Drawn-to-Life
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Wii owners may have the chance to get Drawn to Life
Readers who also visit us at DS Fanboy might have noticed that we're particularly infatuated with a little game called Drawn to Life, a 2D platformer that gives players the ability to create aspects of the world. Anything and anyone you want to be is tucked away inside your stylus -- even completely original characters -- and just waiting to get out. So why does this matter to Wii owners? The folks at 1UP recently scored a little facetime with Jeremiah Slaczka, creative and lead designer on the game, and he intimated that they are considering the title for Wii release. While we think it may be better suited to stylus-based play, the title could certainly work with the Wii remote.
Drawn to Life: a bittersweet trailer
While at PAX, we saw someone sitting behind us at a panel discussion playing Drawn to Life. We engaged them in conversation, and probably accused them of witchcraft, learning that a downloadable demo was available somewhere on the show floor. We went to THQ's booth to find it, and the representatives didn't know anything about it. We were in panels most of the day, and it was the last day of the show, so we never did find that Drawn to Life demo. We found out later that 5th Cell employees were wandering the convention center with a handful of DS units, sending out demos to fans. Those hands drawing stuff in artificially high speed could have been our hands. Those doodled characters could have been our doodles. [Via GoNintendo]
Happy 2D Friday for Drawn to Life fans
These new Drawn to Life screens make us so happy that we have decided to institute an impromptu holiday in the game's honor. Today is 2D Friday! Happy 2D Friday, everybody. The most important way to celebrate 2D Friday is to play a 2D game. Hug your DS for letting you do this in 2007. Nobody's around-- go ahead, give it a little embrace. Look at the gallery of brand new screenshots and marvel at how beautiful they are. You should also spend some face time with Contra 4 today. We're just going to go walk in a straight line and jump on everything in our path. %Gallery-5068% [Via press release]
Drawn to Life's story comes pre-written
Frequent readers know that we are infatuated with Drawn to Life. It's a 2D platformer that makes use of a fun gimmick that is perfect for the DS. What's not to love? So every time some news comes around about it, we're thrilled to post it. GamesRadar interviewed Scott Rogers from THQ about the game, and got a little information about the story. You play "The Creator" who draws in the Book of Life to create champions and items, etc., in order to save a race called the Raposa from some evil drawings. It seems one of the Raposa tried to use the Book of Life, but his drawings came out all evil, and then the whole town was covered in ominous darkness. Dude should have read the manual first. Oh, did we mention video? There's some video too.
Potential Drawn to Life boxart is really cute
Good boxart is sometimes a rarity. We hope that this image is what THQ really plans to use for Drawn to Life, because it's perfect. The hand-drawn character featured not only demonstrates the main gimmick of the game, he's adorable. The color scheme is great, and the box is eye-catching in general. We're rooting for Drawn to Life because it looks great and because we need more original side-scrolling platformers. A visually appealing boxart may not affect sales hugely, but it would at least attract the eyes of shoppers. We don't want this one to slip through the cracks. [Via GoNintendo]
Nintendo Media Summit: Drawn to Life impressions (DS)
The Nintendo Media Summit this week had many quirky games, but one of the most unique and endearing was the DS action/adventure title, Drawn to Life. The coolest part of the game is that you can actually draw your in-game character, his weapons, and even create moving platforms to help you get over bottomless caverns. It's an incredibly fun idea, and the game pulls it off well. The story of the game is fairly typical: Your village is overcome by darkness and evil and it's up to you to save the day by beating down all the bad guys. The twist is just how much of the game is user-created or modifiable. You can use pre-existing character models, or you can tweak them, or you can just make your own guy entirely. You'll even create in-game creatures by drawing them! There is something really fun about seeing your drawing spring to life and hop around. The game also allows you to trade your various creations back and forth with other friends (handy if one of your friends is a better artist than you). %Gallery-3419%
First Drawn to Life Videos are Animated to Life
Someone at Gametrailers has worked some arcane sorcery upon the preview images of Drawn to Life. We cannot comprehend the events that are occurring before our eyes. BEHOLD ... THE PICTURES MOVE! After the break, we've posted three developer walkthroughs that show character creation, item creation, weapon creation, and, of course, the basic platforming gameplay. And it all looks amazing. There is a different category of customizable weapon for each of four worlds. The animation on the characters is remarkable for something that is based on player drawings. Plus you can replace moving platforms with your own drawings. Something that random and weird, we have to love.
Drawn to Life previewed
1UP's Jeremy Parish was lucky enough to get to play 5th Cell's Drawn to Life, a game whose hype train we have already boarded, even before we knew anything about the gameplay. Parish's preview has gotten us even more hyped, because the drawing element, rather than being gimmicky window dressing, is integral to the gameplay in really unique ways. One example given in the preview: players are asked to draw a clam to be used as a springboard. We don't know if the player's drawing affects the performance of the springboard (if, for example, the angle of the thing affects its power) but it seems logical. The actual platforming, according to Parish, was just okay-- inoffensive, but not exceptional. We could chalk that impression up to its lack of novelty compared to the editing functions; and as long as the game isn't bad, we think the drawing will carry it. %Gallery-3281%
DS Daily: Visual edition
Okay, here's what we want you to do: Go to the Drawn to Life demo page. Draw a character. Be an adult and keep it clean. Children: Be like adults. Save a screenshot of your handiwork. Upload it to Imageshack or something. Post the URL in the comments. Share a hearty laugh with your fellow commenters! While laughing, distribute high fives all around.
Drawn to Life is demonstrably great
5th Cell has released a demo of the character-drawing utility used in Drawn to Life. We've messed with it for a while, and here are our detailed impressions: wheeeee! The tool is simple-- freehand, flood fill, and eraser, but it works well, and there is something incredibly satisfying about drawing a character and seeing it animate on the top screen as you're drawing it. It'll be a lot more satisfying to do the drawing with an actual stylus. So far, we feel justified in our anticipation of Drawn. When you've created a character you're satisfied with (like our completely original protagonist above), you can enter it into a contest, the winner of which gets included in the game! Oh, and also you get a bunch of stuff.
New Drawn to Life details paint an appealing picture
A few more screens of 5th Cell's Drawn to Life have popped up, and we're glad they did. We're getting a warm, happy morning feeling from them, because in addition to being generally pleasant, they're also pleasantly surprising. It turns out that not only do you draw your own (jointed) characters, but you are also tasked with drawing many other of the game's assets: background details, weapons, vehicles, and platforms. Opportunities to draw these items come up during the game as obstacles: you come across a blank area and are asked to fill it in. As evidenced by the many hours we've spent in Fighter Maker, we perk up at the sight of user-created content. With the potential to draw this much stuff, Drawn to Life has just suddenly shot to the top of our want list. We've posted some screens-- feel free to save them and doodle on them in MS Paint.
THQ gets Drawn to Life
THQ is picking up 5th Cell's do-it-yourself platform game maker Drawn to Life for a September release in Europe. We hadn't heard of the game before, but it looks pretty cool: you draw your own characters and items to appear both in an Animal Crossingish town simulation and a side-scrolling platform game. It sounds like sort of a 2D Magic Pengel. Is it weird that our first instinct when seeing a draw-your-own-character game is to try to imitate other game characters exactly? Or is it totally normal to want to play through a cartoony platformer as Solid Snake?
