Video Game / Drawn to Life 1

Following

Spoilers are unmarked, You Have Been Warned.

Drawn to Life is the first game in the titular Drawn to Life series, developed by 5th Cell and published by THQ, and first released in 2007 for the Nintendo DS.

A Raposa named Mari makes a desperate plea to the Creator to save her dying village, after an incident years ago lead to the Creator abandoning them and Shadow began to creep in. Upon having her prayer answered, the Creator sends them a Hero to restore the village and defeat the corrupt Wilfre and his Shadows.

The game is split into two different gameplay sections, a village hub where the player can interact with the Raposa, and the levels themselves where they collect pages from the Book of Life and rescue Raposa to bring them back to the village. Both sections also feature creations which can be drawn or colored in by the player, becoming active once they do so in the case of creations featured within levels.

Following the game’s success, a pair of sequels for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii, both sharing the name Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter, were announced in 2009, and released later that year.

An iOS port would be released on May 21, 2014. This port was developed by WayForward Technologies and published by 505 Games, becoming the first Drawn to Life related project published by 505 Games since the company purchased the IP in 2013. This version of the game is no longer available for download.

Draw some examples to add to the page!

• Abnormal Ammo: During the course of the game, the Hero receives pages that allow the player to draw them guns that fire snowballs, exploding acorns and homing starfish respectively. These are usually received just before entering a new gate.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: The boss fights against both Frostwind and the Angler King begin with the respective boss persuing the Hero. Shooting them will stun them briefly and knock them back, but they don’t take any damage until both the boss and Hero arrive at the main arena of the level.
• Always Night: Restoring the Night Sky page of the Book of Life cancels out Rapoville’s Endless Daytime, but causes the opposite problem of leaving the village trapped in endless night time, requiring the Hero to seek out the Clock page in the Gearworks to restore the village’s day-night cycle.
• Anchors Away: The octopus enemies encountered underwater in the Beach Gate levels carry around large anchors fitting with their sailor theme, and they’ll throw their anchors at the Hero on sight.
• Anti-Frustration Features: The game gives you a selection of pre-made templates for the Hero, allowing you to easily jump right into the game if you get art block when trying to come up with your own idea.
• Asshole Victim: The Angler King is possessed by the Shadow by the time the Hero confronts him in battle, unlike Deadwood, the Angler King is implied by Pirate Beard's dialogue to have always been hostile towards the Raposa.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: Heavily downplayed. After defeating the Angler King, he floats to the surface belly-up and the cage containing Count Choco breaks open, with the Count landing on top of the Angler King’s belly and assuming his idle animation (a maniacal laugh).
• Big Boo's Haunt: The second to last level in the game, Rapo Towers, is a long abandoned castle with furniture scattered about, floating chairs as platforms and shadow enemies acting as a stand-in for the ghosts usually seen in haunted video game levels.
• Boss-Only Level: The levels in which the Hero fights Frostwind, Deadwood and the Angler King only contain the respective boss fights. Averted with Wilfre and his scorpion, who have a full level before the Hero fights them.
• Cheat Code:
  • Press pause, and hold L and R and press A, X, B, B, Y in the first game to become invincible for the duration of one level/boss.
  • Alternatively, hold L, press B, press pause, press down, then press A, X, B, B, Y.
• Controllable Helplessness: In a unique fashion too; The Mayor of the first game is stuck down by Wilfre in the woods and lies on the ground injured. If you know where to find the Mayor, all you are able to do is listen to his Visible Silence and leave him to lie there until he is found by the other Raposa later on.
• Covered in Gunge: Non-boss levels have sections covered in shadow goo, requiring you to wipe it off using the touch screen.
• Demonic Possession:
  • After being beaten, Deadwood thanks the Hero and mentions that he only attacked them as a result of being possessed by the shadow.
