LAYERCAKE

The village pictured above is where the story begins. The scene begins inside the creaton hall, where you learn almost everyone has left the village due to the darkness. The creator gets to respond, telling Mari they have heard her cries and will provide a hero to rescue the village from darkness. Mari leaves to gather the remaining villagers (Jowee and her dad, the mayor of the village). After waking Jowee, you meet the Mayor by the village gate, who discusses with Isaac in an attempt to get him to stay… however this doesn't work and they end up leaving anyway. Mari and Jowee believe in giving the creator a chance to return to them, but the mayor states the villagers are whats important given the fact that the creator has already abandoned them for years. Mari and Jowee travel to the creation hall themselves, since everyone else has left or abandoned hope.

Once they get to the creation hall, the door is still sealed, so Mari asks the creator to tap it, to unseal the door. Inside, the creator tells them to walk over to the wooden mannequin, so you can create a hero to save the village. The creator gives the mannequin colour and movement, taking the player to the draw screen to create their own hero to play as or use a pre-existing template. You then get to name the hero, which is what they will be refered to. For the rest of this shrine, however, they will be named the hero or simply "hero", for simplicities sake. Upon leaving the creation hall, they hear the calls of Cindi, Isaac's daughter, asking for her mother. The hero finds her, and they all meet at the village entrance to go search the Snow Fields for Cindi's parents. They then bump into the series villain, Wilfre, the series antagonist. After monologuing to discourage the heroes, Wilfre then leaves and covers the enterance in darkness behind him, so the group can't get past. This then directs the hero to the Snow Gate to continue their journey.

Other Noteable Areas

Isaac's shop

Isaac's shop is cleared from darkness after rescuing Isaac, but doesn't open until you clear the Banya Fields level, after the snowball fight. It is located in the southern section of the village, a little east of the village entrance. Here you can buy colour palletes to further improve your creations, as well as music, minigames, stamps and ability moves. Often times, things to unlock in the shops can be found throughout the levels alongside the standard raposa to rescue and templates to collect. Once you've gotten them, you can then purchase them from the shop using rapo-coins. Below shows what the shop GUI looks like:

Wishing Well

If I had 10,000 Rapo coins, I would just throw them all in the well!
...Maybe something fun would happen!

- Mari

The wishing well is a well in the southern most area of the village, and upon throwing coins in you can get a various amount of rewards, as well as it often giving back five times the amount of money throwed in. Throwing coins in can unlock various prizes such as extra lives, colour palletes, stamps etc. Mari's hint, quoted above, about throwing 10,000 coins in refers to how if you put in that max amount, you can unlock access to the Developers Grove or the Secret Village. This is a place accessed from within the fountain that the developers each have characters in as an extra bonus. However, once this is unlocked, the hero can't drop anymore coins within the well.

The snow gate is the first realm you explore and is located in the south-western segment of the village. Each level has pages of the book of life that you collect to open the gate at the end and progress onwards. These help return the creations that the creator made to the village, where you get to draw them in and create them once again. As well as this, you also save the villagers that left the village and got caught amongst the shadow, which you can clean away with the stylus.

the levels

Not pictured, yet the very first level is the 'snow fields', which serves as an introduction level in drawn to life. this level is where you rescue the mayor of the village as well as learn the game mechanics (such as clearing away the shadow goo, saving raposa and collecting rapo-coins - the in world currency).

mt snowy

The first actual level is Mt. Snowy, which has a lot of slopes and hills that are fun to slide around on as well as use to hit enemies, much like in a mario level. Near the end of the level there are avalanches which cause big snow balls to roll down that you need to avoid so you don't get hurt. This level is where you rescue isaac and his family, as well as collect the pages to make the eternal flame template! Upon them being returned to the village, Jowee asks what is up about the antagnoist, Wilfre, of which the Mayor recounts Wilfre's story. Wilfre was a popular member of the village, often held in high regard by those around him. He quesioned why he couldn't design his own creations in the book of life, and why it was only the creator who could do so. He eventually sneaks into the creationo hall and steals the book of life, taking it back to his house and drawing inside of it.. however, all of his creations were made from the darkness seen throughout the game. Upon confrontation, Wilfre runs off, and out of fury rips up pages of the book of life and tosses them into the wind. He then fled the village. The creator, grieving this loss, ends up shutting the creation hall. The moon and stars fade away and eventually the eternal flame goes out. This leads to shadow creeping across the town and villagers leaving to find new homes, which ends up leading to the point where the creator returns once again at the start of the game. This then introduces the need to collect the pages to help restore the town again, which is seen through the restoration of the eternal flame template, which leads you able to clear the darkness from the area surrounding Isaac's shop.

