Drawn to Life Reviews

• Equal Parts Animal Crossing and Magic Pengel With A Touch Of Mario

  
  By ABQEDHBG91BBR on 2007-09-14
  You play the game as "The Creator" and it is your job to save a small village of people/creatures/things by drawing the pizzazz back in to their little world which has become dark and gloomy and rescuing the townsfolk. Well this sounds kind of cool doesn't it? Too bad it's really not.
  
  The game opens up with the pages of a book that apparently has been destroyed by one of the villagers who has gone evil. You are prompted to draw a few things, and I'm not sure what bearing they have on the gameplay yet, and then you are thrown in to a little Animal Crossing like world that is gloomy and fenced off with patches of dark fog. They talk about some nonsense for a while and eventually you get around to drawing a "hero" which you can pretty much do anything with. You're given a certain space built up of smaller regions that you can neither draw outside of or leave an individual region blank. This is to assure that your hero has 2 "legs", 2 "hands", a "head", and so forth. Naturally you can give them round stubs for hands and pineapples for legs if you wanted to but certain bits have to be there. There are also predrawn templates you can simply alter to your tastes or use them as they are. All in all I would say the drawing tools are simple but effective. You can zoom in/out, use a fill tool, there's a couple of different pencil widths, and there's a stamping tool. For the stamps and templates you only start with a given number and the rest must be unlocked. Once done, you may alter your hero whenever you see fit so don't worry about it too much.
  
  So you've got your hero and you may now be saying to yourself, "Well he/she/it certainly is ugly" and you'd be right. Your drawn hero only has the 2D view and kind of flails around. This makes for a poor contrast to the rest of the game sprites since they all have a back, front, and side view. Whatever though, it works, it's just not pretty. With your hero you can now move on in to the saving of townsfolk and the recovery of the pages from the book of life. You enter in to side scrolling platform levels with your hero and there's really nothing new here. You jump on enemies to kill them, you can slide down hills to kill them, you collect coins for spending later in town, and you bounce around like this achieving various goals. There's really no additional flare to what it basically Mario 3 with the exception that every so often you are asked to use your drawing skills to move on. For example you may have to draw clouds that you can jump on. You also get various weapons which you are allowed to design yourself but I still found myself jumping on enemies more often than not even with weapons. The mechanics are a little wonky, your character seems to skate around and something about the feel of the movement is just slightly awkward.
  
  Ultimately though this game boils down to being a mediocre game in all respects with drawing as a distraction. You could spend plenty of time making things look cool and pretty but every second you're drawing you're not really playing the game. If you wanted to draw like this you could simply hop on MS Paint and play Animal Crossing or Mario when you're done with that. I would call this game a "pass" unless you're hard up for a new DS game.
  
  

• Mario w/ user-defined sprites

  
  By A240LXBQ9W8PGY on 2007-10-05
  What you draw simply fills in templates already in the world. You don't draw enough to really set the flavor of the setting, and all the drawing is simply filling in blanks in the background.
  
  It's fun to draw your hero, and the drawing app is great (I sometimes put in the game just to doodle), but the gameplay itself is a disappointingly linear jump and smash, and your works of art do nothing to affect the game world.
  
  

• This game is awesome!

  
  By A2WCX3RW3KF02A on 2007-09-18
  This is a great game! You can draw your own character and parts of the levels. The Drawing Tool is in depth, you can zoom in and edit each pixel, flood fill, lock colors and choose from a bunch of different stamps and patterns... I've been playing this game for awhile and still haven't unlocked everything!!! It has a cool story and interesting characters, and the music is amazing!
  
  I'd recommend Drawn to Life for anyone who likes to doodle or draw, or anyone interested in a fun side scroller. It's not perfect (Sometimes the levels / village feel too long) but it has a ton of replayability due to all the stuff you can draw.
  
