Amish Patel, junior communication studies major, is in the Student Center drawing a picture of the “Rugrats” with his finger on his iPad: he finishes tracing a spike of Chuckie Finster’s red hair and touches send.

All the way across campus, Josh Shoemaker, freshman architecture major, receives a notification on his Android smartphone and begins to watch a recording of Amish’s drawing. He recognizes the blue-shirted, bald-headed rendition of Tommy Pickles and guesses “Rugrats.”

Shoemaker is right, and now it’s his turn to draw. He begins to sketch an image of popular dubstep artist Skrillex on his smartphone to send to Patel.

The two are playing the hit game “Draw Something,” released by OMGPOP in February, which has quickly drawn (for itself) over 35 million players worldwide.

“‘Draw Something’ is a lot of fun to play with my friends,” Shoemaker said. “It’s a challenge to draw a lot of the options and it’s even more fun to try to guess what everyone is drawing.”

When it is your turn to draw, you have the ability to choose from three options; easy, medium or hard.

Once your drawing is complete and sent to the guesser, the guesser watches a replay of the drawing process and has to guess what you’ve drawn using the picture and 12 scrambled letters, some of which spell out the word.

The harder the drawing, the more coins earned if the guesser guesses correctly.

Coins are used to make in-game purchases that will help you along the way. You can buy bombs, which allow you to either draw from or eliminate letters to make the guessing process easier. Coins can also be used to add new colors to the drawing palettes.

Succcess in the game is measured in streaks of correct guesses. If you pass because you can’t guess the drawing, the streak resets itself.

Shoemaker said his longest streak is 61 coins with his friend Ryan Clair, a junior communication studies major.

“It is pretty easy to get a big streak going on with a close friend,” Shoemaker said. “If you guys are close enough that you have inside jokes, you can sometimes incorporate that into the drawings to make it easier to guess.”

Lindsey Petrillo, junior integrated language arts major, said her favorite part of the game is the wide range of subject matter that it offers, during gameplay.

“I’ve drawn a marijuana leaf, Lady Gaga and Skittles before,” Petrillo said. “You honestly never know what your options might be and it’s really exciting if you get to draw something you really like.”

“Draw Something” is available in both a free version and a 99 cent version in the Android Market and the App Store. The paid version gives users 2000 more drawing options, as well as enough coins to buy a color or bomb pack at the beginning of a game.

“Draw Something” is playable on any smartphone or tablet running Android or iOS, although users like Patel prefer to play the game on a tablet if they can.

“The game is so much easier to play on my iPad,” Patel said. “It gives me so much freedom to add more detail to my drawings. I pretty much refuse to try and draw on my iPhone.”

Contact Matt North at [email protected].