Do Some Lines In This One Line Coloring Review

One Line Coloring sounds very much like a one-trick pony: connect a series of dots in one consecutive line without repeating a direction, and it’ll colour in and bring to life a 3D object to place in a dynamic scene. Sounds simple, right? 

Well, duh. It’s basically dot-to-dots that we used to do as kids, only there’s a couple of notable differences. First of all, it’s not always obvious where to start, some lines can only go in one direction, but most importantly, it’s a lot more fun than its counterpart.

For the first couple of objects you attempt to bring to life, you’ll connect those dots with such grace, people would pay to watch on a stream. However, completing a puzzle in less than 20 seconds triggers some doubt whether there’s any longevity in the game. Is it all this easy? Then you get to the more complex puzzles.

One Line Coloring Review

One Line Coloring, from MythicOwl, is challenging. A dot-to-dot puzzle naturally sounds like child play, and with the vibrant palette and scenes, you’d think it might be aimed at kids. While mine are more than capable of playing it, creating a strategy for each object was a bit out of their reach without the odd whinge that it’s impossible.

You’ll start at the top of an item, then try to speed through it to show how smart you are, then when there’s a line or two left, you realise you’ve ballsed up. Bugger, that’s going to affect my time. The time aspect isn’t that important and totally optional, but it’s a fun incentive to try and complete the puzzles swiftly, but it’s not always obvious. Before long, you’ll be planning out your attack as if playing a game of chess – 10 moves ahead.

For each mistake you make, you can undo it with the right mouse button, all the way back to the start if needs be. Alternatively, it’s possible to exit from that object and come back to it while tackling another. There are over a half dozen scenes and 100s of things, but only the first two stages are unlocked. This was a good decision as it’s much more rewarding to open a new setting and go through each item methodically.

Poly Wants A Cracker

The visuals in One Line Coloring are all low poly, and once you colour in each one, the object is added to the scene, and everything looks rather lovely. The soundtrack was a highlight and complimented the casual/chill feeling it projected. While I wasn’t remotely frustrated with it, it might be a bit more taxing than one would expect – especially if you seek out achievements, as the timer comes into play here.

It feels like anything else added to this One Line Coloring review will be filler for the sake of it. There aren’t any modes or storyline – complete a series of more complex objects to add to a moving picture, and that’s more or less it. But that’s all you need, and it ticks every box for a satisfying puzzle game for all ages, albeit younger players may struggle with some of the objects.

Thoroughly chill, and lots of fun. For the price on Steam, you can’t go wrong. Well, unless that money was for your bus fare to school/work tomorrow…