snow caves

Once Isaac and his family are rescued and returned to the village and get settled in, the mayor remakes how vibrant the village once was when the sun was there and supposes that with the return of the sun, more villagers may come back. This leads you to travel to the Snow Caves to get the sun template. Before you are about to leave through the snow gate, Jowee asks if you could take him along, though you go straight into the gate without providing an answer. The Snow Caves level has both underground and above ground sections. I really enjoyed swimming around in a submarine of my own design (well.. to an extent.. it's mainly just coloured in) and trying not to fall into the water. During this level, you resuce Farmer Brown and his family, along the way, who on return remarks they shouldn't have left. Once they leave, Jowee inquires about the mission, eventually asking once again if he can be taken with the hero, only to be swiftly ignored. As you get back to the village hall, you're able to colour in the sun page to make a new sun for the village! You then get to clear the darkness from around Farmer Brown's farm.

banya fields

After looking around his home for banya seeds to plant now that his farm is free from darkness, Farmer Brown and his family realize that there isn't any. This leads to the Hero being tasked with going to Banya Fields to gather the banya stalk template. Banya Fields is another hilly level within drawn to life, it also introduces vines which grow and can be used to take you to higher places within the level. There's also banya throughout this level, so you can see what it looks like before the colour was taken from the village. In this level, you resuce Chef Cookie and his assistants. Returning them to the village, it is Mari who greets you at the end of the level. She remarks that the snow is starting to melt in the village as well as asking how your journey was. As you go to the village hall to see the mayor, you can see patches of the green grass showing from the melting snow. Here you get to create the new banya stalk which is planted in the farm. You then get to clear Chef Cookie's resturaunt from the darkness from around his resturaunt, as well as create a new sign for Cookie's resturaunt (with the prompt "Design a terrible sign for Cookie's resturaunt"). After doing so, you're asked to find Jowee, who you can see throwing a snowball at Mari. This then leads to the snowball fight minigame, which after completetion is available at Isaac's shop, as well as his shop becoming available now.

icy lake

While it was good the sun returned to the village, the heat was drying out the crops and making raposa in the village act erratically, such as chasing Mari for an unexplained reason. Mari suggests the creator goes out to get the raincloud page, as the main problem isn't the sun, but the endless break from it. This is the last level before the boss and as the name implies, it is a water heavy level. In this level, you rescue Tubba and his family. Upon returning to the village, you get to go to the village hall and create some menacing looking rain clouds, as well as pick a colour for the rain drops to be. After this you go to the creation hall to find Mari, who has discovered a diary that all of the previous mayors of the village have written in before the creation hall was sealed. Finding this book gives the Mayor a chance to write down his story, of which he didn't think he'd have the chance. The Mayor then tells Mari that she will start her training to become the eigth and next mayor of the village, following in his footsteps as his daughter. He then states they'll hold a festival soon to celebrate, which is a village tradition.

Frostwind

After Mari leaves the hall, you're tasked with finding her once more where you can hear her talking with Jowee. She mentions having a talk with the Mayor, while Jowee mentions how he's asked the Hero to take him along on an adventure. As they are talking, Wilfre walks out from the shadows stating his aim to get the book of life and then announcing he has a surprise for the village, as well as warning Mari he will be back for her dad, before taking his leave. The earth then begins to shake, and you're tasked with speaking to the Mayor to find out what is happening. It turns out Frostwind is awake. Frostwind is an ancient dragon who's roar you can hear from the village, according to legend he rests on snowy-snow mountain, near icy lake (although in the dialogue the lake is named "snow lake", due to an assumed unchanged name). As the hero, you're tasked to head to the mountain and take down this dragon once and for all! Once you do so, you rescue the trapped raposa, Heather, who throughout the battle gives you healing items at the last section of the battle to assist you.

key villagers saved

key villagers do not include characters who use the generic npc sprites

Isaac

Farmer Brown

Tubba

Heather

pages recovered

This only covers main pages of the book of life that alter the village area, and does not include places drawings that are made to help you progress from within the levels.

