Drawn: The Painted Tower, any good?

[cash22]

Never heard of this game but it looks interesting. Anyone have any experience with it?

[toukonstuart]

Haven't played it yet but as an adventure game enthusiast, can tell you it was very well received in the adventure community despite being a "casual" game.

Here's a review (may contain some minor spoilers) with comments at the bottom: http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,1067

This game is great, I have it for the iPad, some of the puzzles are a bit challenging. If you don't like searching for hidden objects and using objects on other objects to solve a puzzle then this game isn't for you

[Smokindan50]

From reading the reviews it sounds like its a little easy and a little short but has fantastic atmosphere and really good art. Plus, Steam achievements, I guess.

[Ducon]

Its a Big Fish game.Auto no-no.

[vango003]

played for a little over a half hour and I'm enjoying it, it has a very unique style and pacing that you really need to experience to understand. But unfortunately I've actually run into glitch that's stopped me from playing. gets stuck switching in and out of the desktop every half second forcing me to restart the the pc... other than that its awesome

[bobsbarricades]

Looks really good.

I've been looking for a really good adventure game for my iPad...but most of the ones i find just want me to stare at a screen and find things....that's not adventure gaming that's... Betty stare at a monitor and learn vocabulary =\

I bought this game when it first game out, and the sequel when it came out last year (not on Steam yet), and I think that they're both great. In a strange reversal, Big Fish Games try to make it seem like some kind of crappy hidden object game, even though it's actually a solid (although not terribly long) point-click-adventure with almost no hidden object nonsense. Presumably they do this because their primary target audience are people who love crappy hidden object games, although to carry that marketing style over to Steam seems misguided at best.

For a point-and-click adventure, the puzzles are very logical, which I know is regarded by some people as a negative; they would prefer to make leaps of bizzarre intuition or try every combination of objects on each other to proceed. Personally, I prefer collecting a jar of honey and finding that it will satisfy the hungry bear I met earlier, to being so frustrated that I resort to using everything on everything else and discover that randomly crossing some nameless herbs with a dart-board dart somehow makes a tranquiliser dart for sedating the bear. If you think that that makes me sound like a whinger who wouldn't know a "proper" adventure game if it bit me on the nose, then you're almost certainly going to find Drawn: The Painted Tower "too easy".

The story is pretty cliched, but the writing is still ahead of about 75% of the "triple-A" titles I've played in the last few years. The graphics are beautiful, hand-drawn scenes, as you can see from the screenshots; occasionally they have animated elements to them, but in the main they are static, and a lot of scene changes are accomplished by cross-fading from a "before" image to an "after" image, which works fine in context. There is music through most of the game, and it's very well scored, while still managing to fade into the background and just tweak the mood a little.

If you look at the screenshots and synopsis of this game and think you'll like it, you probably will. If you're sure you'll hate it, you're likely to be correct, too. But if you're tempted to buy it, except you're feeling put off by the casual/Big Fish/hidden object aura around it, I recommend that you close your eyes, hold your nose, and dive right in. I did, and I didn't regret it.

Nezuji

[N1claus]

I agree with pretty much everything that Nezuji wrote, and I consider myself a hardcore adventure gamer. But what it all comes down to, is that Drawn: The Painted Tower is one of the most charming games out there. Here's hoping that the sequel will make it to Steam soon .

It's certainly among the most atmospheric and beautiful games I've encountered. A few of the items are a bit hard to spot, but other than that you'll rarely get stuck for too long. Quite a few puzzles are self-contained minigames that range from trivial to tricky. I found almost all of them fun, but they can also be skipped at the press of a button.

I think the game wouldn't have worked as well had it been significantly harder. Being stuck for a long time would have diluted the mood.

As for steam achievements - I recommend you don't even look at them and just enjoy the game without the pressure.

[gappo]

I recommend this game to anyone who likes puzzles.
One of the best titles I ever played.

I thoroughly enjoyed it but there was way too much "find the tiny object" for me. The puzzles were great, and the graphical theme of the game was amazing, but I can't stand the hidden object games and there was a couple times where I sighed, rolled my eyes, and spent way too long trying to find some tiny statue or rock, just so I could get on with it.

The game was short (about 3 hours for me) but worth the ten bucks. I would have preferred to pay twenty or thirty and get a complete game instead of part-of-a-whole-game but I guess that's how things are released now.

The trailer absolutely sold me. I had no idea what the game was about but I thought the artwork just looked fantastic.

It turned out it was a Myst style scene by scene point and click. I really, really hate these games.

Not anymore.

I had a lot of fun playing this, the music and artwork came together to make an absolutely fantastic atmosphere.

My only complaints:

1. Certain items are practically invisible unless you scrape every pixel waiting for your cursor to change. (I guess that's where the hint button came in handy).
2. The ending was really awful. Without trying to spoil anything, it almost felt as though they just got bored and cut off as soon as they could. It just didn't leave me feeling convinced that the last 4 hours were spent well.

[aramdol]

I find the game to be very fun and beautiful. The only complaint I have is that it's very short. Oh, the mini games can be a little frustrating. I kinda lucked out on some of them