Drawn To Life (Nintendo DS)

This game will mostly be appreciated by artistic types with a creative streak and who enjoys drawing and using their imagination. It's ideal for kids and teens but as a 40 year old hardcore gamer, I got this for my kids (9 and 11), I took a look and was pleasantly surprised. It is very well conceived and in terms of concept, it's very refreshing and different.

The drawing element is fun but does have certain limitations. The tools are not that advanced but does provide enough to create interesting character designs, weapons, ships, in-game objects etc. My son got hooked in for the first time and designed a great robotic looking spaceman and a detailed raygun. I was impressed. You can zoom in whilst you're creating your designs but you have to bear in mind that some of the finer detail will be lost when inserted in the game due to reduction in size. Still, you can have a happy time getting creative.

I got carried away creating a swirly cloud, which was used in the game as a platform element (just testing the software - honest!)

One small downside is that your drawn character is presented in strict 2D fashion and as such, comes across visually like a moving cardboard cutout. You could say that it adds to the overall charm.

The game supports 2 separate profiles, each allowing for 3 different character creations in each profile. You can switch characters in the game and re-edit your designs (character or otherwise) at anytime. There is great flexibility here.

In terms of gameplay, it is your average side-scrolling platformer and shooter, i.e progress from left to right, jump on moving parts, collect/shoot things. However, whilst it is not advanced and difficult, it is fun to play and kids especially are able to enjoy the whole experience without hitting a brick wall.

There are some things to unlock and purchase and there are some hidden surprises but I don't have many details about these yet.

It's a "back to basics" approach, which made games fun and playable in the very first place.

The graphics are quite good overall. Cute, better in some places than others but overall decent.

If you are looking for a DS game, which utilises the DS in innovative ways, then this ideal. It will certainly make for a good Christmas present.

I read about this game and thought the whole idea looked good, so bought it to give it a try and is even better than I thought it'd be!

The whole game centres around the idea of a creator designing a 'book of life' that brings a village of people called 'rapos' to life. However, a villager turns bad and rips apart the pages of the book of life as he thinks he could do better! With darkness and misery decending on the village, and creations of black clouds and black everything being drawn by the villain, everyone starts to leave the village and a despearate girl begs the creator for help. And the creator is... yep, you!!

You firstly draw a hero to carry our your work for you, so you can draw yourself or make up some random creature-person! Don't worry if you're not a great drawer, 'cuz templates and stamps etc. are provided if needed, but even creating a design of your own that doesn't look great still has that self-proud feeling that you've created something in a game by yourself! From then on the goal is to find pages of the life book in various types of levels, and rescue villagers as well. Each time you find a new page, you will have to re-draw something for the villagers, such as the sun, and watch it come into use! Throughout levels you can design different things needed to continue, such as clouds to jump on, or modes of transport like whales and rockets!

While the levels and graphics may not seem like rocket-science ideas compared to some other games, the whole idea of this game is genius - the ability to draw stuff makes excellent use of the touchscreen in the DS, and the story of the game means you are not just drawing randomly for no reason, but are working towards a goal!

So overall, I think this game is worth trying at least! A good story and lots of fun and creativity, I think any age could enjoy this game! The game's available so cheap now you've really nothing to lose by giving it a try, and you might find yourself surprisingly engrossed!

I like this game because you can create your own character to play and draw yo9r own things in the game which make it fun.

the game can be quite tricky but its not overly challenging- i think this would be a great game for kids as my 8 year old brother loves it and is always wanting to play

overall a great game n a good buy