Eternal flame - from Mt. Snowy

Sun - from Snow Caves

Banya - from Banya Fields

Rain cloud - from Icy Lake

After clearing the easter side of the village, it's noted that the lack of break from the sun means the villagers can't rest. This leads to discussion of the hero getting the night sky page which is held within the forest gate, as well as discussions of the village festival. Farmer Brown and Isaac both hint at their gifts for Mari for the village festival, to celebrate her mayor training. As you head to the forest gate, you can hear Jowee talk about how he wants to get Mari a flower from twilite wood, so he goes into the forest gate.

the levels

Twilite wood

After Jowee goes into the forest gate, the hero runs back to inform both the mayor and Mari of him going inside there. Before you follow him to rescue him, the mayor finds the template for wings, to help you navigate Twilite Wood easier, as it stretches up high. You then take your snowshooter that you used in the snow gate to Isaac, who upgrades it into an acornblaster, which users acorns as ammo instead. Like other creations, you get to design this one, too. Just as you're about to leave, Mari makes you promise that you'll bring Jowee back. Twilight Wood as a level itself introduces the beautiful colour palette of the forest gate, with pinks and blues stretching as far as the eye can see. Along with collection the night sky template and getting Jowee back home, you also rescue Zsasha and two other raposa. As you meet Jowee again near the end of the level you're asked to colour in the flower that Jowee picks for Mari. Upon returning to the village, Jowee seems enthusiastic now getting an adventure. As you go talk to the mayor, you can watch the villagers respond with enthusiasm upon seeing his return, wanting to hear his stories. You then get to colour in thr night sky page, to finally bring night to the village.

moon grove

With the newly returned night sky came crimes under the guise of darkness, you watch as the raposa you rescued, Zsasha, sneaks out frm the forest gate and runs across the village, stealing various things from the villagers, including the flower Jowee got for Mari. As Jowee later goes in his house to get the flower to show to Heather, he spots that the flower is missing, and rushes to the village hall to tell the Mayor. You are then tasked to go around and see if other villagers are missing anything. Despite things being missing, the night sky is simply too dark without any light. This leads you to be tasked with going to Moon Grove to get the Moon template, so you can figure out who has been stealing the villagers things. In this level there's a space section where you can design your rocket and use it to defeat the space baki from across the sky! I find this the most fun part of the level!! Throughout this level, you can also resuce the police watchman, Cricket, and his deputys. Upon their return, you're able to place the moon template in the book of life and draw the moon. Now, under the light, you're able to see more at night, which allows for the investigation to begin. The hero speaks with both Farmer Brown and Chef Cookie, who were missing items also. When speaking to Cookie, Zsasha is lurking nearby, and you have to chase them to find out more information. Zsasha returns the Banya Seeds stolen from Farmer Brown, but vanishes before anything else can be returned and before Cricket returns. You then go look for him again, where he returns Cookie's Cutlery, but then runs off, insisting he can't be caught. After recovering these stolen items, you talk to the Mayor about this situation... and instead make moves to plan further for the upcoming village festival.

gearworks

While village festival plans are underway, the mayor points out that there is no passing time as the clock on the village hall is broken, so they can't go from night to day. With this, the hero is takes to find the clock template in Gearworks to help introduce a working day/night system. Gearworks is a level that, as the name suggests, introduces mechanics, moving platforms and switches to fit into its gear-based theme. In this level you can also rescue Navy J and his Groupies, who helps solve thie issue of needing music for the village festival. They go to see the mayor, who has you draw the clock face. Once it's done, you can see the clock on the village hall change to show your creation. After this, you're tasked with once again tapping on the eternal flame and clearing the area for the village stage, you then need to gather all the villagers as well as start the village festival. The village festival marks the start of the Mayor announcing publically that Mari's training to take his place as mayor once his time comes is beginning. During this segement, Mari leaves and Jowee follows her to give his gift… a book about whales? just kidding! as jowee is about to leave, Zsasha returns to give jowee back the real gift - the flower that was stolen before - so he can give it to Mari! After this, they all return to the village festival and dance the night away. Once the festival is over, the Mayor has you draw the hands for the village clock, so morning can come now that the festival is over!

star forest

After the village festival, the Mayor reminisces that the village once had an observatory. He then tasks you to going to star forest, to find the page for the observatory and allow the raposa to better view the night sky! This level has lots of falling aspects like falling meteors and stars that fade which you get to design, these make it really fun to traverse through the domain, especially trying not to fall down to the bottom and die haha. In this level as well as finding the observatory page, you rescue Galileo and his family. Once you get out of the level, you meet Mari outside the gate, and eventually go to clear the darkness in the east of the village to place down and colour in the observatory, with this you can click on it at any time to see the night sky you created!