  • Implied with the Angler King, as his eyes are covered by a shadowy fog, and he’s able to create Shadow Fish during his boss fight.
• Developer's Room: You can gain access to the Developer’s Room by donating a total of 10,000 Rapo-Coins to the wishing well. Once you unlock it, the wishing well will always take you there when interacted with.
• Dying Town: Inverted. After the Creator sealed off Creation Hall and left the Raposa, the inhabitants of Rapoville began to leave once the Eternal Winter and Shadow began to creep over the village. By the time the game starts, the only people left in the village are the Mayor, his daughter Mari, Jowee, and Isaac and his family, with the latter leaving the village not long after the Hero is created. Gradually throughout the game, the Creator banishes most of the darkness around the village and restores the disappeared creations, while the Hero rescues the Raposa that left the village and ended up being trapped by the Shadow, restoring Rapoville.
• Endless Daytime: After restoring the Sun, the time in Rapoville gets stuck in day, which over time causes problems for the village as the endless sunlight causes Farmer Brown’s crops to wither and several of the villagers begin acting erratically and chasing Mari. This results in the Mayor asking the Hero to search for the Rain page to give the villagers a respite from the heat.
• Eternal Winter: At the start of the game, Rapoville's season is stuck in winter time as a result of the Moon, the Sun, and even time itself being erased after the destruction of the Book of Life.
• Explosive Bullets: The acorn shooter you carry through the Forest Gate levels fires bouncing acorns; these acorns will jump around wildly before splitting into three smaller explosive acorns.
• Fixing the Resource Scarcity: At the beginning of the game, the village has been subjected to a dark, hungry, and snowy time thanks to Wilfre's destruction of the Book of Life. The sun won't come out, the food won't grow, it won't rain, and even the Eternal Flame won't burn anymore. The player's job is to go out into the levels to retrieve pages from the book to restore these resources, starting with necessities like the Eternal Flame, the sun, the rain, the night sky, and food.
• The Flame of Life: The Eternal Flame is the first creation the player is tasked with making, symbolizing the Creator’s return. It resides at the center of the village on top of a pedestal that the player colors in, and is used throughout the game to banish the darkness covering the village, restoring the village back to life.
• Flowers of Romance: Jowee sneaks off inside the Forest Gate to find a flower to gift to Mari during the village festival. After finding him in Twilite Wood, he finds one that’s uncolored, and asks the Creator to color it in for him.
• Frigid Water Is Harmless: Averted. Jumping into the water in the Snow Gate levels harms the Hero, requiring the use of creations such as the Whale or the Ice Cube platforms to safely traverse the hazard.
• Game-Breaking Bug: A rare bug can occur during the final boss fight, where the game will softlock after the small dialogue from Wilfre when he loses half of his health, requiring a reset and forcing you to redo the entire level and preceding boss fight, and hoping the bug doesn’t happen again.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Deadwood’s second phase involves going inside him to destroy the shadow that’s possessing him. Said shadow is incredibly fast and jumps about the arena avoiding the Hero.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The giant scorpion that Wilfre sics on the Hero has no foreshadowing and isn’t mentioned again after both it and Wilfre are defeated.
• God Is Displeased: The Creator seals Creation Hall and leaves the Raposa to their own devices after Wilfre not only steals and draws in the Book of Life, but defaces it further by ripping out its pages and scatters them into the wind when cornered by Cricket and the Mayor.
• Heli-Critter: Two of the Forest Gate levels contain a rabbit enemy that can fly by spinning its ears like propellers. Later on in the level Angle Isle, you can color in and fly on the back of a Whaleecopter, which has a propeller in place of its blowhole.
• Homing Projectile: The Starzooka’s starfish projectiles will seek out the enemy closest to the Hero when fired.
• Humanoid Abomination: The most common Shadow enemies in the game are vaguely humanoid in shape, but have no visible features apart from their piercing white eyes.
• Icy Keyboard: "Snowy World" and "Snowy World 2" feature primarily steel drums, but sleigh bells and chime bells have prominent roles in setting the atmosphere for the Snow Gate levels early in the game, as does "Snow Fight", the theme of a snowball fight minigame, and "Frostwind", the theme of Snow Gate's area boss.
