This charming design was hard to resist, making Drawn to Life an instant hit with young gamers. Before long, the creation of a character-driven spin-off was announced – Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants Edition. Using the same drawing and gameplay mechanics as last year’s game, the SpongeBob edition won’t surprise its players in the same way the series did at launch. But fans of the original won’t be disappointed.

Templates Aplenty

Before playing either Drawn to Life title, you might wonder how the developers are able to take your homemade characters, objects and items and place them in the game as interactive elements. The answer is much simpler than you may expect. It’s true that players have complete freedom in their designs. When asked to make a log platform that’ll float in the water, you could draw it as an eyeball, a tire, a Windows Vista logo, or anything else that comes to mind. Simple squiggles will also work if you’re in a hurry or just don’t feel like drawing at the moment.

Regardless of your artwork, the log will function as programmed by the developers. This is secured ahead of time with a basic template. For the log, players have a large circular space to draw within. When drawing your own train/roller coaster car, you’ll have a large rectangle with two small rectangles on the bottom (one on each side to form legs) to draw within. Whatever you enter – albeit a detailed vehicle design, tiny scribbles or anything else that comes to mind – will then appear on screen as the specified object and function as anticipated. It might not look normal, but it will work as the developers intended.

To ensure that the main character has the appearance of a character, its template has five basic points: two arms, two legs and one head. (Some might say that two heads are better than one, but not in this case…) The resulting design is pretty cool, since those specific body parts are then converted into semi-3D pieces of a character that moves very fluidly. Amazingly, even the simplest scribbles can be turned into a character that moves and acts like one.

Granted, Drawn to Life wasn’t conceived to encourage scribbling, it was made for those who love to draw. Players who take the time to handcraft a design or two will be rewarded for their efforts. The game uses a very straightforward drawing system with multiple colors, different pencil sizes, an eraser, and an enlarging feature to zoom in on tiny details. That latter feature also magnifies each pixel, just like Photoshop but with much less depth.

Players also get to re-design their enemies and create the artwork for new power-ups, such as a feather cap that lets you float or a helmet that protects your character’s head and can be used to attack upward.

Drawn to Life is SpongeBob’d, so to speak, by the inclusion of quirky visuals (like the human hand that appears to change scenarios) and character-specific power-ups. Those power-ups come in the form of Patrick, Squidward and SpongeBob himself. Inspired by the previous SquarePants titles, Patrick uses his body to stun enemies. His attack is executed by pressing X, the initiation button, followed by an attack path that can be drawn anywhere on the screen. Squidward stuns enemies with a large circle; press the X button, touch the screen and drag your finger or stylus to expand or shrink the stunning area. Finally, SpongeBob himself is helpful by forming a shield over your character for a limited time.

Simple Adventuring

After the amusing draw-it-yourself elements have been thoroughly explored, players will be left with a game that’s far from SpongeBob’s weakest adventure but can’t compare to his best either. The gameplay is fairly effortless, sending explorers down a narrow path of point A to point B. This won’t surprise or amaze anyone. But that’s not really what the game is about. Many titles have tested new concepts and failed because the foundation (standard gameplay elements) was horrendous. In that sense, it’s hard to fault Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants Edition for playing it safe in that area to ensure its unique qualities weren’t damaged or simply overlooked.