To read the introduction for Drawn To Life Month, go here.
You are the Creator.
The creator of everything that exists in the world of the Raposa.
You, yes, YOU. As in, second-person you. As in, You-Are-The-Hero-Book
you. Talking about books, You, Creator, built everything in the world
of the Raposa using the Book of Life, which contain the very essence
of all that is. The early pages contain the drawings of the planet,
the forests... and the Raposa. I hope you have the ability to draw
with very limited tools, as all you can do at first is select a color
and trace lines. Please don't take an hour drawing each picture, it
already lengthens the gameplay enough. The book goes on to say how
darkness came around and the Creator abandoned the Raposa... You
monster! Why did you do that?
The game actually
starts as the Eternal Flame was put out, and the darkness is closer than ever. It turns out there's a young Raposa named Mari, who is
praying for the Creator's return. Almost everyone has left. You get
the choice to help her... or not. Please help her, I will not accept
explaining the story to an evil Creator. “You” tell her to get
everyone left in the village and take them to the Creation Hall. The ones left are Mari, her father the Mayor, and her friend Jowee.
Talking about the
Raposa, I have to say it again. They're friggin' adorable. chibi fox-people with huge heads and ears, small limbs, big heads...
everything to become instant cuteness for Internet. No wonder those
characters are popular! They've got everything to get the fans to
squee.
We see the Mayor as the
only other group of Raposa are leaving: One named Isaac, who is leaving with his
family. You quickly notice that the darkness covers everything,
literally and figuratively: No one is feeling good, everyone is sad, and there are black clouds everywhere preventing the Raposa from
reaching key places. Wherever there's no black clouds, there's grey
snow. That DS box lied to me with promises of a colorful game!
That is the Creation Hall? I feel disillusioned. |
Trapping the Raposa in their village? You know they will find a way out at some point. Because they can. |
The Hero later joins
the Raposa near a door leading to the game's first World, Snow
Fields. You immediately enter a tutorial level that teaches you the
basics: A to jump, Y to run and punch. You often use the stylus to
open doors... and tap black goo that often covers the surroundings.
Yes! You, too, can erase the darkness around you! In fact, there are
black goo monsters coming out of the goo in the level. Luckily, you
can punch them and even stomp on them. Hey, does that mean you should
have drawn Mario? Yes. Yes, you should have drawn Mario.
Also, you learn to
draw! Or, rather... In the levels, there are often canvas that you
can tap: They will tell you to draw something in particular, and then
bring you to a drawing screen. You can draw level features,
platforms, tools, all sorts of things with these. The one in the
tutorial tells you to draw a solid cloud so that the Hero can cross
gaps or go higher than its legs can jump. Floating platforms, you
know. You can just paint the whole rectangle black if you're lazy,
but remember: That makes you just as awful as Wilfre!
Further down the line,
the Hero meets the Mayor... trapped in a cage made of black goo!
Luckily, the puppet can break it open with its fists. Awesome. The Mayor is
freed and returns to the village with the Hero. Upon their return in
the village, the Mayor apologizes for not listening to Mari... but he
left the door to the Snow Fields open, and the young Rapo goes into
it! However, the Mayor says he found a page
of the Book of Life before he was captured: A page for a Snowshooter! You draw it and equip it to the
hero. Hey, where can I get that snowball gun? I think it could be
useful for me during winter. If only to annoy the kids living across
the street.
How do the regular
levels work, now? There are three captured Raposa that you must save:
One that is important, and two that are less important. Hey, this
game will have plenty of characters by the end, trust me. We don't
need every single bystander Raposa to have a name. BUT you have to save all three, as whichever one you save will have plot
relevance until the next stage. In every level, there are also four
pieces of a page from the Book of Life. You cannot let those slip by either. You have to pick them up, as they open the door leading back
to the village. It's only whenever you pick all the pieces that the
Creator can bring back one element of the Raposa-verse. In other
words, every level helps you in bringing back a bit of the world to
normal. In the levels, there are also regular items (coins, lives, hearts), and
Stamps. What are Stamps, you ask? Well, they're special items, three of them in each level, that you must find if you're trying to
achieve 100% completion... but aside from that, they're nothing
special. When you find one, you can buy it in the game's Shop...
which isn't available at the moment... and then use it on your
character! Yes, you can use the Stamps as decorations for your custom
character. The Stamps also iclude all-new color palettes and new "abilities" for the Hero. As if it couldn't get any better! Also, each level is
separated in a few sections. To access the next section, you must have collected every ripped page and captured Raposa in the current
section. That's good, the levels would really be horribly long if you
had to go back and forth through those levels...
Anyway, from now on,
I'll try to avoid discussing every level entirely. I'll concentrate on the village story. Because this
story is interesting and it is NOT by discussing the levels that
we'll get to know the characters and appreciate them. But I'll be
fair. All levels do contain special objects that you must draw or color and are very awesome.
However, there is one
thing that annoys me with the levels. They are freaking long. Every
level in this game is really long, taking at least five minutes and
at worst... I dunno, ten minutes. Yes, the levels are already long, but
some are literal MAZES. It gets jarring in the last levels. And that's not counting whatever you have to draw to go forward! The length is what annoys me
the most. This is what turns me off from this game. I'd even go a
step further: If this game didn't have such a great plot, I wouldn't
play it much. Literally, the story is all that drags me to it,
because the levels feel like a chore. You heard right: The actual
game parts are a bore. Oh hey, I rhymed. The plot is what keeps the
player going, because it's the best part of the whole thing, and you
WANT to know what's going to happen later.
