DS Review: Drawn to Life

Many will agree that the stylus is the most prominent and innovative feature of the Nintendo DS. Using it, we have moved characters, aimed guns, and also cooked food and managed infantry units. The stylus has been a magic wand, a crayon, a baton, even a syringe. This simple object has sparked the creativity of game developers worldwide, and although we have seen similar uses in previous games, the stylus has never been as much of a pen as in Drawn to Life, a platformer that allows you to single-handedly create a game character and objects and items for him or her to use. Not as much of a gimmick as you might think, this premise evidently separates Drawn to Life from standard titles of the genre and gives it a unique playing experience.


As many similar titles do, Drawn to Life features a basic plot with likeable characters. The once-peaceful town of the Raposas is now covered in darkness; ever since a malignant rebel known as Wilfre ripped several pages from the Book of Life, essential elements such as the sun and rain have disappeared. Many Raposas have left town, certain that their Creator has abandoned them. Fortunately, a young Raposa named Mari still has hope for a better future, and her prayers bring you, The Creator, to save the day by creating a hero. The plot is unique and interesting, and, although the overall progression of the story is mostly geared towards younger players, it’s still enjoyable.

Soon after the game’s introduction, your first creative task is given to you, as the Raposa need a hero to bring back peace. The game’s ‘drawing board’ isn’t quite sophisticated, but you will be surprised of how much detail you can achieve with the basic, easy-to-use features present. You can choose from different brush sizes, or use the flood option to fill out entire portions with any color you like. Some pre-set characters are available for you to use or modify, but it’s likely that you will want to create your own hero from the ground up. You can draw the character’s frame and color it, and you can zoom in at various levels to achieve more detail; you can even maneuver individual pixels to get your character to look just the way you want it to. As you progress through the game you will unlock more color palettes and stamps, such as sunglasses or stars, to decorate your creations.

You can create up to three different heroes, but you will be doing most of the drawing during standard gameplay. As you move further in levels, you might be prompted to draw a platform to jump on, a weapon for your character, and even vehicles for him or her to use. When you’re given free room to draw, your creativity takes over; you can design a powerful-looking weapon, or a hair dryer; your call. Sometimes, however, you can only color in pre-set artifacts such as a sled or a submarine. Although this isn’t as exciting as creating something entirely, it’s an understandable situation, since these objects interact with the environments in specific ways, meaning that some of your personal creations could have looked out of place. Either way, you can put as much effort on your designs as you wish; if you spend some time and give enough tone and value to your creations, they can complement the game’s environments quite nicely.

The game’s core concept is nothing more than a standard, old-school platformer. Run, jump, avoid or squash off enemies, collect items and explore every nook and cranny of the area; nothing we haven’t done before. Fortunately, the drawing and creation aspect is used enough times to keep things fresh, while avoiding a gimmicky overuse of the concept. Depending on how much you enjoy the game’s drawing phases, their frequent appearance in-between levels could uneven the game’s pace, but many will enjoy seeing their creations come to life right before their eyes. Your platforming is handheld well with the D-pad and face buttons, and certain events require a finger or stylus to be used, such as opening doors to secret areas or rubbing away shadowy goo from levels. These circumstances, as well as the spontaneous drawing principles, will force you to use the stylus regularly during gameplay. The best way to go at it is to ‘squeeze’ it in your hand next to the system while you play; that way you won’t have to take it in and out repeatedly.

Although drawing obstacles and items in levels feels great and keeps things interesting, it doesn’t do enough to keep the main mechanics from coming a bit short. Although the levels are sized well and have different themes, their designs are crude and basic, and eventually repetitive. There is a decent amount of enemy variety, but they are easy to defeat, and the levels themselves provide little challenge to experienced 2D platforming gamers. To somewhat make up for this, there is a good amount of items to collect on each level; coins, trapped Raposa characters, special items and moves, and a certain percentage of a dark gooey substance for you to rub off, increasing the challenge somewhat for those looking to complete each level to 100%. Younger gamers will certainly enjoy the title greatly, but most gamers won’t be challenged or entertained by the time they reach the game’s final levels.

Presentation-wise, Drawn to Life performs quite well. Cute and colorful graphics match the theme nicely, and character animations are made above-average. A bit of a problem revolves around the game’s camera, however. At times you won’t be able to see enemies or obstacles coming from above, or sometimes you can’t see the floor, or lack thereof, below you, forcing you to press up or down for a short while to pan your view. The overall theme of the game is calm, even kiddy, but it matches with the game’s concepts well. Not only that, but the game’s great soundtrack matches nicely, too, and features catchy tunes that go well with the levels.

Although Drawn to Life isn’t innovative in its platformer design, its premise of creating your own game world is unique, fun, and does enough for the game to pull it off from the rest of the crowd. There are many better platformers for the system, more challenging and diverse, but none give you a good feeling of creating and interacting with your own characters and game elements. It’s a short and easy adventure with basic, sometimes repetitive gameplay; good for beginners or casual gamers, but not good enough for most. The innovative and well-implemented drawing aspect might keep you playing, and if it does you’re in for a nice ride; this isn’t one of the system’s best games, but it offers one of the most unique and creative experiences we have seen in quite a while.

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