Drawn: Dark Flight Review [PC] From beefjack.com

It follows directly on from its predecessor, in which you rescued a princess, Iris, from her captors at the top of an enormous tower in the kingdom of Stonebriar. But amongst the chaos, you’ve found yourself trapped in the crumbled wreck of the toppled building, and Iris is being pursued once more. The rightful queen of Stonebriar can only be crowned once three beacons have been lit, and of course, it’s up to you to light the flames.

But Iris has a gift, and you’ve come to gain one as well (admittedly, Dark Flight is absolutely dreadful at explaining why this is the case). Iris can make her artwork come to life, and you have the ability to travel in and out of paintings and drawings, making the real imaginary and the imaginary real, crossing over between actual and painted worlds in your quest to save the young princess.

While the game begins in the ruins of the tower, it quickly spreads out into Stonebriar itself, which is where Drawn’s world really springs into life. Or, perhaps closer, death. The tower of the first Drawn was a dark and foreboding place, gorgeously designed, but somewhat lacking in variety. By opening up the game world into a full town, Dark Flight’s art team have been given the all-clear to let their imaginations run away with them – and the result is quite extraordinary.When you review a lot of games, you get into the habit of taking screenshots habitually. Usually you’ll finish the game with a few hundred shots, but the nature of your fast-grabbing means you’ll end up with only a handful that stand out. They’re the obvious choices of images to submit with your final piece, and there’s never a great deal of doubt in your mind.

I don’t think I’ve ever had this much trouble selecting screenshots before. I want to show you the one of the giant statue in the library, thousands of stone steps curving up his body and to his skyscraping head. Or the sequence I’ve snapped of the figure in the child’s drawing coming to life, hopping off the page, and lighting a lamp in the real world. There’s the carved wooden boy with dud batteries for a heart, and the moonlit children’s room with a flourescent blue stream flowing out of a mural, and the several delightful living pop-up books. The three I’ve gone with, I think, convey what I so absolutely adore about Dark Flight’s aesthetic, but I want to show you every single grab I’ve taken. I truly wish BeefJack did screenshot galleries.

This is the second installment in the Drawn series, the first of which might well have passed you by. I’m determined that no one will miss this second game – not only because it’s a shame so few picked up on the first one, The Painted Tower, but because Dark Flight is so stunningly better in every way. Drawn: The Painted Tower was a short, atmospheric, casually-oriented point-and-click adventure with an irritating hints system and some slightly unfortunate puzzles, but with a soul that’s so sorely lacking from much of the genre. Dark Flight fixes the hints system, improves the puzzles, and presents a world and characters that outshine The Painted Tower’s by far.

Stonebriar is whimsical and wobbly, a haunting and dreamlike place with a hefty dose of German expressionism. But it’s also a solitary place. I found myself repeatedly thinking of PS2 classic Ico – not because the games play similarly, nor even just because your “enemies” are shadow creatures, but because of the tremendous sense of isolation this place exudes. The town’s squares are desolate, the few who dwell there lost and alone. And you’re compelled onwards not because of your own motives, but through the overwhelming desire to help a person in need. All the while, the swirling orchestral soundtrack soars. It’s a glorious setup, and an astounding place to explore.

And you can explore it, too – to a much greater extent than the freedom afforded in The Painted Tower, at least. Progression is still ultimately linear, but there are almost always several locations available at once, as well as paintings and drawings to transport yourself into. It all feels much more layered, with many puzzles spanning numerous locales, and hopping between the real world and the art that rests within it. Puzzle logic is generally improved, with only a couple of stinkers, and the whole thing feels delightfully cohesive.

It’s a more difficult game than its predecessor at face-value, but one of Dark Flight’s most notable improvements is its hint system. Before, Drawn’s tiered hints provided three nudges of increasing explicitness, but it responded contextually poorly to what you’d already done, and required a frustrating ‘recharge’ period between each one. Now, not only does the game seem to have a much better grip on the actions you’ve performed already, but it also allows you access to these hints at any time. Some might say this makes the game too easy, but there’s nothing to force you into utilising the system. It’s simply there, waiting in the corner of the screen, should you feel the need for it.

It’s a short game, and the ending leaves a little to be desired. I played through in a little under five hours, which, considering the $14 price tag, I don’t find too stingy at all. The ending rubbed me up the wrong way, arriving abruptly and with a big fat “To be continued…” message, but it’s telling that I’m desperately eager to return to Stonebriar for the series’ third part. And there’s a decent amount of epilogue content in the Collector’s Edition (which, as far as I can tell, is the only version currently on-sale).

What I like most of all about Dark Flight, however, is its message. Here’s a game about helping people in need, for no other reason than that they are in need. And it’s about helping those people not through violence – with swords or guns or big veiny fists – but instead with art, and music, and craftsmanship. It’s an absolute celebration of creativity, and all the magic that comes with it. That the game is so unequivocally and consistently creative itself just seals the deal.