"Aaaah! I created darkness! I wasn't creative enough!" "I only used black and the Paint tool! I'm an idiot! I'm... sorry..." |
Huh. Congrats, 5th
Cell. This is all very creative. Much better than the plot behind the
first Scribblenauts. Wait, a plot in Scribblenauts? What plot? Silly me, the first
Scribblenauts game had no plot! And this one has too much. As it
turns out, whatever was made by the Book of Life turned white. Like
it did not exist anymore. Last to disappear was the Eternal Flame
(Not so eternal after all, huh? *Insert evil laughter here!*). Oh,
but wait! Weren't there pieces of pages that the Hero picked up? Yes!
And on further inspection... they turn out to be pieces of the page
for the Eternal Flame! The Creator – you – colors the pedestal
and then selects a color for the Eternal Flame. After which the
Creator can erase the darkness surrounding an area of the Raposa
village. This time around, Isaac's shop is the one that gets freed
from the black clouds.
From this point on, the
game pretty much follows the same basic pattern: The Hero enters a
level and comes back with four pieces of a page and three Raposa, one
of which has plot relevance. Because you must never underestimate the
power of plot relevance. When the Hero returns, something comes back
in the village thanks to the page of the Book of Life: You paint it
or draw it, then touch the Eternal Flame to turn some of teh clouds somewhere in the village grey, which means you can then erase them with the Stylus. This causes the discovery of plot-relevant locations over time. Some
more plot happens (Because! Plot! Is! Awesome! And I mean that in the least sarcastic way possible for this game), and then another level starts.
After it talks to the
Mayor, the Hero sets out to find the page for the Sun. As it is about
to leave, Jowee comes by and asks the Hero if he can come with it.
You see, Jowee loves adventure. He wants to explore. He wants to be
able to scream “Adventure Time” and see the world. But he's a
small Rapo unable to go on the Hero's quest... For now, the Hero says
nothing. Not like it can say much anyway.
The Hero comes back
with Farmer Brown and his family. The Mayor replaces the page of the
sun in the book of life, you draw the sun, and hop! The Raposa
village seems a lot brighter suddenly. Yay, the light is coming back!
...Wait. How could they see if there was no light at all because of
an absence of sun... Ah, never mind that, I guess it can be chalked
up to “it's a fantasy setting” or “it's an imaginary world”
or stuff. Farmer Brown's house is wiped clean of the darkness around
it, so he starts working... but there are no Banya seeds! ...Banya is
the fictional food the Raposa eat. You decide what exactly it is:
does it look like corn, wheat, fruits or vegetables? Are they
plantations of chocolate? Or peppermint trees? Your choice. However,
before the Hero can go get the page for Banya, Mari and Jowee ask it
to hang the village's name over the entrance. Oh, and the Creator
gets to name the village! Let's call it... um... uh... Raposamora?
Look, I'm trying to find a name that starts with either “Rapo” or
“Raposa”. Concept!
When the Hero returns
from the level with the page for the Banya crops, he comes back with
Chef Cookie, who bears a comedic stereotypical Italian accent... oh,
and a chef hat too. Also, the snow has started melting! That's great.
The Creator re-creates the Banya crops and plants a few in Farmer
Brown's field. I love to think of the player as a character. It's
just awesome, you know? You really take part in the plot! The Creator
also erases the darkness around Cookie's kitchen, and then draws a
new sign for it.
The Hero goes to get
Jowee, and finds him tossing snowballs around. The Mayor decides it
would be a good way to increase the Raposa's happiness to start a
snowball fight. You against everyone. Oh no, not “You” the
Creator! I meant the Hero! I knew that kind of misunderstanding was
going to happen... Hey, gotta enjoy that snow while it's still
around! Hope you're in the mood for a mini-game! Won or lost, after
the mini-game ends, Isaac tells the Hero that his shop is now open.
In there, you can buy stamps, musical pieces and other stuff for your
Hero. The God pays for his avatar. Stupid favoritism, huh?
Oh! But the place is
getting warmer! ...A bit too warm... The Banya is getting dry! A heat
wave! Oh noes! You little idiot, you brought back the sun, but you
forgot to bring back the rain! ...oh, and the moon, but no one cares
about that one for now.
Still, the Hero comes
back with the page for rain, and brings back three Raposa too! And oh, hey,
you even select the color of the rain after creating the raincloud!
But the Hero sees Mari enter the Creation Hall... It meets her there
and is soon joined by the Mayor. Remember that bit a lot earlier,
when I said Mari was the Mayor's daughter?
“The only others are
Mari, her father the Mayor, and her friend Jowee.”
Well, the Mayor thinks
it's time for Mari to begin her formation. She'll replace her father
as the village's Mayor were he to kick the bucket. Mari really
doesn't feel ready for this. She leaves and talks to Jowee about
this. But he's too obsessed with getting into an adventure with the
Hero. Your friend needs you right now, jerk. Oh, but wait! Wilfre
appears! He leaves quickly enough, but makes sure Mari knows that her
father is in danger.
Jaws 20: A shark genetically enhanced to move in the snow attacks a ski resort. |
Half her face is
covered in darkness...
To be continued in Part
2!
No comments:
Post a Comment