Drawn: The Painted Tower and Drawn 2 Review (Spoiler-Free)

In the ruins of a once-glorious city, a little girl is trapped atop a tower. It is up to you to make your way up the tower by entering a series of wall paintings and solving their puzzles. Along the way, you learn more about the girl, her special history, and the insidious forces that are keeping her confined in the tower. The sequel, Drawn 2, picks up right where the first game left off.

Drawn is my favorite iOS game thus far and one of the best point-and-click adventure games I've played regardless of platform. The only complaint I had about the first game was that the movement controls were a bit unclear. There were a few times where I meant to enter a painting and accidentally walked away from it, or vice versa. The sequel, Drawn 2, corrects this problem by showing an arrow when you first tap on the screen and requiring a second tap on the arrow in order to move.

The art is delightfully dystopian and draws (no pun intended) a sharp contrast between the dark, crumbling tower and the colorful, lively worlds that exist in each painting. The soundtrack is so mood-appropriate that it's almost unnoticeable. Ominous, sad, orchestral music plays in the tower, while, for example a painting of a meadow is accompanied by the springy chorus of birds, crickets, and a babbling brook. In a good accessibility decision, the sound is never required for playing the game. It does not confer any hints or advantages, there are no puzzles requiring sound, and all of the cut scenes are both voice-acted and subtitled.

I actually preferred the cut scenes in the first game over those in the sequel. The first game tended to have cut scenes that were related to the puzzle, while the second game has a lot of cut scenes portraying the antagonist. The sequel seems to have more cut scenes overall as well.

The puzzles are appropriate for a range of ages and skill levels. On the easy end, some puzzles took me only a few touches to complete, while one puzzle took me over an hour (to be fair, I was simultaneously watching basketball). There is an objective bar in the left corner that gives a subtle hint as the objective title. When you tap it, it gives a specific step to take. If you're really stuck, there is a "Hint" button in the lower right corner that will show a picture of the area with a circle around the solution.

I've tried to use the objectives and hints as sparingly as possible, but using them definitely does not ruin the game because it is very story-driven. In fact, for actual puzzles (not objects you need to gather to unlock puzzles), there is a "Skip Puzzle" option that shows up at the top of the screen after a certain amount of time. I have not used that option yet, but it probably completes the puzzle, allowing the player to continue with the story. There are at least two puzzles that rely heavily on color matching/recognition, so the skip option could come in handy for people with colorblindness.

The game does have a chivalry motif at various times, depicting a male knight slaying a dragon to save a woman. However, the player character does not (yet) have a defined gender, though I have not completed Drawn 2, so a gender may be revealed at the end. I hope the player character's gender remains undefined; it would be a bit of a letdown to find out at the end that my character was a stereotypical male hero.

At $7 per game, they are on the pricey side, but there is plenty of content to make them worth the money. Drawn took me about 10 hours to complete, and I've put in about 8 hours on Drawn 2 so far. I will most likely not replay the games, but there is some replay value if you are going for achievements that were missed the first time around. If you like point-and-click adventure games and/or beautifully illustrated fantasy worlds, I cannot recommend Drawn and Drawn 2 more highly.

Have you played Drawn or Drawn 2? What did you think?
Do you have any questions that weren't covered in the review?
Do you have another game suggestion for people who liked Drawn/Drawn 2?
(Please, no spoilers in the comments.)

Look What's On PostSecret!

http://www.postsecret.com/

Happy 1st Birthday, Mushroom!

The cake - peanut butter and kibble, topped with pumpkin "frosting" and a bacon treat candle

It hasn't been an easy year for you, going from the streets and a teen pregnancy to a high-kill shelter. But the kind folks at ARNNE took you in, and things have been looking up ever since. We've only been in your life for two weeks, but we can promise you that you'll always have a loving home (with an annoying brother, sorry about that one). You'll always be fed, you'll have plenty of toys, and you'll get lots of cuddles. So here's to making it through your first year, and here's to all the wonderful years to come. Happy birthday, Mushroom!

Mushroom is eating so fast she can hardly be captured on camera

Cleaning up

When It's Not All Rainbows and Unicorns

"How are the dogs?" my mom asked over the phone. "They're fine", I answered, "Mushroom hasn't had an accident since her first day."

Wasn't me - the other dog did it

Okay, so I fibbed because I didn't want my mom to be worried. Mushroom may have succeeded with housetraining, but the dogs are anything but fine. It's been two weeks since their first meeting, and their interactions with each other leave much to be desired.

