aiming for ambiguity led to hilariously funny drawings, and the attempts to explain them were even funnier. The humor emerged naturally from the players. I was beginning to get truly excited.

There Is a Game Here


The next step was to start thinking about components. I put together a black and white prototype to put in a plastic sleeve for it to be played with dry-erase markers. During playtests with some designer friends, I cut apart the drawing and guessing areas to facilitate simultaneous play. I also found that narrowing the categories even more encouraged creativity by reducing common repetitions like "kangaroo" for animals or "Sydney" for cities—Apparently Australia is very present in people's subconscious.

An important revelation regarding scoring occurred when I made it so that guessers earn the same points as the drawer. This allowed players to even win just by guessing, fulfilling the promise that this really was "the game for bad artists". This also led to epic "high five" moments when a single person guessed correctly and both players were immensely rewarded.

Convinced that I had a good game for the contest, I poured everything I had learned in those two months of testing into a much more concrete version of the game and recorded the video to present it.

Show, Don't Tell


For the video I implemented category cards with a set of subcategories—the selection method wasn’t fully clear yet, but later it would evolve into the final system. Scoring was tracked on a shared sheet by one player, jokingly assigned to "the best drawer". I also created cardboard easels to display drawings; not ideal, but functional for the prototype.

This is the video I submitted to the Fractal contest: Pintó Videopitch

After rewatching it, I would now focus more on the hook rather than spending too much time on the components. What worked really well was to show actual gameplay with fun moments that make viewers feel involved.

Before sending the files, I added colors to help identify players on the guessing sheet, but this ended up complicating the set up unnecessarily. Despite these issues, Miró still reached the final.

The Long Wait

During this period, I stopped testing Miró. Partly because I wanted to focus on other projects, but also to take a break from the game—time away from a project often helps me return to it with a new perspective.

Meanwhile, many friends who had played the game began playing on their own. Nahuel was a prime example; he played it repeatedly with countless groups and kept me updated on how much fun everyone was having.

Finally, in mid-August of that year, the competition results were announced—and I came in second, just barely missing the top spot! Despite my initial disappointment, I immediately began thinking about how I could improve the game.

Shortly after, Nahuel Di Stefano and Julián Vechione— who partnered to launch a new publishing house focused on family games— met with me to say they were very happy I hadn't won the contest: They wanted to publish the game themselves. I didn’t hesitate—if anyone had believed in my game from the start, it was them. They also invited me to join the team as a graphic designer. I was excited to also be part of that process.

From Prototype to Product

The editorial perspective was key in transforming Miró into Pintó. The main changes were:

- Scraped the central score sheet; now each player keeps track of their own points, which improves game flow.
- Reduced the maximum players from 10 to 8 for shorter, for smoother games and a smaller box.
- Changed the rule so players lose a point if no one guesses their drawing, adding tension and expected consequences.
- Replaced number identifiers for racks with player initials for a more natural feel.
- Renamed the game to Pintó, a familiar Argentinian expression meaning "I did it because I felt like it” that resonates better and has a fun double meaning.

The graphic development of this game could fill an entire new diary: failed print tests, scale adjustments, designing the user interface, laying out the rules, collaborating with the talented Argentine illustrator Pancho Pepe, and much more. But I’ll save that story for the next chapter.

A Game Belong to the Players


The game was launched at the Encuentro Nacional de Juegos de Mesa (ENJM) in November 2025 to an incredible reception. People were playing it nonstop on many tables, during and after the event. Seeing players laugh at their own and each other’s creations made me realize the whole process had led to the best possible outcome: everyone having fun and sharing a joyful moment.

The most important lesson from this project to me is that game design can’t happen in isolation. You have to see the game in action to identify weak points and be open to experimenting—even if you suspect some ideas won’t work. You have to allow yourself to be surprised. Playing other games helps you understand how to differentiate yours and combine elements to create something new. Often, the simplest ideas turn out to be the most fun.

This journal comes to a close, but Pintó’s story doesn’t end here. Thanks to the efforts of many, the game will soon reach many countries. I hope you have a chance to come across a Pintó soon—and get inspired to draw badly.