  

• Fun game with tonsa new innovations

  
  By A1FDFR4OO2U7RS on 2007-10-19
  This game, to put it bluntly, is a combination of Mario, Animal Crossing, and a coloring book. This is the coloring book part. It is really fun because you get to draw your own hero and a lot of times in your adventure draw like a cloud to get across a gap. you get to draw with pixel-by-pixel drawing if you want and if you do you can just use a template or make your own which is quite hard in the scope of things. This is wher the Mario part comes in. You have to go in to 4 separate gates which represent 4 different realms. You go through side scrolling adventures which are excruciatingly long. You run, jump and ground pound just like in mario. Fun sidecrolling with boss battles at the end of every realm. This is the animal crossing part. You also can monitor the population of your town. You have to draw certain things like a nice sign for a restaurant and the town crop. Every time you complete a level you will have rescued 3 people, which will get added to your population. Overall this is one AWESOME game. I recommend it to anyone that likes mario and stuff like that.
  
  

• Strictly average, but maybe fun for a younger audience

  
  By A2SCNBZK3X9NWO on 2007-09-22
  In my ongoing quest to keep myself from constantly remembering that Halo 3 comes out in 3(!) days, I picked this up a little while ago. I'd rate this game as flatly average, but maybe exotic enough to justify picking up anyway.
  
  You play as "The Creator," a not-apparently-too-omnipotent deity for a bunch of cute furry things, the Raposas. Darkness has come to their land, and it is up to you to restore its color through your creative powers. Using the touchscreen, you "draw to life" things the Raposas need, such as the sun, crops, etc... Additionally, you craft items, tools, and conveyances for yourself to get through the world. To do this, you must first acquire pages from the "book of life" by venturing out into the darkness with your avatar, "The Hero," and recovering the pages from the malevolent forces that have closed in.
  
  Adventuring outside the village takes the form of a standard platformer, and this is the game's biggest problem because I'm willing to wager that many players will consider this to be the crux of the actual game. The platforming isn't bad, it's just not original---it seems obvious to me that the designers didn't want to scare people away from the fun drawing game by making the action game too hard. The platforming feels too long because the drawing game occurs in the middle of levels from time-to-time. For someone accustomed to a "level" in a platforming adventure being about a ten-minute experience, that's a little draining. Sure, it's a DS game so you can always slap the lid shut and go, but that's hard to get used to, especially when stopping mid-game can make you lose your mental map of the area. Speaking of which, for a game that involves drawing unique items, the level designs are pretty repetitive. This is something that they could have done better... At least give me the ability to draw trail markers into the world so I can realize more easily that I'm retracing my steps.
  
  It's clear that they spent the most time on the drawing aspect of the game, and this was done well enough. There are certainly no hardware problems, which is good; the DS screen supports this type of gameplay perfectly well. The drawing toolbox is good but a little sparse; I would have liked a couple of power tools like a pixel-mixer, color-replace, cut-copy tool, or even a blur filter if they were feeling sassy. The most powerful tool in my kit is the lock tool, which allows me to designate one color at a time as 'locked' and therefore unmodifiable, which makes clean edges easier to obtain. Photoshop... this is not. Also, and this is a minor nitpick... Given the amount of time you spend in this screen, I would have liked more than one music theme for "Hey, let's draw!" If I'm trying to race down a mountain and I'm sketching myself a quick snowboard to do the job, I would have done the music tense, not jaunty.
  
  What the game does get right is the use of the drawings. The game has you draw many elements of the world, including your own avatar, the vehicles you use, the weapons you wield, and even the game's title screen. The game screams "customize me," and that's enjoyable. Thematically, the game is a little kiddish, and possibly even---surprisingly---a little art-confused. Since the toolkit you're given is more on par with Mario Paint, most of the drawings you do come off looking very "Crayola fun day." This makes your own creations stand out in sharp contrast to the higher detail of the game's built-in art, which looks more like "Secret of Mana." If I'd been the director, I'd have themed this one more like "Yoshi's Story" to make it easier for the player's work to blend into the scene. On the other hand, the decision they made causes the player's art to stand out more, which may have been the goal all along.
  