• Improv: During the festival, NavyJ performs on-stage accompanied by the Hero, and improvises the lyrics to his song depending on how you answer his prompts.
• Interactive Start Up: The title screen allows you to doodle on the image of Jowee that appears on the touch screen or erase it and replace it with something else entirely.
• Lampshade Hanging: Mari and Jowee have this exchange early on in the game:
  Mari: Hey Jowee... How do you think the Creator sees us?
  Jowee: Erm... What if we lived in a white box with two windows... and the box had buttons... and a magic wand! And the Creator used that to examine our lives... And control what we do! What do you think?
  Mari: That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard...
  Jowee: Yeah, I guess so...
• Leaning Tower of Mooks: Later levels in the game feature two or four Baki stacked on top of each other. Attacking them will split the stack in half.
• The Lost Woods: The Forest Gate levels initially start off resembling a standard woodlands, but incorporates clockworks and space travel elements the further the Hero ventures through the levels.
• Message in a Bottle: One of the missing pages of the Book of Life drifts onto the shores of Rapoville inside of a bottle.
• Non-Indicative Name: The level Rapocity contains no Raposa aside from the kidnapped villagers, and is instead populated entirely by Baki and shadows.
• No Such Thing as Dehydration: It's explicitly mentioned that the villagers were eating much less without the banya crop/Chef Cookie around, but the lack of water is only mentioned when the village needs rain. However, it only needs rain to get a break from the sun and water the banya, rather than to have something to drink. However, since the village has a well, it's perfectly possible the Raposa were simply using that.
• NPC Round-Up Mission: Each non-boss level with the exception of the final level has three Raposa that must be rescued to complete the level, one being a unique character and the other two being generic NPCs. Boss levels only have a single unique NPC who is rescued after the boss is defeated.
• Palm Tree Panic: The levels found in the Beach Gate feature beaches, diving spots, lush tropical environments and ruins. The player retrieves several beach-related pages of the Book of Life from these levels, such as a beach ball and parasol, a lighthouse, and palm trees to decorate Mari and Jowee’s Hidden Beach.
• Plot Coupon: The Book of Life’s pages were scattered in the wind by Wilfre many years ago, and the Hero spends a majority of the game finding them all to restore Rapoville back to its former glory. Occasionally, the Raposa will find full pages and hand them to either the Hero or the Mayor. During the game’s non-boss levels, the Hero finds four fragments of a page during exploration, and must find all four (alongside rescuing that level’s three Raposa) to complete the level.
• Portal Endpoint Resemblance: The four world gates bring characters to different locations in those worlds. Fittingly, the gates themselves are themed- The Snow Gate is covered in snow and leads to wintery levels, the Forest Gate is covered in vines and leads to forest levels, and the Beach Gate has a palm tree and shells, and leads to tropical levels. This is averted with the City Gate, which is covered with flowers, as no City Gate level has flowers, and the Final Gate, being the only one that the player has to color in and design themselves.
• Press Start to Game Over: Selecting "I will not help" when Mari pleads for the Creator’s help at the beginning of the game will boot the player back to the title screen after Mari expresses her disappointment.
• Red Herring: Played for Laughs. If you talk to game director Jeremiah Slaczka inside the Developer’s Grove, he’ll ask you if you’ve found the secret flower to revive the Mayor hidden in the final level. Joseph Tringali tells you to ignore him, as said flower doesn’t exist.
• Refusal of the Call: At the beginning of the game, you can refuse Mari’s plea for help, which results in the game ending right there and returning you back to the title screen.
• Snowball Fight: After retrieving the Sun page in the Snow Caves level, a village-wide snowball fight is held with the Hero fighting against all the Raposa in the village. The fight itself is the only minigame in the game, and awards the player 500 Rapo-Coins the first time they win. The minigame can be purchased at Isaac’s Shop for 3,000 coins and replayed anytime after winning or losing the first mandatory playthrough.
