Game: Color Breakers
Genre: Action, Arcade, Puzzle
System: Steam
Developer|Publisher: deleon
Age Rating: EU 3+ | US Everyone
Price: UK £11.39 | US $ 14.99 | EU € 14,99
Release Date: July 9th, 2021
Review code provided with many thanks to deleon
The Joys of Co-op
Color Breakers is a cooperative colouring game that can be played solo or with up to 4 other players locally or online. It’s another game that took some inspiration from the infamous Overcooked series. Many developers have tried to put their own spin on the cooperative gaming formula, some of which have been reviewed on this delightful website.
It’s a genre that still feels very much in demand by gamers. There really is nothing better than sitting down with some friends or loved ones and sharing a good game together. Is Color Breakers a burst of fresh colour (yes I spell it this way since I’m from the UK)? Grab your favourite coloured pencil, stick it behind your ear and let’s find out.
Pick Up a Pencil and Draw
Color Breakers throws players into timed levels where the goal is to draw a picture using the coloured pencils dotted around the level. At the top left of the screen, you are given a picture to recreate on a giant canvas on the screen. Then it’s up to you to grab the appropriate colour pencils to recreate the image. Mistakes are likely to happen but can be corrected by instantly drawn over them with a different colour. It all starts out pretty simple but it would not be much of a game without some form of additional hook and challenge.
Quite quickly, you’re required to draw your art while the page occasionally rotates, sometimes you’ll need to draw while avoiding traffic, running from lions and skidding on ice. Many of these challenges are pretty entertaining but this game really loved to do a level where you have to draw in darkness with limited light which I honestly despised.
The more pictures you complete in a level, the more likely you are to gain that infamous 3-star rating. Getting that mystical 3-star rating though proved difficult for me and my co-op partner. You can enter the game solo but as is the case with these cooperative games it really is much more entertaining if you can share it with at least one other person.
Accessible for Everyone
The controls are simple to pick up and play. The game does recommend you play with a controller. You are given a brief single screen tutorial to show what the buttons on a controller do. This is especially handy if you’re looking to play with others who don’t play games often. The basics are to tap a button to pick up a pencil and press to draw on the paper.
You can also throw the pencil by holding the button down it charges the throw power, this becomes important for later levels where you can only throw the pencils onto paper from a distance to mark it. Marking the paper with a pencil is easy to do. But when you’re trying to touch the artwork up 100% to match the image there were many times where my character marked the wrong spot. I understand it’s probably part of the challenge but some gamers would probably prefer an option where the area the pencil marks is actually highlighted on the page.
Voxel Basics
Developed by what seems a solo developer, Color Breakers appears to have been created on a very small budget. The graphics are very basic Voxel sprites that don’t exactly stand out as particularly unique. Even when you unlock new characters they lack a lot of flairs.
The levels are basic 3D environments with your usual locations like a city centre, pirate levels and a super happy Christmas section. This easily has the best and most memorable music of the game. Considering the game is all about colouring, the actual art palette of the game doesn’t stand out as much as it feels it should. These critiques are all worth pointing out but I have to say none of this hampers the inventive and unique gameplay Color Breakers delivers.
Rough Draft
There are several additional niggles I want to cover. The pictures you are given to draw do become quite repetitive. Even on different levels, you repeat the same pictures as in previous ones. Some of the levels also feel far too random. For example one level you have to wait for ships to pass by to shoot the correct coloured pencil. On some occasions, I waited more than a minute for the darn green pencil meaning getting a high star rating was more potluck.
Finally, the game just kinda ends with no credits sequence. Just play the last level and go back and replay the past ones to get more stars I guess. I have mentioned many niggles here but I do want to stress I bring them up because this game really has the potential to be something great if it was given some more polish. Currently, it feels like a very promising start to something excellent.
Conclusion – True Colours Shining Through
Color Breakers is a very admirable first step in a new series and one of the better attempts at the cooperative genre. If you’re looking for that next co-op fix to share with friends or family I highly recommend giving this game a chance. It does have its issues, the graphics are a bit bland and some of the gameplay designs are questionable. However, this game has huge potential for the future. I would love to see this series grow and become something refined and improved. But as far as first steps go by new developers this really is a winner.
Final Verdict: I Like It
