Drawing Carnival

Genre: Art Application

Players: 1

.

Review:

Drawing Carnival, released on mobile devices in 2022 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023 is an Art Application… sort of… where players nominally complete various pieces of pop art and then have customers offer to buy them, with the money unlocking more customizations for your art gallery.

Your interaction with this game is extremely limited. You are provided with pre-made designs separated into four quadrants, and only work on one quadrant at a time. You choose an art style (you only have two to pick from at first, and gradually unlock more), are mostly forced to draw the lines where they direct you without deviation (though on occasion, you can make a line longer than it’s supposed to be), then select from a very limited color palette and color in the lines as directed, without deviation. Once done, in-game characters will take turns offering you money for your work, and you must try to guess which one is offering the most.

Given this game’s artistic themes, there is very, very, very little creative input players have on these art pieces. The designs are premade, you can’t draw what you want or add details, you have barely any say over coloring. The game is almost making the “art” for you.

The customer offers give players no strategy to work with either – you’re given no indication who might be willing to pay the most, you can only accept or decline offers as they’re given, and cannot go back and change your mind after seeing subsequent offers are for less.

I suppose at the very least the art itself is appealing, done in 2D in a variety of different styles with a fair amount of personality. The 3D gallery is somewhat less so, with pretty generic-looking 3D characters to judge and offer you money for your work. This is all backed by an upbeat soundtrack that seems like it fits the game’s lighthearted tone, but is otherwise completely forgettable.

In the end, there’s absolutely no way for me to recommend Drawing Carnival, as there’s barely a game here, nor is this a tool for art creation, unless your concept of making art is just doing exactly what you’re told to do. And the customer offers, the one element that had the potential to provide some sort of gameplay, just seems like pure random chance. To bastardize the classic phrase, I don’t know art, but I know what I hate, and it’s this worthless waste of money. Don’t buy it.

tl;dr – Drawing Carnival is nominally an Art Application for the creation and simulated sale of various pieces of pop art, but players have almost zero input into the art’s creation beyond what the game tells them to do, and how much you make for “selling” these works seems like pure dumb luck. The result is something that offers players no reason to play it. Flush this one down Duchamp’s Fountain.

Grade: D-

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