  To sum up? This game is fun enough, but it won't hold my attention when Halo 3 comes out. I can't say anything bad about a feature that allows me to play through the game as Sephiroth in powered armor wielding a gun that shoots exploding acorns. If I don't finish this game, it won't be a failure of the titular drawing feature but of the mind-numbing platforming. But overall, I'm impressed. I generally find drawing and coloring to be an entertainment experience on a level somewhere between watching paint dry and mowing the lawn; the fact that I haven't dissolved this game in turpentine and wandered off to kill my thirty-eight thousandth Spartan is testament to the good work the developers did.
  
  The conclusion I draw: Pick it up on discount when you're bored. Or buy it full price, either to encourage the industry to try and refine this idea or to give to a young player in your life who may not remember what platforming felt like in "Super Mario Bros 3."
  
  
• SO much fun!!!
  By A1OS4Z5DADC3RZ on 2007-10-08
  If you are looking for a game thats fun and interactive you have to buy this game!Its like a mario game almost. you can draw your own hero.their are pre made heros if you cant draw one the way you want.the book of life is the main point,you have to find all the pieces to unlock new levels.rescue the towns people,name your town!bring your town from a dark dengy place to the happyest place you'v ever seen!its a good game BUY IT and you won't be sorry!
  
  
• Fun for mom too!!
  By A20R9Y9MXK5KEA on 2007-12-30
  I've been playing my daughters Drawn To Life game and find it to be so much fun...alot like a mario game where you get to go to the different worlds and collect things except it is so cool that you get to draw your character as well as other items...like your shooter, elevator thingies, wings and much more. I have to say the game play is very very simple...advanced gamers will prob not find it very challenging in that regard...but I love it...I dont have patience for hard games...and the drawing part is too much fun.
  
  
• cool
  By on 2007-11-03
  This game is fun. Only thing is the hero that you draw runs around in 2D. It's an easy to use paint kit with an eraser and different levels of paint brush sizes. Probably for 10 year olds and up, I'm 12. Over all it's a great game.
  
  
• Drawn to Life: A game for creative kids
  By on 2007-11-11
  if you are creative, you have got to love this game. It's a cross between Mario\Animal Crossing type of game. Great for girls and boys. Draw your own hero, weapon, forest, even planet!! Your goal is to defeat the darkness, and this guy named Wilfre. Interact with characters, and literally shape\draw your destiny!!
  pros:
  DRAW ANYTHING!!
  talk to characters
  minigames are fun
  levels are fun
  
  cons:
  levels can be challenging
  hard to win minigames
  game goes by quick
  
  overall, you should definetly buy your kid this game. They will love it!!
  -froglover
  
  
• An Awesome Platformer Where YOU Design the Platforms!
  By A8LFXWE1VZ94A on 2008-01-31
  "Drawn to Life" is really, in essence, three games seamlessly united into one: lightweight RPG, slick side-scrolling platformer, and art/drawing program. If you enjoy these elements, even to a slight extent, you will enjoy the experience of "Drawn to Life."
  
  There is some sketchy theology involved. The game begins by asking you to draw a globe, some trees, and some creatures. It then brands you "the Creator". Turns out you created a whole world and then abandoned it. Then, one day, a funny little creature called a raposa (the main species of inhabitants of your world) prays to the Creator, and you answer.
  
  The two most distinct types of game play are the RPG and the platforming elements. The RPG first has you design up to three "heroes" as the Creator. From then on, you play both the role of Creator and hero as you interact with the raposas in a small village and "create" elements of their life as needed.
  
  The platforming element takes over when your hero travels through different doors to action areas such as a snowy mountain and a sandy beach. Here, your hero proceeds in classic side-scrolling style, defeating enemies with a non-lethal gun that fires projectiles like snow ball and acorns or simply by crushing them with his or her butt, leaping across platforms, and collecting coins and hidden items.
  
  The most unique feature of the game, and the element that is incorporated into both of the distinct gaming experiences, is the drawing feature. If you can handle Microsoft Paint, you can handle this. The DS makes excellent use of the stylus to draw several of the game's interactive elements. This starts with the design of the various heroes, all painted over a manikin to provide the movement structure, and all treated as one by the raposas. If you're not feeling creative, the game provides patterns that can be altered or simply "brought to life." If you're feeling creative. Throughout the game, you'll also be asked to draw several pieces of the town the RPG is set in. Throughout the platforming worlds, you will draw your guns, along with several vehicles. Also, you will get to draw several unique platforms, all which behave differently. For an example, you get to design stars that must be jumped on while twinkling and bits of debris that are caught in the gusts of winds that blow you across chasms. These elements, which you draw, blend surprisingly well with the rest of the environments you interact with, and there's a certain thrill involved in riding your own creations.
  
