Collecting Smiles' first eShop title is Colors! 3D. This project started out as the popular homebrew app Colors, known throughout the community for its innovative use of the DS. Now available in the eShop for 6€, 6.99$ and it takes up 229 blocks on your SD card.
Nothing has really changed since the homebrew era and Colors! 3D has remained loyal to its predecessor. However, nothing is perfect, not even Colors, so Collecting Smiles has added some new features, including Paint With Friends, Painting Samples in 3D and 2D and a lot more!
Gameplay
When starting the game, we are greeted by the logo followed by a quick tutorial explaining the basic functions. First up is the 3D effect together with the 3D layer system. Switching is done by flicking the analog stick left and right and is paired with a pop-up of what is on that layer.
Up next is the colour wheel, which has been improved from the homebrew version. Pressing the L once brings up the colour wheel, no need to hold it. Selecting a new colour feels really natural, picking the major colour from the outer ring while selecting a shade from the inner pyramid. Left from the wheel we find the brush selector, where you have the choice between a thick line, blurry line, charcoal and the eraser. On the right side we find the brush thickness slider and an opaque slider, setting the opacity.
The last part explains the rest of the analog pad and the D-pad. Up and down allows you to zoom, ranging from 20% to 400%. The left button on the D-pad gives you the ability to scroll. The tutorial ends here, but should you wish to learn more go to the How to Paint section in the help & options part. Discussed here are: Layers & 3D, zoom & scroll, undo, redo & starting over, the eyedropper tool, flip painting, using photos in your painting and the opacity modifier. Selecting one of these gives you more insight in the specific function.
After completing the tutorial you are brought to the main menu, as seen on the right. Plenty of options here, so lets start with new painting. Pressing New Painting brings you the next screen asking for the orientation for the canvas, namely widescreen, landscape and portrait. Widescreen gives you the entire upper screen, landscape gives you the bottom screen projected on the upper screen and portrait gives you a standing canvas. While widescreen is the recommend setting, you can paint 3D in all three modes. Pressing start the painting will be saved and you are brought to the replay screen. Here you can watch a movie of how you drew your painting, give it a name and description and export it to your SD card via the manage painting header.
The other options on the main menu include: Paint With Friends, Gallery, Extras and the Help section. Paint with friends does exactly as it says, giving you the ability to draw with your friends via local-play. The downside to this is that you need a friend with Colors! 3D and you don't have the possibility to play on the internet. The extras include 3D painting samples by Munin, coloring pages by David Peixoto and 3D painting samples by Boreal Boy. In the help section you can find instructions on pretty much everything: the tutorial, credits, reset settings and the configure buttons.
The gallery is still the same as it was when Colors was just a simple homebrew application. To connect to the gallery you need to have an active internet connection. Once in the gallery the first thing that catches the eye is the painting rotator, as I have dubbed it. In the right corner of the bottom screen you will see all kinds of paintings passing by. When you click on a drawing you will be taken to its page where you can comment, 'like' and copy the drawing. Back on the main screen of the gallery you will see buttons for my gallery, upload, this week's best, top ranked, new paintings and my favorites. All of these options are self-explanatory and the best part is that the entire gallery can be accessed from your computer by visiting the online gallery.
AudiovisualPresentation
Everything in the menus is crispy clean, but the game is all about the 3D. You can really see the effect when sliding the depth slider up and down. By doing this you will see the multiple layers come apart in a nice fluid motion. However, the only point is that you need to have 3D on in order to properly draw in layered 3D. If you don't, you will have misaligning and sometimes bloating of the lines. When the zoom is normal you won't see pixels, when you zoom in however, you will start to see them, but only at 200%.
The 3D is nicely done, only with the very complex drawings will you get a bit of a headache. 3D never felt forced or even strenuous, this is one of the games where the 3D actually adds something to the game.
Very little can be said about the audio in the game, as there is next to none, the only sounds being the clicking of buttons. As I prefer drawing something with my own music I do not find the lack of music disturbing. What they could have done is add the functionality of playing your own music from the SD card, now you are forced to use an external music player, like your laptop.
ClosingComments
Colors! 3D does what it needs to do and even better. Having left the shadow of the homebrew community, Colors! 3D has become a full-fledged application worthy of the eShop. The 3D really augments the drawing experience, being more than a gimmick to play with.
Every feature that was present in the homebrew version is present in the eShop version. If you played the original version this should feel like a trip down memory lane and a very good one at that. Having added a couple of new features, this could very well be the future of drawing, in 3D!
The only thing bothering me is that you can't play your own music from the SD card as there is next to no music in the game itself. But this can be easily solved by grabbing your laptop and YouTube-ing some songs.
Being the first ever DS homebrew to make it into a retail game, Colors! 3D is surely worth your money. Even if you can't draw, like me, Colors! 3D is still a fun game to play. And you may even improve your drawing skills with it!
nice review it explained a lot on what kind of things ya can do with it
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Best DS games: Shin Megami Tensei - Devil Survivor 1/2, KH 358/2 days/Re:Coded, The world ends with you, Pokemon: D/P/PL/SS/W/BW2, Time hollow Waiting for: pokemon x/y ,metroid 3DS (I hope that this will come)
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Sat, April 21st, 2012 at 08:57
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