Magna Doodle

• Platform: IBM PC Compatible
• Release Date: 1999 12
• Style: Art/Paint
• Genre: Home
• Similar Games: Wacky Worlds Creativity Studio (Sega Genesis), Crayola Art Studio 2 (Hybrid Windows/Mac), Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Coloring Book (Hybrid Windows/Mac), Sesame Street: Elmo's Art Workshop (Hybrid Windows/Mac), My Own Paint Set (Hybrid Windows/Mac), Sesame Street: Create & Draw in Elmo's World (IBM PC Compatible), Kid Pix Studio Deluxe (Hybrid Windows/Mac), Buddy Brush and The Painted Playhouse (Hybrid Windows/Mac), Disney's Magic Artist Studio (Hybrid Windows/Mac), Disney's Magic Artist Classic (Hybrid Windows/Mac)

Game Description

If you have kids, or if you grew up after the late 1980s, then you have probably seen or played with Fisher Price's popular drawing toy, Magna Doodle. Using a magnet tipped pen and other magnet tools to draw magnetic shavings up to a grey screen, Magna Doodle allows young children to draw and doodle without the mess of crayons, markers, or paints.

The folks at Mattel Media have taken the idea all the way to the Windows-based PC with their 1999 CD-ROM release, Magna Doodle. Using the mouse, kids and adults can draw and print pictures based on five interactive Doodle Adventures. Once the drawing is done, Magna Doodle artists can click on one of three animation buttons to see their creations come to life.

Magna Doodle includes five Doodle Adventures with two scenes per adventure. The Doodle Adventures include an outer space quest, an underwater expedition, a roller coaster ride, a fire truck emergency, and a hot air balloon ride. To animate the adventures, Magna Doodle artists must complete all of the drawings in the adventure and then click one of the three animation buttons: slow, normal, or fast.

Magna Doodle includes 12 colors to doodle with and five drawing tools. Players can doodle with a thick pencil, a thin pencil, and eraser, a paint bucket, and a stamper. The pencil tools are for drawing thin or thick lines, the paint bucket fills an area with the selected color, the eraser erases all of an artist's work in one area, and the stamper traces and colors an area with one of three patterns. To erase a doodle, simply click on the sliding bar beneath the doodle screen.

Artists who want to save their doodle simply click on the toy chest in the lower left corner. Artists who want to print their doodles simple click on the printer icon next to the animation icons. Players who need help can click on the question mark in the top right corner of the screen and then click again on any of Magna Doodle's features.

Roots & Influences

Magna Doodle for Windows 95-based computer systems was inspired mainly by its real world plastic counterpart, Fisher Price's Magna Doodle. That toy was inspired by other toys like Etch-A-Sketch and crayons.

Bringing a drawing game to the computer was no new idea in 1999. Many people doodled with Microsoft's Paintbrush program on Windows-based PCs, while still others used Mac Paint on the Macintosh platform. These two "doodling" programs are just two of the myriad of art programs used on home computer systems in the 1980s and 1990s.

Review: Overall

Magna Doodle for Windows 95/98 could not be more disappointing. It's weak as a game. It's weak as educational software and as a representation of its real-life plastic counterpart.

Whenever I pick up a game that companies have developed for and targeted to kids, I invite my niece over to get her take on the game. She had some fun with Magna Doodle but basically shared my disappointment.

First off, Magna Doodle is nothing like the toy on which Mattel Media based it. With a real Magna Doodle, you can draw, stamp, and scribble with no boundaries or rules. With the computerized version, you are forced to trace preconceived designs that fit into the game's Doodle Adventures. Forget about freestyling. Each drawing has strict boundaries and zones.

Now, while you can scribble inside each zone, it's just not fun. It's like the software gurus at Mattel Media decided to lop off a big portion of the drawing surface simply so kids must conform to the prefabricated drawings include in the software. These strict rules suck any fun right out of Magna Doodle.

Don't get me wrong, coloring in some pictures and then seeing them animated has the potential to be cool, but being forced to stay within the lines ruins it. The Doodle Adventure is a good idea, but that is not what you do with a Magna Doodle. You draw with a Magna Doodle. You draw whatever you want on as much of the surface as you want. Magna Doodle for Windows 95 would be one thousand times better if it kept the Doodle Adventures and added a freestyle drawing feature. Then it would be a true representation of the Magna Doodle I know and love.

Graphically, Magna Doodle is fairly simple. It's designed for kids, so expectations are lower. Then animation is cheesy, but it does a good job of incorporating all of the images in each Doodle Adventure. Although you don't have much leeway when coloring in each picture, you can do things like scrawl your initials somewhere in the drawing. Your nuances get thrown into the animation, and that is at least somewhat cool.

Magna Doodle's sound is geared toward the wee ones with a narrator's voice that sounds a lot like that of Winnie the Pooh. There are a few cartoon sound effects and some light music, but that's about it. It's a drawing game, after all, so there is not going to be a lot of sound.

Overall, I was very disappointed with Magna Doodle for Windows 95. I expected a game where artists could draw whatever they wanted or play some art-related games. I got the latter but not the former, and that ruined the experience. Perhaps if this software had any other name besides Magna Doodle, it would not be so bad. As it is, it's really disappointing. If you like Magna Doodle, you will probably not like this.

Review: Enjoyment

Magna Doodle is completely unenjoyable. Mattel Media has taken a terrific toy and stripped it of any real fun.

Review: Graphics

The simple graphics are geared toward kids. They also make the animation portions of the game easier to pull off.

Review: Sound

Cartoon voices and cartoon sound effects are all that Magna Doodle can offer. There is occasional light music, but don't expect to clow any speakers while Magna Doodle is in your CD-ROM tray.

Review: Replay Value

Not only is the game so unenjoyable that I doubt you or your kids would want to play it again, there are only 50 drawings to color in the five Doodle Adventures. Getting through all 50 might take an hour.

Review: Documentation

The manual is very thin, but the game is so simple that there is not a lot to explain.

Production Credits

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magna doodle