Adventure Gamers - Forums

Completed the game as well. The ending finally connects this game to the previous ones, but I still wonder about who exactly our character is supposed to be. We’ve basically saved the world twice yet have nothing to show for it...

Was stumped early on in this part, because it took me a REALLY long time to realize that I was supposed to put the charred stick on fire like a torch - I kept thinking we’d use it as a charcoal pencil...

@Tim: What was the hard puzzle in this section? None of them were particularly hard to me (I felt like I could solve them from the get-go, even though some took quite a long time and quite a few steps for me to complete).

I missed 4 achievements (well, actually 5 - I only found 25 out of 27 hogs but then used the strategy guide to track down the last two to get the achievement):
• Bee Careful – Fill up the Hunny Jar without wasting a single drop.
• No Sneak Peeks – Light up all 19 tabs on the eye puzzle.
• Fairway Fever – Trigger 6 objects in Croquet.
• That was Murder – Solve the ferry door puzzle (Raven Door) in under 10 moves.

As has been said before: this game felt more stand-alone than the other two, and playing them so short after each other makes this one feel a little repetitive, but frankly, all 3 games are of the same quality to me.
I’d even go so far as saying that the first two games when combined are better than both parts individually.

Makes me give all 3 games 3 stars, with the Drawn1+2 combo getting 3.5 instead.

I just finished the game.

I quite liked this last part, there was a lot good puzzles that were neither too hard or too easy, in fact come to think of it, I wouldn’t have minded if there had been one really hard puzzle here at the end. The puzzle that probably took me the longest and also the one I liked best, was the beetle/flower.

Apart from that, then I’m not really sure what to say, or how I fell about these three games. They had some nice and also challenging puzzles which I really like, and the graphics especially here in the last game, was also good, but the story both generally in all three but especially in this one last one, never really did anything for me.

TimovieMan - 30 March 2015 06:47 AM

I missed 4 achievements

The SE version, which I have been playing, doesn’t seem to have achievements, so… I guess you could say that I got them all

The puzzle I thought was the hardest was the Beetle puzzle.

There were something quite unusual about this game. And this applies to both casual and standard adventures. Usually, when you pick up an inventory item you use it quite soon. In this game both the honey pot and the raven sketch are used loooong after you acquired them. In the case of the sketch, it is acquired in the first or second scene in the game and isn’t used until the very end of the game.

An interesting metaphysical question is whether any of the three games are “real”? Or did they all take place inside a painting created by Franklin when he was a boy. Because,in the end, the boy is creating/painting a world where he will find Iris and her family.

rtrooney - 30 March 2015 10:58 AM

An interesting metaphysical question is whether any of the three games are “real”? Or did they all take place inside a painting created by Franklin when he was a boy. Because,in the end, the boy is creating/painting a world where he will find Iris and her family.

I thought that as well during the ending cutscene. Yes, they all took place inside a painting (the first two games even inside a painting-within-a-painting).
Makes me wonder even more about who WE were supposed to be, what our role was within these paintings…




Side note: among the extras in the game, there’s a “World of Drawn” screen, which features a wall with three paintings (one for each game in the trilogy), and an outline for a fourth painting.
Is there or was there ever a fourth game planned? Or does it have a book or something else in another medium?

rtrooney - 30 March 2015 10:58 AM

An interesting metaphysical question is whether any of the three games are “real”? Or did they all take place inside a painting created by Franklin when he was a boy. Because,in the end, the boy is creating/painting a world where he will find Iris and her family.

To be quite honest, I never really thought much about the ending, before you mentioned it. I of course recognized that the paining at the end, is of the tower from the first game, but I never really thought twice about it, which I probably should have done

It does seem like the boy (Franklin) not only painted the places where the first two games took place, but that he also created Iris herself and every single character in the kingdom, which by definition means that Franklin is God!