  The stylus is also well utilized in other aspects of the game, such as opening doors during the platforming levels and moving objects during the RPG. And your drawing also come into play in unique ways, such as your heroes head becoming the icon for lives remaining during side-scrolling and also the 1ups that can be collected.
  
  Hazy theology aside, "Drawn to Life" is a fun game that nurtures creativity, and if you own a Nintendo DS, you have no excuse not to own this awesome game.
  
  
  
• Creative Fun
  By A3L8QOL0VHCIY4 on 2008-02-27
  I thought this game was original in it's format and fun. Alittle too easy for adults with gaming experience but that didn't keep me from enjoying it! I think this game would be great for 7- 14 yr. olds!
  
  
• My Favorite Game Yet !!!!
  By A3VWLF63YXNX4B on 2007-11-04
  I have been an avid game player since my children were small and we adventured thru the worlds of Mario. I was never as good as my boys but I had lots of fun and I still love Mario. But this game is THE BEST because I can create the things that are used in the game. "I" am the creator! And it's not too hard for a "Mom" like me. I just love this game!
  
  
• Nintendo DS "Drawn to Life"
  By A1ES0EHSJGPHNS on 2008-01-03
  This game was a Christmas gift for my 8 year old grandson. He loves to draw so this was a perfect addition to his Nintendo DS games. I rated this product based on what my grandson told me. AWESOME!
  
  
• the perfect gift
  By AU35ONCXASKXZ on 2008-01-07
  1st let me start by saying i bought a nintendo d.s. for my 7 year old for xmas this year and several different games. i bought the d.s. for him cuz hie 2 older brothers have had a p.s.p for 2 years now and i saw how much my 7 year old wanted 1 of his own he could take and carry around with him, anyway this was the best thing i could have got him this year and the game drawn to life is so attacking for him he plays that thing from the time her wakes up to the time he goes to bed even his bog brother has stop playing his p.s.p to watch him play.
  
  
• Lotsa Fun
  By AMO1MZM6XG6V5 on 2008-04-27
  This game has been a lot of fun for my 10 year old son. It gives him a chance to customize his characters and items used in the game. Level of game play is good. Has had to have me beat the bosses, but other than that difficulty is appropriate for this age level. Wonderful game.
  
  
• Haven't made it past level one yet, but it's really fun!
  By AI11OBUBLI5Z1 on 2008-01-18
  Bought this as a Christmas gift for my son, but the whole family likes to play it. Actually, this game is the reason we bought the Nintendo DS. Haven't made it past level one yet, but it's really fun! What's unique about it is you can either draw the main character or choose a pre-drawn character. You also get to draw the main guy's props like clouds, goo & snowball guns.
  
  
• My daughter loves this game.
  By A1X8D1J3GV8TZL on 2008-05-14
  My daughter is an avid video gamer and she loves this game. Not only does she enjoy the actual game itself, she just loves drawing the pictures to go along with the game. The drawings can be as simple or as complex as you want to make them and then are incorporated into the game. She often returns to previous drawings and tries to outdo her last one. Her six year old brother sometimes plays the game and draws pictures. He's not interested in the actual playing of the game at all but is content to just make up characters. I think this would be a great game for all levels of gamers.
  
  
• good game, good graphics
  By on 2008-05-24
  this is a good game compared to some I've played. you get to draw one the main page and that's really cool. you get to draw your "hero" and get to play him through levels. you get to destroy the bad guy, but slowly. the graphics are good, the story is good and easy to follow and you get to interact with the characters. it is a little difficult but thats all that's bad with the game.
  
