Drawn: Trail of Shadows Review

Regular readers will have noticed that I play a lot of Hidden Object and casual adventure games. I love their relaxed nature. It's a calming way of gaming for me and makes a great change from the more action packed gaming that I also participate in. At times though, originality feels a little lacking within the genre. Drawn: Trail of Shadows bucks that trend with some painting based elements that I haven't encountered before. There's an interesting if sometimes vague story, too.

Featuring a boy with the power of bringing paintings to life, the player must rescue this child from the wizard that he's unleashed on the world. The story is told through the boy's paintings with each piece of art needing repairing so as to move onto the next sequence. It's all quite glorious to look at and the art style is particularly impressive.

The actual gameplay is heavily focused on such artistry with the need to color in certain sections or piece together artwork. It's a familiar path for the casual adventure genre but the inclusion of such painting focused tasks is a breath of fresh air, much like in previous installments of the series. Drawing and painting consists of things such as connecting the dots or carving figures. There are also more typical mini games such as logic puzzles involving arranging lights or jewels. It's all quite lovely, although players do always have the option of skipping such puzzles if they so wish.

I wouldn't recommend skipping ahead, though, as Drawn: Trail of Shadows is quite short and will only take a few hours to complete, anyhow. Still, quality over quantity is clearly here and while it's far from taxing on lower difficulty levels, Drawn: Trail of Shadows tells an interesting tale with some glorious visuals.