When they are playing with each other, we have a hard time getting Badger's attention. We can call Mushroom away and make her sit for a treat, but Badger will continue trying to play with her. Additionally, bowling-ball Badger is considerably larger and tougher than the petite Mushroom. He easily knocks her over and proceeds to stand on top of her, while she's reduced to gnawing on his ankles. Since he doesn't listen to warning growls, she has started biting him to get him away from her. While these bites have not broken skin, they have torn out small clumps of his fur. The other day, a bite from Mushroom aggravated Badger enough to start snapping at the air. Since then, we have stuck strictly to crate and rotate.

Two seconds later, they were fighting again

We're quickly running out of ideas, but here are the ones we haven't tried yet:

1. Use extremely high-value treats, in the hopes that Badger will respond consistently when we call him out of play. Badger has gotten less treat-motivated in the past few months, though.
2. Buy a baby gate to allow them to both be out but not playing. Neither of us has any idea how to train dogs to respect baby gates. Also, the dogs are already capable of being quietly crated next to each other with little effect on how well they play together.
3. Go back a step and only allow the dogs near each other if leashed. Badger pays much more attention to us on leash. The downside is that they cannot play at all on leash, because their leashes get tangled, and Mushroom gets upset.
4. Hire a professional trainer. We've been holding off on this option because of the cost involved, but we know this is our best bet. I did a trainer search on the APDT website and am going to start contacting trainers over the weekend. A private session looks like it can range anywhere from $50 to $250, depending on the trainer and the location.
5. Finally, if all else fails (or if we run out of money to pay trainers), we would put them permanently on a crate and rotate routine.

 Has anyone faced a similar situation? Has anyone tried any of these tactics? And last but not least, does anyone have comforting words or a success story?

I'm Scared of (Squishing) My Pitbull

While Badger is maybe part pitbull or some other big-headed, deep-chested bully breed, our new dog Mushroom is what the layperson would easily identify as a pitbull (though we think she's a miniature bull terrier mix). And though Badger has elicited a range of emotions in me, from anger to love, when Mushroom came to live with us, I felt something I never in a million years would have thought I could feel about my own dog: fear. Specifically, the fear that *I* would hurt *her*.

Badger was, and continues to be, an oversized, fuzzy bowling ball. He runs full-speed into walls with nary a yelp. He's "played" with our friend's aggressive Chihuahua (who once bit Llamaentity so hard it drew blood) and emerged completely unscathed. (We regret letting this happen and have ceased allowing them to play together.) When he tries to jump on our couch, we shove him off without a second thought. He lets us drum on his belly and use him as a footrest. Like his namesake, Badger doesn't give a shit.

Badger not giving a shit about having his head dribbled like a basketball

Compared with Badger, Mushroom looks tiny and delicate. She has trouble getting her small mouth around most of our food toys, which we sized up because of Badger's enormous maw. We got them the same size crate, but she can curl up in just half of it, while he sprawls out with his tail wagging in his water bowl.

When Mushroom jumped on the couch and curled up, I gingerly lifted her off and placed her back on the floor. I drummed ever so gently on her side, waiting for her to show signs of pain (she didn't). Instead of using her as a footrest, I put my heels on the floor and scratched her belly with my toes. It's strange, because when Badger was 30 lbs, I didn't think of him as delicate, so it must be the size comparison that's throwing me off.

Llamaentity does not think we need to treat her like she's delicate, and that's probably right. The other day, when Llamaentity shoved her off the couch, I wanted to say, "Be careful, don't hurt her," but I held my tongue when I saw that she was fine. When she jumped at me, I instinctively raised my knee, but before I had time to worry about whether I'd hurt her, she was already sitting calmly.

It seems like Mushroom is going to be fine, and I just have to stop worrying. It's only the first week, so there's hope for me yet. I may even celebrate with a drum roll on her belly.


Mushroom being tiny



Mushroom!

Also, boo Super Bowl. =(

My best friend might be a pitbull mix

Badger's first day at our apartment

One summer evening, Llamaentity and I were out walking our newly-adopted puppy Badger when we heard the five words that would change my life. "Is that a pitbull puppy?" "No," said Llamaentity, "We think he's a Lab mix," and we kept walking. "Why did he think Badger was a pitbull?" I wondered. We came to the conclusion that the questioner was merely joking - that he found it humorous to compare a small, cute, well-behaved puppy with a large, powerful dog known for being a killer. But the seed had been planted, and as Badger grew, our suspicions did as well.