If we look at the first two games, then Iris also created paintings that had characters within them, but these weren’t “real people” but more cartoonish like a talking scarecrow etc. So it seems that Franklin’s powers goes far beyond the powers of Iris, which makes me wonder why it was Franklin that was turned to stone in the first game, and why it was Iris and not Franklin that the evil king feared in the two first games? Especially if the evil king is the same character as the evil sorcerer in the third game, but perhaps he isn’t, perhaps the evil king is a result of the evil sorcerer forcing Franklin to paint with evil shadow paint?

Perhaps more importantly is that it turns out that the first two games were actually taking place inside a painting created by Franklin, and from inside that painting we accessed other paintings, and at least theoretical those paintings could also contain other paintings created by someone Iris had created. This of course also means that the third game might be taking place inside a painting created by someone else, who had also painted Franklin, who painted Iris, who painted ...

It is like two mirrors placed opposite of each other, with endless reflections of themselves in each direction, or a The Thirteenth Floor situation.

But it goes even further that this, the game is of course in itself another layer of simulation or if you will, a painting that contains the other paintings within the game, and as we all know, the statistical chance that we ourselves are “real” and not just some kind simulation or “characters in a painting” are infinitely small ...


I’m not sure the creators of this game intended to go this far or as much meta as I just did, but it is an interesting thought nevertheless.

TimovieMan - 31 March 2015 06:59 AM

Makes me wonder even more about who WE were supposed to be

Douglas Hall!

I’m not sure the creators of the three games ever intended the discussion to go down this road.

If Franklin was/is God, then his death in between the first and second game doesn’t really need an explanation. People familiar with the Christian faith are familiar with the concept of the Trinity. One member of the Trinity did, in fact, die, yet continued to provide guidance after death.

Not that I want this to become a “End of Gabe 3-type discussion,” but it’s interesting.

I’m reminded of Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day. The character played by Andie MacDowell responds to Murray’s statement that he is a God. To which he asks her “How do you know? Maybe I’ve just been around so long that I know everything.” Or something to that effect. Neither Murray nor Franklin look like God. But how do we know?

As to Timovieman’s question about who are WE ... If you extrapolate from Franklin being God, then we are probably the equivalent of something like an archangel.

Iznogood - 31 March 2015 09:41 AM

So it seems that Franklin’s powers goes far beyond the powers of Iris, which makes me wonder why it was Franklin that was turned to stone in the first game, and why it was Iris and not Franklin that the evil king feared in the two first games?

I go with the theory that Franklin gave his powers to Iris, and thus ‘lost’ them himself.
That he created ‘real’ people while Iris created ‘caricatures’ can simply be explained by Franklin creating those as an adult himself and Iris still being a child (and thus less capable of truly fleshing the characters out).

TimovieMan - 31 March 2015 05:10 PM

I go with the theory that Franklin gave his powers to Iris, and thus ‘lost’ them himself.
That he created ‘real’ people while Iris created ‘caricatures’ can simply be explained by Franklin creating those as an adult himself and Iris still being a child (and thus less capable of truly fleshing the characters out).

If he created Iris, then he could just have created her with the ability, no need to pass on his own powers to Iris. Also as I see it, Franklin created the world when he was a child himself, in fact he probably didn’t directly created Iris, but instead created her parents, who then created Iris .. the way children are normally created.

It also raises another question, does Iris and everyone else realise that they are living inside a painting, or do they believe it is the “real” world?


Anyway I just realised that there is an alternative ending to this game!
If we at the archer puzzle miss the birds 15 times in a row (30 on easy mode), then we are overpowered by the shadows and loose the game

Iznogood - 01 April 2015 08:06 AM

It also raises another question, does Iris and everyone else realise that they are living inside a painting, or do they believe it is the “real” world?

I highly doubt it. If a people have lived their entire lives inside a painting, with nothing to compare their lives to, then what they are experiencing is “real.”