  
• Cute but Unoriginal.
  By A1UH8M9QALD2LS on 2008-01-03
  STORY-
  
  The Raposa, a bunch of fuzzy storybook creatures, are having their world destroyed before their very eyes. A Raposa turned evil named Wilfre is out to turn everything to shadow and take over. Mari, a young girl, begs for help from the Creator, the person who designed everything in their world. The Creator was said to have abandoned the Raposa long ago, but he finally responds to Mari's desperate plea and agrees to design a hero made from a mannequin to save the storybook. It is explained that you must collect pages from the Book of Life to restore the world to its former beauty. Henceforth, you control the hero who must rescue the Raposa from evil.
  
  BATTLE SYSTEM-
  
  This game is a typical sidescroller, and you have only a few simple attacks to get through these levels. Jumping will be your most effective tool throughout the game, and although you get customizable weapons which shoot objects, you will resort to bashing enemies on the head most of the time. There are several bosses scattered throughout the realms that you must defeat to progress. While these fights are varied enough, the normal enemies you will encounter are less than endearing. It can seem almost too easy to kill yourself at first, either by running out of ammo in a tight spot or by getting eaten alive by shadowy bats and fish. Despite the hardships new players may encounter, this game soon turns into a standard action adventure that won't challenge the mind or the fingers.
  
  GAMEPLAY-
  
  Drawn to Life, as the name implies, centers around the `drawing' aspect of the game. There are several times throughout each level where you will have to use your painting skills to get through. In fact, the game basically kicks off by having you design your very own hero to save the world. This may sound appealing at first, but the drawing system is more like MS Paint than Photoshop. You can choose from premade creations, but stubborn artists (like me) may attempt to make their own. This will usually result in an odd-looking thing which doesn't come close to what you had in mind originally. Players hoping to have a fantastic hero like the one on the cover of the box may be sorely disappointed (there are, as a matter of fact, people who design amazingly detailed Samus or Mega Man sprites, but anything that takes for than ten minutes to design is out of the question for me). You can edit your character at any time by tapping on Creation Hall, but any improvements made will most likely be minimal. Your character isn't on the same level as the Raposa sprites running around, making you feel as though you're a kindergartner on finger painting day. The designers seemed to have recognized this, since most of the things you will end up `drawing' throughout the levels are premade templates that can be filled in with the paint bucket tool. Don't get me wrong; if I had drawn a whale it would have been hideous...but it would have been my whale. The Raposa village aside, the levels are fairly generic platforming territory. There's not much to be said here that hasn't been said before. You can use various customizable tools to work your way through the levels, such as wings, a diving suit and the different modifications of your original gun. The customization of these items make the game fun and good for a laugh or two when observing your crudely drawn clouds, gusts of wind or flowers. The object of the game is to collect all the pages of the Book of Life and to bring back the Raposa village. In each level there are four fragments of a page that must be collected to advance. Other things to `collect' include lost Raposa, secrets (which give you new patterns, sounds or abilities) and shadow percentage, which shows how much darkness you've removed from a level. Unfortunately, this game becomes repetitive after a few levels, and a pattern can begin to be seen. Enter a level, collect templates, exit level, fix something and then continue doing this till the end of Drawn to Life. At its heart, Drawn to Life is an average platformer with a few extra tidbits thrown in there to make it enjoyable. I must admit, it's gratifying to see my own hero (dubbed `Mac') jumping, swimming and snowboarding his way through the varied worlds.
  
  VISUALS, CHARACTERS, and CHARM-
  
  The graphics in this game don't exactly fail to impress, but they don't boggle the mind like the cutscenes Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings either. All things considered, Drawn to Life feels like a game that could have been produced on the GBA were it not for the `drawing' aspect of the game. It's entirely possible that this game was simply an excuse to show off the touch screen's capabilities. The colors are often bright and vivid, and the Raposa are adorable little furry creatures. The style of this game seems to appeal more to smaller children who adore cute things. As mentioned before, the character YOU design will most likely not be `cute' by anyone's standard but your own. Most heroes that are drawn from scratch tend to have some messy edges, sloppy coloring and undistinguishable features. The characters of the story are varied, and although you only start out with Mari, Jowee and the mayor in your town, you will gain more and more as you advance through the levels. It's fun to see the different Raposa you've picked up throughout the worlds, since each one has their own unique personality. Despite this, the characters are fairly 2-D in more than one way. Most are quite predictable and some you will rarely talk to at all. To be fair, you grow to love the weird little furballs throughout the course of the story, and although the plot is clichéd, the execution of it is a bit better.
  
