Drawn to Life (DS)

This looks like a fun application of involving user-created content into a game.

Here' s an example: When kicking the game off, players will be prompted to literally create their hero. In creation mode, the bottom screen takes the role of something like the old-school pixel-pushing program D-Paint, with hard lines defining the collision of your character regardless of how it' s drawn. Think of it as an invisible frame for your character. Players can either take template designs and color them (combing torso, leg, arm, and head pieces together like a virtual version of Mighty Men and Monster Makers), or design entirely free-hand, drawing and shading down to the pixel. If, for example, you want to create Mega Man, Richter Belmont, or Mario as your main character, it' s entirely up to you. If instead you want to create a Mii-like version of yourself, that' s also open to you. It' s entirely free-form, and that' s the beauty of Drawn to Life.

Once you kick into the main game, it' s a progression of design and gameplay, with a solid line between the two. Players will progress through levels using classic platformer controls, playing Drawn to Life like any other title before it. At times, however, you' ll hit areas where part of the world is missing. The game literally pulls you from the action and into the creation tool (which by the way, offers shading, drawing, brushes, zoom, and a ton of pretty complex stylus optoins), and prompts you to draw new assets for the game. This can be something as simple as a cloud, or as complex as a giant whale which will later act as a platform for an auto-scrolling level. Like the player creation, boundaries depend on the specific task. Some are as simple as coloring in the lines (adding a 3rd eye in the process perhaps?), while others are entirely an open canvas for your creative pleasure. Sometimes your creations will be used right away, as you' ll literally see your creation plop into the world in front of you, while other times you' ll draw something and later see it " snuck" into the world. It offers some great " Oh wow!" moments, as the game definitely makes your creations into art. Interesting at the very least.

Of course there are inherent limitations, and the overall art design might not be appealing to everyone, with a so-called " kiddie" appearance. But for kids as well as adults who are beyond the post-adolescent compulsion to prove how adult they are by avoiding everything with a whimsical appearance, this could be a lot of fun and hopefully will lead to similar experiments in interactive game design.

It' s also cool that you can trade your creations from DS to DS... a lot of potential fun for gamers who are artists too.

Here' s the article.