It’s interesting that in the first two games Franklin maintains a dialog with Iris via notes and letters. That’s a difficult charade to keep up for a long period of time.

To me, this was the creepiest scene in the game.

In game one we successfully succeeded in saving the exiled Iris. (Albeit an exile from a fantasy kingdom, as we learned later.) And we can also suppose that the evil King and his Wizard were also fantasies, although not to Iris. In hindsight, Franklin could have done away with them as easily as he created them. The painting within a painting within a painting motif is considerably more complex that we originally thought. For example, we all talked about whether the dragon in the painting was free to roam outside of its environment. At that time we were unaware of how the Drawn world was constructed.

In game two Iris has escaped to the city outside the tower, and our objective is to restore her to her rightful position on the throne. We are aided by the voice of Franklin, who we believe to be dead. But, in hindsight again, we now know he was not. While we felt he was dead throughout the game, we know he was a master of shape shifting. Would it not be impossible for characters he created to have the power to kill their creator? It is apparent in this game that all the characters, human or otherwise, believe they are living in a “real” world. And, while we achieve our objective of returning Iris to her throne, it’s also quite sad because, unless Franklin creates a whole new cast of characters for her to rule, this last smile of Iris as the ruler of her kingdom, is her last smile.

We know all of this because in game three we follow Franklin through a much more elemental world. One he created in his youth. The graphics are much more vibrant. While we don’t know for sure what it was, Franklin’s world became much more bleak as he entered adulthood. His paintings of talking trees and such were much more exuberant than the ones he created later. But game three does bring all games full circle. We now understand that we have not been playing these games in a “fantastical” world, but in a fantasy world.

Two questions remain for me: Who, or what is Franklin? If not the God, is he a god? And if neither, then what? The second question is the one posed by Timovieman which is who are WE? Are we an acolyte of the god, or something else?

Regarding the possibility of a fourth game, it would first require a Big Fish Studio to create it. As Becky pointed out, that may no longer be there. But if it is, I think a fourth game must come from within the other three. It’s not like Kate finding her way out of Syberia. Personal opinion is that Franklin would have to go back and create a Kingdom for Iris to rule. Maybe create someone she would marry, and thus have children of her own. And, in that way, create a fantasy world for Iris that would be self-sustaining…even if she never knew it was a fantasy.

I don’t know whether these questions will be answered. But I sure enjoyed playing the Drawn Trilogy with everyone. My thanks to Sefir and Lady K for leading the first two games while leaving the easy one for me.

I played through the garden and stopped for a while, mostly to check the thread and write down some things before finishing the whole game.

I was lost in the garden for a while . I did not notice the two hotspots behind the leaf sculpture animals. I also spent a ton of time trying to find all the leaves for the crown, that was probably the most annoying puzzle. I loved painting the eggs, the most fun puzzle in a while. And so suitable on my Easter holiday, har har. Croquet wasn’t bad at all either, though I eventually lost with 1 hit, because some stupid messing up in the middle. The eye closing puzzle was probably my second favourite after the egg painting.

The slightly moving backgrounds felt a bit disorienting first, I’m not sure if it adds anything to the game. But I guess they don’t hurt. I’m hoping for some reveal that will tie the player to the plot.

Everything looks and sounds great like always.

I finished and liked the whole inception angle. To me, it’s still a bit unclear how much the boy (I guess it was Franklin, yeah, though he doesn’t admit it himself) or Iris can change things after they are created. In a way one could think they are only creators and then everything happens without their control, but they must be able to do some things as why else would the bad guys want them to draw away things, or was it just to draw new shadowy things?

Like many others, I wish there was something more to the story still, especially the player’s role. Could’ve at least been a mention how we ourselves were drawn there to help.

I didn’t check out any bonus material, I only had the standard versions of the game. Was there something worth checking out?

From the puzzles, I liked the beetle one, it was fun. I never figured out what was going on with the Raven door as it popped open after I randomly clicked it a few times.