  OVERALL-
  
  Drawn to Life is a generally average game with shiny packaging and emphasis on `drawing'. If you were expecting to whip up fantastic creations at a whim, you'll be disappointed with the lopsided creatures you design yourself. A tired, overused story and fairly unoriginal characters don't help this game's plight. All in all, you've got yourself a decent platformer-sidescroller with some creativity and customization thrown into the mix. It's enjoyable, but brings little to the table that hasn't been seen before. Try borrowing from a friend before purchasing.
  
  
  
• drawn to life
  By AM4U8JYZZI1RF on 2007-11-23
  i like drawing my own characters, but it is really hard to do! make sure you have your stylus.
  
  
• I liked this game alot.
  By A14ULUTDTKPJBX on 2007-12-28
  This game is very cute in all ways, the characters are dimunitive and you can draw items that you use and your own character. The one negative thing is that the game is very short. I would look forward to playing a sequel.
  
  
• Drawn to Boredom
  By A2IDFS5JBVQX77 on 2008-08-15
  What "draw" me to this game (no pun intended), was the fact that you could create your own character and other elements in the game. Sounds fun, no?
  
  That is not as fun as it should be, mainly because you are limited to the space, proportions and templates that the game gives you. There's not that much depth in it, and after an hour or two of playing you'll just be doing things just to get them over with.
  
  Gameplay wise is boring, jump here, shoot there, and backtrack if you forgot something. This is the most annoying aspect of the gameplay. In each level you must rescue three "raposas" and collect 4 torn pieces of a template. If you skipped one, you won't be able to move on, but the game doesn't even remotely tells you what section you may or may not have missed. Making backtraging tedious and a constant.
  
  The game difficulty is very easy, but in some stages is easy to die while jumping or flying, mainly because when you jump or "take-off" you won't be able to see the enemies coming right at you making you lose health or die.
  
  Story wise, you play as the creator (you know God), who must help a village to defeat darkness. This is how the game goes:
  
  1-Talk to mayor
  2-Talk to some other raposa
  3-Talk to mayor
  4-Tap on the flame of life
  5-Remove darkness from one section
  6-Talk to previous raposa
  7-Return to talk to the mayor
  7.5 You may need to talk to another raposa again
  8-Go through a gate and start "playing."
  
  Is really annoying, the characters are dumb, there's really no meat to the story. You never feel bad for them, at a point I saw why the "creator" forgot about them, they' boring, annoying and demanding.
  
  After reaching the "beach area" they say,: oh thank you the beach is great, but we're bored, can you draw some toys for us to enjoy." Hello, the creator doesn't do that you do dumb citizen!
  
  This is the only game I've ever wanted to grab and throw out of the window, smash it with a hammer and burn it. It is that bad.
  
  
• Four thumbs up!
  By A3P54UHNGAZ0LQ on 2007-12-31
  I got this game for my 10 year old son. He LOVES it and so does his 8 year old sister! They would HIGHLY RECOMMEND it to anyone! Our rule is don't buy a game until you've tried it or know someone that has it - however I bought this purely on reviews and the kids are fighting over it!
  I just might have to break down and buy a second copy. They are playing it more than their pre-Christmas favorites, Nintendogs and Lego Star Wars.
  
  
• THIS GAME WAS AWESOME!
  By A3N6BKHI9BCSX0 on 2008-07-13
  I think this game was awesome for kids and adults. It was sooooo addicting, i could not put it down. The drawing was a lot of fun too. Also the graphics were great!
  
  
• Great fun
  By A1I9OMINYUE6U1 on 2008-08-26
  I personally enjoy drawing and designing things. so i bought this game for my younger brother. i also played on it and found it quite interesting. not only the drawing, but the story was also quite adventurous.
  
  

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