Right, sorry parents that proudly put their kids’ borderline impressionist drawings on the fridge, there’s a new bare minimum you have to meet. If you’re not turning your child’s drawings into full on video games, then I’m sorry to say you’re not doing a good enough job. This doesn’t apply to Artur Latkovsky, though, who is quite literally doing that with his game Odd Dorable (I’m sure I don’t need to explain the name to you), a game where every single bit of art in the game was made by his four-year-old daughter.
Now, here’s the thing: the art is very obviously something drawn by a four-year-old. You’re not going to boot Odd Dorable up and think “wow, she’s only four and she drew this?” It so clearly was! And yet, it is immediately, infinitely charming because it is raw, unfiltered art made by someone that doesn’t have any preconceived notions of, well, presumably just about most things.
I am working on a game made from my daughter’s drawings
byu/acem13 inindiegames
Latkovsky describes it as an “open-world exploration, puzzle game” where you have to help a princess find all her lost candies. I can’t quite tell you what those puzzles will be like, details are pretty light, but given the involvement of a literal child in the developmental process, I’m going to assume they’re not going to be all that complicated.
The real hook here is the improvisational nature of it all. Latkovsky explained in a Reddit post that he even tries to get art drawn by his daughter on concrete into the game. Another example is that his daughter drew a dinosaur with fairy wings who is guarding a space rocket, so of course that gets added in. I mean, isn’t this every child’s dream? To tell someone all of the ridiculous ideas you have and they make them real? Good stuff, even if the kid is technically being paid in candies according to Latkovsky.
It’ll also be quite a short game, capping out at around an hour, purposefully designed to be “digestible”, so don’t expect too much from it when it apparently arrives in September this year. You can wishlist it on Steam here if you’re as charmed as I am.
