Drawn to Life is a video game developed by 5th Cell about a village inhabited by "Raposa,"
small, furry creatures supposedly meant to be foxes. The Raposa village you name later has been under attack by Wilfre, who covers the village in shadow (feel familiar, anyone?). Mari then asks the Creator for help.
You're the Creator, and you draw a hero to help. This hero... well, you can draw it and it moves. Pretty cool gimmick. The hero must travel across the world, through the four gates in the village, defeating the shadow, returning the lost Raposa to the village, and collecting the missing pages of the Book of Life to restore the village to its former glory.
The main gimmick of the game is that you get to draw a ton of stuff, including a whale-copter. Despite looking as if it would become a lame gimmick game, it's actually very well designed, and has one of the best stories ever found in a platformer game.
A sequel called
Drawn To Life: The Next Chapter has been made. The version for the Wii happens directly after Drawn to Life, but before Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter on the DS. The Next Chapter features a much darker storyline, incredibly improved drawing functions, better platforming, no arbitrary outlines where you can only color things in...In addition, it's much harder and faster-paced. What happens in it? Color is drained from the world and then... well.
There is also a
Compilation Rerelease of the two DS games called
Drawn to Life Collection. If you haven't played the game and plan to, get that.
5th Cell, the games' developer, went on to make
Scribblenauts, which does to words what
Drawn to Life did for images.
The rights to the IP were purchased by 505 Games for $300K USD by 505 Games from the THQ auction.
Tropes:
- Abnormal Ammo: Acorns, snowballs, and starfish.
- Aerith and Bob: The game uses a lot of regular names but are spelled out differently.
- All Just a Dream: The ending of The Next Chapter, in the most shocking way imaginable.
- All The Worlds Are A Stage: The Next Chapter's last world has themes and pieces of each of the previous ones.
- Alternate Ending: The Collection's edition of the Next Chapter has a different ending than the separate DS one.
- Ambidextrous Sprite: Played straight with Rapo, up to the player for the main character's sprite.
- Art Initiates Life
- Art Shift: The end credits of the second game feature realistic humans.
- Background Boss: The Giant Robosa, at first.
- Big Bad: Wilfre.
- Book Ends: At the beginning of The Next Chapter for DS, the player must answer questions and draw a picture of a Noodle Incident, and shows a request to the Creator in gibberish. At the end of the game, after the world fades away, it shows Heather and Mike, while Heather is shown answering the questions asked at the beginning of the game. The request to the Creator turns out to be a prayer to God for Mike to get better.
- Break the Cutie: Mari and Jowee go through this in The Next Chapter.
- Cerebus Retcon: Mike in the first game was a random Joke Character who was mainly around to have the Raposa be silly with him. In the sequel, he's the source of the entire world because it's a dream of his while he's in a coma from a car crash that killed his parents and injured his sister.
- 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.
- Compilation Rerelease
- Cowardly Boss
- Cyberpunk: The Galatic Jungle, complete with a fake Council that employs many rules, including no sneezing. However, it is very light.
- Developer's Room: Unlockable extra in the first game. You unlock it using the wishing well.
- Divine Assistance: The Creator.
- Dolled-Up Installment: Sponge Bob Square Pants Edition; sort of a subversion, as that title was built from the ground up. In other words, a Mission Pack Sequel with a license slapped on it. To be fair, it's almost completely different as the levels are challenging and there are more customization options than in the first game and its sequels. However, the hero is stuck with the lousy name DoodlePants.
- Dream Apocalypse
- Five-Man Band: The Next Chapter DS seems to have the makings of this.
The Hero: Jowee, and Mari
until she disappears - Floating Platforms
- Go Mad from the Revelation: In the third game. Mari doesn't quite go mad, but does join Wilfre. Might qualify as a Faith Heel Turn, or a Heel Face Mindscrew if you toss in some Alternate Character Interpretation.
- A God Is You: You are the Creator who drew everything to life.
- Goomba Stomp
- Hammer Space: In the sequel, you can carry four weapons and three forms with you, and you change between them on the go.
- Lampshade Hanging: This little exchange in the first 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...
- Also, when you close your DS system while playing and enter sleep mode, the Rapos will cry "AWWW!!", and when you open it again they'll cry "YAY!! RAPO!!"
- Law of 100
- Lighter and Softer: The new ending The Next Chapter received in the Compilation Rerelease (and supposedly a few recently produced stand-alone cartridges) is significantly happier, starting with the much more cartoony art style. Instead of a car accident, the injury that causes Mike to pass out and dream up the Raposa's world is a bump on the head, from falling out of a tree while on a camping trip. The kids are no longer orphans and Heather remains unharmed.
- Little Bit Beastly: Raposa.
- Meaningful Name: Wilfre = free will, which also makes this a What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?.
- "Raposa" means "fox" in Portuguese.
- Mari and Jowee. Sounds an awful like two certain people who found themselves having to stay at a barn one night when they couldn't find an inn...
- Motor Mouth: Crazy Barks, to an extent.
- Non-Standard Game Over: In the first game, you can refuse Mari's prayers and cause the game to end right then and there, at the very beginning.
- Obviously Evil: Wilfre. Except he isn't. Maybe.
- 1-Up: Shaped like the head you drew for your hero, no less.
- Orphan's Plot Trinket: Heather has a pendant.
- People's Republic of Tyranny: The Democracy of the Republic of the People of the United Space Fortress, or DOT ROT POT USF for short.
- Power Trio: In the first game: Jowee is the id, Mari is the ego, and the mayor is the superego.
- Sdrawkcab Alias: Skraby Zarc, otherwise known as Crazy Barks. A brief Chekhov's Gun in the second DS game.
- Shout Out: There's a treasure hunter Raposa named Indee, complete with his treasure-seeking dad and curmudgeonly son.
- In the last stage of the first world in the Wii version, there's a section where you must climb up sloped platforms while dodging large, rolling obstacles to reach the level's boss - a giant ape - at the top. Sound familiar?
- Smurfing: What the rapo?
- Steampunk: Lavastream. Smokey, the clothes, the robotic Robosa and even the Giant Robosa as the boss.
- Sugar Apocalypse: Wilfre causes this. Everything bad that happens in the Raposa world is Wilfre's fault. Everything.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Heather. Who didn't see that one coming?
- Technicolor Fire: Justified, since you're God.
- Title Drop
- The Faceless: Samuel (Barely).
- Thank the Maker: Literally.
- This Cannot Be!: Wilfre at the end of the first game.
- Turns Red: Also literally.
- Underwater Boss Battle: The third boss in the first game.
- Vent Physics
- Verbal Tic
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Wilfre. Although his methods are Moral Event Horizon-ish, it was all to stop the Dream Apocalypse. However, when the Raposa discover this, they realize that it's better to fade away with the dreams than to live in a world of shadow.
- White-Haired Pretty Boy: Wilfre, before he transformed.
- X Meets Y: Act Raiser meets Animal Crossing.
- You Have Researched Breathing: In the third game, you need to upgrade the Shooter twice until the Hero gets the bright idea of shooting up.
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