Colors Live

Genre: Art Application / Hardware

Players: 1, Online Content Sharing

.

Review:

(Note: I am a Kickstarter supporter of this product)

Colors Live was made available to Kickstarter backers in 2020 and made available to the general public in 2021. It is an Art Application software with the unique selling point of coming with a stylus pen specifically designed for use with the Nintendo Switch. This pen essentially jerry-rigs a solution to the problem that the Nintendo Switch isn’t really designed to work with powered styluses via Bluetooth, instead making use of the headphone jack both to power the stylus and send information to the Nintendo Switch about the pressure being used. Or… I think so, anyway. Yeah, I’m not a techie, and I’m not a professional artist (or even a good artist), I’m just a guy who saw a cool project on Kickstarter and threw support behind it.

The stylus pen itself is decent but not ideal. I mean, given that it’s a wired pen, it was never going to be ideal, though I can hardly fault this product’s creators for that. The pen’s cable is about 18 ½” long and flat-shaped to make for easier storage as you can wrap the cable around the lower half of the pen and store the plug inside. Perhaps to make room for this cord’s storage, the pen itself is a bit on the thick side, at least compared to most styluses I’ve used. The stylus itself comes with two tips in case you lose or damage one.

The software allows users to calibrate and adjust the pressure sensitivity of the stylus, and I feel like this is something users will want to fiddle with to find a setting they like, something I wasn’t quite able to do myself. Yeah, despite this stylus being the main selling point of this package, I honestly think it’s the half of the package I’m least impressed with, save for the ingenuity to get the thing to even work in the first place.

No, I think the real star of the show here is the Colors Live software, which does a fine job of turning your Nintendo Switch into an honest-to-goodness art studio. Users can draw using multiple “brush” styles, adjustable sizes, a full range of colors, work with multiple layers that can be duplicated or merged, or flipped along either axis, you can zoom in to do more fine detail work, and when you’re done with your piece of art, you can get a screen grab to your Micro SD card that you can then transfer to your PC to do additional work, you can send it directly to your Twitter or Facebook account, you can store it on your free Colors Live account for retrieval on another machine, or you can share it with the rest of the Colors Live community.

One of the really cool features of this software is that it records your progress as you draw, allowing you to see a playback of your work as it’s created. What’s more, you can share this video much as you can share the photo, meaning that not only can you display your progress from start to completion, but you can see how others went about creating their artwork as well.

Another cool feature is the inclusion of “Colors Quest”, which allows users to compete with others online in limited art competitions based on a theme – this will pair users up with three random others who compete to make the most-liked artwork based on one of a select group of themes such as “a first step” or “a tasty meal”. Upon completing an entry, users then vote on the entries of other competitions.

As art applications go, this one is very good overall, though of course it’s not as extensive as something like Photoshop (nor would I ever expect something running on a game console to be), and I absolutely love how this product’s creators have worked in multiple ways to transfer and share your artwork. Also, if you find yourself not digging the included stylus pen, know that you can use another powered stylus or even a finger if you like – just know that if you do, you won’t be making use of the pressure-sensitive feature exclusive to the included stylus.

However, there are a few things I do wish were done differently here. Firstly, while players are given the option to choose left-handed or right-handed controls, there’s no option to reassign button shortcuts, which would have been really useful as the default placement of the “Undo” button is one of the trigger buttons and I would have liked to have this one more easily accessible. Also, it would have been nice to have a decent tutorial for this software’s features. For that matter, it would have been nice to have some sort of art tutorial for those like me who suck at drawing – this is something that a videogame console seems well-positioned to do, and the lack of something like this here feels like a missed opportunity.

There is one other thing to note here – because of what this game is, it’s not really intended for use in docked mode. What’s more, perhaps because the included stylus uses the microphone port, this game is completely without sound. Neither of these issues really interferes with this software’s intended purpose, but I felt it deserved mention, in any case.

Still, while it may be imperfect, Colors Live is a fantastic art application that is well worth getting for anyone who wants to use their Nintendo Switch like an art tablet. While I’m still not entirely sold on the stylus that comes with this package, I recognize it’s making the best of a less-than-ideal situation, and the software itself is good enough that these imperfections can be easily forgiven. If you want to use your Nintendo Switch to create art, Colors Live is absolutely worth getting.

tl;dr – Colors Live is a well-constructed Art Application that comes with a unique stylus pen that allows pressure-sensitive interaction with the touchscreen. While I have issues with the stylus, the software it comes with is superb, and does a great job turning the Nintendo Switch into an art tablet. If that sounds like something of interest to you, definitely give Colors Live a look.

Grade: B+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}