Badger's Petfinder profile picture

We chose Badger based on a Petfinder picture and a breed description - Cocker Spaniel/Border Collie mix. My family owned an old Border Collie who was friendly, intelligent, and trainable, and I wanted a dog that shared those qualities. Additionally, our apartment complex had a weight restriction on dogs - 35 lbs or less, and we guessed that a Cocker Spaniel/Border Collie mix would not grow to exceed the limit. The shelter that had him was a no-kill shelter in the South that transported its dogs to the Northeast after adoption. We met Badger for the first time in a New Hampshire parking lot on a rainy Saturday afternoon (with a crowd of other people also meeting their newly-adopted dogs), and we took him home.

"Your dog's really ugly," my mom commented after seeing Badger's Petfinder picture. "You should name him Big Head." Not only did Badger have a big head, he had a big mouth. He was actually capable of smiling, and when he was excited, all we'd see was a lolling tongue and an open mouthful of teeth. We nicknamed him "The Maw". It became apparent that Badger might have something in him other than Cocker Spaniel and Border Collie. His coat was considerably shorter than that of a Cocker Spaniel or Border Collie. His feathered tail curled upward, resembling that of a sled dog. And he was growing just a little faster than we'd anticipated. We began telling people that he was part Lab as well.

Badger at ~8 months

After the pitbull question, I started Google searching images of pitbulls. There were a few images of hulking, snarling monsters, but the majority of the pictures showed normal-looking dogs and puppies. And rather stumpy ones at that. A website revealed that pitbulls ranged in weight from 22 to 78 lbs, a large range that Badger was already in at roughly 5 months of age. The common traits of this diverse dog breed seemed to be short fur, a blocky head, a large mouth, and a muscular, wide-set chest. I looked at Badger. He smiled at me and put his entire large-sized Kong in his mouth.

I shared my suspicions with a couple of dog-owning friends. "He could be part pitbull," one friend mused, "Just look at his little chest." Another friend reassured me that pitbulls were wonderful dogs who didn't deserve their reputation. By then, my initial fear had subsided and been replaced by speculation. What kind of cross would produce a dog that looked like Badger? What if he wasn't part pitbull, but instead he was part some other breed with a similar build, like a Boston Terrier or a Boxer? I searched terms like "Cocker Spaniel pitbull mix" and "Boston Terrier Lab mix", but the results were inconclusive.

We'd heard that a friend of a friend had had to provide DNA results for their dog to prove it wasn't a pitbull prior to renting. While our apartment complex bans several breeds, pitbulls being one of them, they had happily accepted the shelter's identification of Badger as a Cocker Spaniel/Border Collie mix. But I thought it might be a good idea to test him pre-emptively, just in case we wanted to move. A coworker recommended the Wisdom Panel DNA test, and while I was searching for reviews, I stumbled across the Two Pitties in the City blog.


Badger at ~10 months

I quickly became enamored with the community of pitbull advocates. I guffawed and cooed at the pictures of pitbulls doing silly things and wearing clothing. I wept and ranted at the horrific abuse that some dogs suffered, and I cheered when these same dogs were rescued and turned into loving pets. I clenched my fists in anger at stories about breed-specific-legislation and bigoted remarks from passersby. I smiled and nodded when pitbull-haters were turned into pitbull-lovers with a few calm remarks and a friendly dog. The pitbull advocates had beautiful, well-behaved dogs, and they seemed so much nicer than the angry, pitbull-blaming mob on the other side of the chain-link fence.

Through the pitbull advocacy community, I learned invaluable advice on dog training, dog socialization, dog food, home decoration, breed bans, and even how to speak civilly to someone I disagree with. I learned that we will never take Badger to Denver because he could be killed for simply resembling a pitbull. I learned that the next city over has a law requiring pitbulls to be muzzled in public. We decided that when we move, we will look specifically for a place that is pitbull-friendly. We switched Badger to Natural Balance limited ingredient kibble topped with a scoop of canned pumpkin (he is notorious for bowel irregularity). We bought Badger a couple of new collars on Etsy. We're also attempting to train him for the Canine Good Citizen test, though I'm still working on getting Llamaentity to agree to signing up for a training class.


So excited to meet this potential new member of the family!

I would love nothing more than to adopt a rescued pitbull, but I know better than to (blatantly) try to circumvent the apartment's breed ban. We applied to adopt a little brown dog listed on Petfinder as a Lab/terrier mix - we'll actually be meeting her for the first time tonight. She is just over 30 lbs (unlike Badger, who weighed in at 42 lbs a month ago and is still growing), and the apartment office has already approved her. We haven't gotten around to DNA testing Badger yet, but when we do, I hope he is part pitbull, if only so I can wear the "My best friend is a pitbull" shirt (but only when the apartment manager can't see me).

Badger now