• Snowlems: The Snowget enemies encountered in the Snow Gate levels are large snowmen that usually spend their time asleep, but upon being awoken become vicious and proceed to bombard the intruder with a seemingly infinite supply of mini Snowgets.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Snow Gate is the first gate the Hero explores in the game, and like its name suggests, is a land trapped in Eternal Winter, although is of a more cheery nature with its use of a brighter color palette and upbeat music in contrast to the dreary state of the village at the start of the game.
• Steel Drums and Sunshine: The background music for the tropical Beach Gate levels features a prominent steelpan throughout the song.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: Before the Hero sets off for the penultimate level, a cutscene shows the mayor being attacked and killed by Wilfre. After this moment, the background music is temporarily replaced with empty sounds of wind, and the player has no choice but to continue with the game. After the level is beaten, the music remains gone until the player goes to find the mayor's body, and it comes back afterward for the climax.
• Technicolor Fire: After coloring in the Eternal Flame’s pedestal, you can choose one of six colors for the reignited flame. Justified as you’re playing as God.
• Title Drop: "The End," the ending theme of the first game, includes the lyric "Not quite certain though - Why I'm feeling so drawn - To a life with you..."
• Toggling Set Piece Puzzle: One of the puzzles in the Gearworks is a switch puzzle where flipping the switch makes one colored platform move and turns the others off. You have to backtrack to and flip the switches multiple times to find out where all the platforms go and complete the stage.
• Token Human: In Rapocity, you rescue two Raposa children and a human named Mike, who is the only human the Hero will rescue in the game, and doesn’t understand why everyone else looks weird.
• Turns Red: Frostwind, Wilfre's scorpion, and Wilfre himself start attacking more aggressively when you deplete their health enough. In the case of Frostwind and Wilfre's scorpion, they also literally turn red.
• Under the Sea: The Beach Gate levels feature several diving spots with scuba-diving variants of the Baki, as well as hostile octopi, anemones and Shadow Fish. One of the creations that you draw in these sections is seaweed for the Hero to hide from enemies in.
• Underwater Boss Battle: The third boss in the first game is a giant fish, who you have to fight swimming, so no Goomba Stomp allowed. This is made harder by the fact said fish has a much larger health bar than other bosses.
• Underwater Ruins: Stone flooring and ancient statues can be found underwater in the Beach Gate diving spots. There are also sections in Conch Ruins requiring the Hero to take a jewel, that needs to be colored in by the Creator first, and place it onto a pedestal to progress.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: After taking off in the Rocket creation in Moon Grove, the game changes genres from a platformer to a shoot-em-up for the duration of the ride.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Deadwood, the boss of the game’s second gate, is a step up from Frostwind’s simple and easy to dodge attack patterns. He’ll spawn Shadow minions infinitely, including bats that will hone in on the Hero when they’re trying to destroy the pine cones higher up, and can also create an earthquake that will briefly stun the Hero, causing them to phase through the tree’s platforms. The second phase features a fast-moving target that constantly bounces around the arena that needs to be defeated to end the fight as well as the earthquakes from the first phase.
• Warm-Hearted Whales: In Icy Lake, after you color in the Whale template, it will assist the Hero by transporting them across the icy waters that would otherwise damage them, and will occasionally blow out water that they can use to access high-up areas. Later on in the game, you can color in and ride a Whaleecopter, which instead flies into the sky.
• Wishing Well: A wishing well can be found near Isaac’s shop. Donating Rapo-Coins to it will give you more coins, unlock special abilities, and eventually grant access to the Developer's Room once a large enough cumulative donation has been made.
• What the Hell, Player?: If you refuse to help Mari at the beginning of the game, she’ll look at the screen with a sad expression and mutter to herself "Then I guess it's all over..." before the game returns to the title screen.
• When Trees Attack: Deadwood, the Forest Gate boss, is a giant tree possessed by shadow that attacks the Hero.