Deadwood

Once you finished recovering the observatory, you run into Mari seeing Isaac and Cookie arguing by the village gate, and later run into Wilfre once again, who awakens the next boss deadwood. This boss is in the deep dark forest, and is a large tree which is possessed and corrupted by Wilfre's shadow. This is different to Frostwind, who was merely awakened and not hinted at to be possessed by Wilfre. After this battle, you rid Deadwood of the shadow, and save Samuel, a distant raposa who keeps to himself.

key villagers saved

key villagers do not include characters who use the generic npc sprites

Zsasha

Cricket

Navy J

Galileo

Samuel

pages recovered

This only covers main pages of the book of life that alter the village area, and does not include places drawings that are made to help you progress from within the levels.

Night sky - from Twilite Wood

Moon - from Moon Grove

Clock face - from Gearworks

Clock hands - from Gearworks

Observatory - from Star forest

The beach gate is located in the north-west section of the village, with the section inside showing the bright sands and cool blues within the map, perfect for a beach themed few levels. You get to this area by clearing the darkness in the northern section of the village, with the gate leading to Rapo Islands. The equipment for this section is a helmet and flippers, which allows you to dive when you need to in underwater sections. You also find a page for the starzooka on the beach, the weapon of the beach gate!

the levels

surf beach

After finishing up talking with the mayor, Farmer Brown comes over to relay that the beach is basically empty and there's not much to do there. This leads to you tasked with going to Surf Beach to recover the beach toys, namely a parasol and a beach ball. This level introduces underwater sections as well as a making hammock's that are used in the level akin to a trampoline! I also loved the coconut radio you get to create to distract the enemies, I love clicking on it and watching the enemies near by dance along to it's music. Throughout this level, you rescue Crazy Barks and two of his crew members. Don't worry as the name doesn't lie to you either, you actually do get to surf in surf beach and design your own surfboard.

kori jungle

After creating the toys for the beach, you then are asked to find Mari, who has discovered a section of the northern area still covered in the darkness, upon clearing it up, you can see a secret little beach area! Though this area is pretty.. empty as well. As the hero, you're then asked to recover the Kori Tree page from the Kori Jungle, the village once had these long ago but they disappeared over time. This level has you create tiki heads, that move across large gaps in a more circular motion, which lets you reach more areas and rescue more raposa. In this level, you save Bubba and his caretakers. Returning them to the village allows him to reunite with his brother, Tubba, who was saved in the snow gate area. Once seeing the mayor you get to drawn and plant the kori tree to add to the secret beach.

Angle Isle

After clearing a house for Tubba and Bubba to stay in from darkness, you end up showing the secret beach to Jowee, they talked for a bit and decided that you should make a statue to commemorate the progress in the village, in an attempt to unite the villagers more. This leads you to travelling to Angle Isle to collect the epic statue page. A section of this level includes making a trident, which is used to raise the water levels to progress, I think allowing you to design this adds a new dimension to the underwater sections ( or soon to be underwater sections) that make them more enjoyable and dynamic! In this level, you rescue Indee and his family. Once you're back in the village, you get to design and place the village statue, northwest from the forest gate. However.. this doesn't seem to fix any of the arguments among the villagers.

Conch Ruins

You then move to the beach, where Jowee and Indee are looking for treasure, but need you to clear more of the darkness away from the beach. Once you've done this you can see a dock and a pirate ship but the lighthouse was lost to the darkness. To fix this you're once again asked to retrieve the page for it from Conch Ruins! A main mechanic of this level is the Conch, which when you press Y on your Nintendo DS near it, rocks begin to fall, though you can only do this once and can't raise them up again with the conch! Throughout this level, you rescue Pirate beard and his crew, and once you get back you get to give life to the lighthouse once more.

Angler King

While the pirate crew are getting settled in the boat, the shadow of the Angler King, a large anglerfish which has, like Deadwood, been corrupted by Wilfre to cause havoc. The fight for the Angler King is underwaterm and he can only be damaged from projectiles from the starzooka. Once you defeat him, you rescue Count Choco.

key villagers saved

key villagers do not include characters who use the generic npc sprites

Crazy Barks

Bubba

Indee

Pirate Beard

Count choco

pages recovered

This only covers main pages of the book of life that alter the village area, and does not include places drawings that are made to help you progress from within the levels.

