Game Review: Drawn to Life for the Nintendo DS

I really wanted to like Drawn To Life, because it's based on such a rare and inviting concept: it allows the player to literally draw characters and objects, which are then inserted into the game. But as I made my way through, I found my enthusiasm giving way to boredom and disappointment due to repetitive gameplay and the actual limitations the game places on the player's creative process. Original premise or no, Drawn To Life may sadly best be left to the younger crowd it seems geared to.

Drawn To Life starts off as a surprisingly complex theological story. A prologue explains how The Creator drew the world and everything in it (including the furry, anthropomorphic inhabitants of the game, called "raposa") in the Book of Life. At some point, an ambitious villager steals the Book of Life, and begins doodling creations of his own; this spawns dark monsters, and ultimately covers him in black sludge, turning him into the game's villain. He makes off with the book of life and tears up the pages. The Creator, in his sorrow, turns his back on the village and the raposa, and the world becomes barren and covered with clouds of encroaching darkness. Having lost faith in The Creator, most of the villagers leave. The game opens with The Creator heeding a young girl's cries for help and deciding to turn things around. The player takes on the role of The Creator, and creates a champion to save the village. Starting with a featureless mannequin, you can use the DS' stylus and a basic painting program to make any kind of character you want (you can edit the character at any time). You control this champion, who is tasked with finding pieces of the Book of Life. It's sad to see how quickly the villagers take the champion for granted and start sending him on annoying errands like finding the mayor.

Gameplay in Drawn To Life is divided into two main components: the village, and the actual levels, which are accessed via gates on the outskirts of the village. The village is very much like the towns in older RPG games in that it's just a hub where you can talk to people and buy things. Upon returning to the village from a level, you will be tasked with talking to several people, clearing away some of the shadow-crud, and sometimes coloring in a building, or drawing something, like a statue or a plant. Then it's right back through the gate to another level.

There are four worlds, each with its own boss, set of levels, and visual flavor (winter, forest, beach, and city). And some of the levels will give you different abilities. For example, you have wings in the forest levels, and can glide and perform triple jumps. Unfortunately, that's the only thing that differentiates one level from another. Otherwise, each level is a simple quest to find four pieces of a page from the book of life, and rescue three raposa scattered about. There are a few short attempts to spice up the levels, such as a half-hearted scrolling shooter game, but they are far too infrequent to vary the gameplay. Also, there are places within levels where the player is prompted to draw something, like a platform, or bits of debris, which will then be used in the game. This tends to bring gameplay to a screeching halt, and is fairly annoying, considering that most of the items you have to drawn will only be featured in that one level.

The action in Drawn To Life is the typical, bouncy, cartoony stuff found in countless platformer games. You run around jumping on enemies' heads, or shooting them with your popgun. You jump to and from moving platforms. You die if you get hit five times. As you get hit, pieces of the character's "skin" are knocked off, revealing the mannequin underneath. Health is restored with little heart-shaped power-ups. This is all standard stuff; the game seems to be trying to imitate series like Super Mario Bros., Sonic The Hedgehog, or even the old Metroids. The problem is, it doesn't pull it off with nearly the same finesse as any of the above titles. The jumps feel kind of slow and "floaty," and the gun seems to be on a slight delay. This and the repetitive levels make for gameplay that gets stale quickly.

The graphics in this game aren't bad. The game uses a rich color palette, making for a bright, Saturday morning cartoon look. The raposa characters are small and simple, but are still capable of displaying comical facial expressions. The character and the objects that you create can look good, depending on how much time you're willing to invest. However your character's animations will look somewhat stiff and awkward, and its facial expression will never change.

I didn't find the sound in this game very agreeable. The sound effects are comprised of boings, chirps, and the ubiquitous plink of coins, all of which will wear down your sanity quickly. These effects are complemented perfectly by a variety of synthetic music. These tunes aren't terrible, but the problem lies in the fact that the short tracks are on a loop. And worse, they're just catchy enough that they might get stuck in your head. And believe me, you won't want them there.

Once again, I thought it was really awesome to be able to design a character from scratch, and then see it in action. But once the novelty wore off, I was left with a bland and repetitive game that just felt kind of generic. Ultimately, the game doesn't really let you design much, just a tree here and a platform there. It would have been awesome if you could draw enemies or even levels. Drawn to life may be a great title for kids, but I suspect it would get old quickly for veteran players. The gameplay is much like the character I created: a plain framework hidden beneath an interesting skin. -Evil Server