Drawn to Life Hands-On

When you boil it down to its basics, THQ's upcoming handheld game for the Nintendo DS, Drawn to Life, has an intriguing hook: The objects you draw in the game can all be used to help you in your quest to save the world. While the prospect of fouling up a game's perfectly acceptable art style with our own meager scribbles had us a bit skeptical of the game at first, it wasn't long before we realized that even "bad" art can still be good in the right context.

In the story, your main character is in charge of saving a town populated by small creatures, known as Raposas, from an evil master who's fouled the land with his blotchy, ink-stained creations. The player, worshipped by the Raposas as "The Creator," manifests in the gameworld and embarks on a quest to save the world. While moving through the game's 16 levels is standard platforming action, it's when you get creative with the game's drawing tools that Drawn to Life, well, comes to life.

Your first big taste of Drawn to Life's flexible drawing feature comes when you choose the physical form into which you'll manifest. You're presented with a humanoid-shaped box in which you can draw whatever you like. However, if you're looking for something more than a stick figure as your in-world avatar, you can choose from one of several "guide" characters. A few examples of these characters include a snowman, a hip-hop dude, and even a Santa Clause clone that you can edit as you see fit. We began our adventure as a baby-blue chimpanzee, and after just a few swipes on the touch screen with the stylus, we had our simian outfitted with a gold-clock necklace that would have made Flavor Flav proud. Of course, the guide characters feature some sophisticated color work that was lacking in our new accessory, but we were still pretty proud of it.

Drawn to Life is, at its heart, a platforming game, with your character moving through the level, jumping over obstacles, exploring buildings, and collecting coins you can use to purchase new combat moves, drawings, or music. The various levels in the game feature a wide variety of locales, including snowy villages, deep forests, and tropical islands. You'll also run into enemies that you can hop on to defeat or shoot with such weapons as a snowball blaster. When encountering the ink-splat monsters created by your nemesis, you'll have to not only defeat the enemies but also clean up the ink-stained area of the level by scrubbing the touch screen with your stylus until the ink is gone.

As you move your character through the world, you'll periodically find areas in which you are challenged to draw an object. Often, it seems like you're not always exactly sure what the game is looking for because the drawing challenge comes with only a minimum amount of text describing what you need to draw. From there, you're given one or more draw boxes on the touch screen that you can fill with whatever you want. In one challenge, we were asked to draw some puffy clouds, but there's no real reason we couldn't have filled the allotted space up with drawings of vampire bats, collegiate banners, or whatever else we wanted. However, being literalists, we took the time to make some nice clouds. Once our drawings were manifested in the world, our character could use the clouds as platforms to make it across a huge gap.

However, fluffy clouds are just the start. Later in the game, you'll be asked to draw wings on your character, which you can use to float among the trees. At another point, you'll need to draw a vine, which you can climb with your character to access an area high above you. Then, there's the various weapons, vehicles, and other tools you'll need to get as you progress through the levels in the game. Of course, not all of the drawings you'll make in Drawn to Life are necessarily useful to your character; some are just for fun. For example, in one level, you're asked to draw "debris." Once you've completed the drawing, the small objects you've drawn are caught in the draft of a wind current that you can use with your winged character to float up into a new area of the level. Later on, you'll also be asked to give color to a monochrome whale. From whimsical to utilitarian, these are just a few of the more than 150 drawings you can attempt in the game.

The drawing tool is simple to use and features a surprising amount of depth once you dive into the various tools available to you. It's easy to draw a simple shape and fill it with color using the standard paint tool. If you're looking to improve the quality of your work, you can use tools that let you zoom in or out of a drawing or set up gridlines to help you keep your drawing proportional. There are also tools, such as different brush types, guides, and stamps (for such accessories as sunglasses), you can use to help get the creative juices flowing. It should be noted that, despite all of these tools intended to help improve your art, there's something to be said for rolling through the game with some truly pathetic drawings. If nothing else, it's good for a laugh, and in the game bad art serves its function just as well as skilled work.

Still, if you've spent the time to make some impressive pixel work, you'll be able to share it with friends wirelessly. Among the items you can share are village items, hero accessories, and even your specially designed heroes themselves. Though you can expect roughly 15 hours of gameplay in Drawn to Life, thanks to the unique drawing feature, it seems like everyone's experience with the game will be slightly different. The game is currently due for release later this year, and we'll have a full review once it reaches store shelves.