Beach toys - from Surf Beach

Kori tree - from Kori Jungle

Epic Statue - from Angler Isle

Lighthouse - from Conch Ruins

The City Gate is located in the **section** area of the village. With Count Choco's return to the village, he has the page for the Kaorin Bush template page from the book of life. This functions as one of the aspects of the area, with the berries from the bush allowing the hero to grow in size and navigate the city gate better.

the levels

Rapocity

Rapocity is the first level of the city gate, this is the first level where you get to have fun being taller than all the buildings on the level while searching for the Secret Door template, to give life to the door found within the village. I love the mechanic of pushing big boulders around to turn on switches as well as a moving zeppelin platform to explore with. This level has you save Mike as well as a couple other Raposa. Upon his return to the village, Mike is noted to have weird ears, which are shown to be distinct from everyone else in Raposa village. He's shown to not really know where he is, what a strange little Raposa!

Windy Hills

Once you return to the mayor, you get to colour in the secret door, the door to the hideout Wilfre is taking shelter in. When finding Mari after this task, the scene shows the beach, where Jowee and his spirit of adventure has him considering Pirate Beards offer to join his crew. Mari overhears this, but then rushes to the village hall when she realizes she forgot about the village meeting she was supposed to prepare for. Mari, doubting her ability to be mayor gets upset and rushes off, but there's no time for consoling, as you need to go to Windy Hills to get the Legendary Sword template to defeat Wilfre once and for all. This level has you crossing falling platforms and bouncing on houses to get around the levels. In this level, you rescue Unagi and his assistants

Upon his return, Unagi insists he is there to beef up security and places his assistants in different areas of the village, taking the job of Cricket pretty fast. The creator then gets to design the legendary sword, be sure to make it look super cool as it's the weapon used to defeat the final boss!

Rapo Towers

Now that you have everything, the Mayor says your ready to defeat Wilfre... but there's one more page he wants you to collect, as a personal favour. This page is one where each mayor of the village would write their name, as a way to mark their status and authority. So Mari can become the next mayor, you're asked to go to Rapo Towers and retrieve this page. Before that, however, Jowee rushes over and notes that Cricket and Unagi are fighting, so the hero is asked to bring over Mari to help the Mayor deal with the situation. However Mari states she still needs space, still reconsidering her position as the next Mayor, so you return alone. You're unable to help further, though, and asked to hurry to find the final page. As you exit into the city gate, a cutscene plays showing the Mayor and Wilfre converse, with the latter hurting the Mayor and stealing away with the book of life. Rapo Towers is a more shadowy-centric level, where you can climb up falling chairs and swing from chandeliers. In this level, you rescue Dr. Cure and her assistants.

wilfre's scorpion

While returning with the Dr, however, you find the Mayor isn't at the village hall and he's on the ground near the forest gate. Jowee rushes to get help... but they're too late, and Dr Cure isn't able to save the Mayor. Mari, in her grief, takes it out on the hero... as this is happening, creations from the village are fading due to Wilfre's influence. You then have your final mission, to enter the secret gate and defeat Wilfre once and for all. This level had you navigating to the boss, rather than jumping straight to a fight, and you have to battle Wilfre's Scorpion and then Wilfre himself. His defeat removes all the darkness from the village. As the new mayor, Mari is the one to insert the final page in the book of life, where she asks the creator (that's you!) to sign your name until she's ready to completely fulfil her duty.

The end of the game then cuts to a few of the main characters, giving an insight onto what they are doing now. You also get to talk to each of the villagers as well. Once you're done, at the secret beach you can hear Mari telling Jowee she heard about his conversation with Pirate Beard about travelling. She encourages him to go, to follow his heart and also fully accepts her position as the new mayor.

key villagers saved

key villagers do not include characters who use the generic npc sprites

Mike

Unagi

Dr. Cure

pages recovered

This only covers main pages of the book of life that alter the village area, and does not include places drawings that are made to help you progress from within the levels.

Secret Door - from
Rapocity

Legendary Sword - from
Windy Hills

This also does not include the final page which you can get from the Rapo Towers level, while it doesn't alter Raposa village, it allows the mayors of raposa village to write their name in it, and have authority over the village.