Drawdle

One Side Software's Drawdle is another game where the art design is based around doodles, and – no, wait.

Unlike, say, Gamelion's Doodle Fit, Drawdle attempts to build its play mechanics around the drawing premise. You have to draw whatever shape you think would be best suited to pushing one or more balloons into the targets the game challenges you to hit, these targets being simple drawings that need colouring in.

Drawdle is part Crayon Physics Deluxe, part Ragdoll Blaster, with a little bit of cheery individuality on the side. It certainly works, and can evoke quite a few moments of head-scratching entertainment, even tempting you back to at least try and master the different levels.

It's just that its design is so rough around the edges and generally inconsistent that the idea simply isn't as well realised as it could be.

Catch you on the rebound

Drawdle never seems to manage a proper progression from the easiest levels to the trickier, more physics-oriented puzzles.

The way those levels are designed seems frustratingly amateurish at times, and the manner in which the game grades your performance feels inconsistent.

Every level has at least one starting area - a space inside which you have to draw your doodles. At first it's just a case of drawing a square or rough circle, then flicking it across the screen straight at the balloon, which gets knocked flying across the target, covering it in paint.

Later levels introduce spikes, flexible rubber bands that can be snapped or rebounded from, levers you need to flip, and so on. You might have to fire off one pointed shape to slice a rubber band, then bounce a second, circular shape off the band behind it and around a corner.

But the idea that pushing X into Y makes Y hit Z isn't always clear.

The initial levels are almost impossible to fail, while later on you can end up retrying a level several times just because you've worked out the solution but whether or not it works is down to chance.

Other times the rules strike you as arbitrary - for instance, at one point the game decides that only the sharpest points can cut rubber bands, which would be fine except for the fact that a tiny slip of the finger can make the game interpret your sharp point as a somehow-blunter straight line.

None of these is a game-breaking error, but put together they frequently make you feel as if Drawdle swings from insultingly simple to teeth-grindingly hard without warning.

Drawdle is definitely still fun to play, with some genuinely charming little touches, like doodling your name to sign your saved data or the chirpy, jazzy soundtrack.

The menus are easy to use, the touchscreen controls are responsive, and the game allows you just enough creativity in replaying the levels to make them fun rather than pointless or a chore.

But while Drawdle's depth, art direction, and general cheery mood are to be applauded, the picky and often inconsistent demands for success hinder its appeal.