Score: 7
"Fun, with great improvement, but still needs work."
date: September 28, 2009
It's a fun game, I had always wanted to play as a character running around, while using my mouse to help my character out by drawing stuff for him. Draw-play has given me the opportunity to do as such.
There have been major improvements from older versions, including the level editor, level-selection, secrets, more actions, the eraser tool, save game feature
However, there are several things which displease me:
1) Lag issues
For some reason, if you have played the game for a long time, it will become laggier and laggier overtime. I suspect it is because objects (most probably the gravestones, because only those are not cleared when reset) that have fallen off the map are accumulated rather than properly deleted. I have to refresh the game to solve the problem.
2) Regarding non-drawable areas
You see, one of the many tactics throughout the drawplay series is to draw at the very top of the map. However, in this series, the very top where the menu bar is located is actually undrawable, but it is not very clearly labelled. The other thing is, rather than make the ink not appear on non-drawable area, it completely disables drawing, so players cannot fully optimize the space just outside that can be drawn upon.
3) The reset system
Unfortunately, the new reset system was very disappointing compared to previous versions. Rather than reset everything back to the initial stage, it only lets the character respawn, clear all projectiles and re-draw the map; it doesn't start back from zero. To understand this, look at the minigun. Perhaps it starts at the top of the map. However, upon reset, the minigun's position is not moved back to the very top of the map, it just clears the projectiles. This would also contribute to respawn problems.
A suggestion to help improve the game is to show a cross hair on the size of the drawing pen. If possible, add a button to quickly switch between draw and erase (if there already is such a shortcut, then ignore this).
Well, since this is the last of the series (therefore no sequels/fixes), I won't expect to see all of these come around in future, but I hope this review has helped you see the flaws in this game and improve on future games that you may plan to make.
