I have created my masterpiece!

Good job completing a project for the compo. That music is baroque baby!

I don't know if it's something with Stencyl, but why can't up and down be controlled with the keyboard arrows just like left and right? It takes some getting used to.

Overall though great nostalgia for an Etch-a-Sketch. Project is consistent with the theme too.

The controls were a design decision! The original Etch-a-Sketch is infamous for it's tricky controls (with up/down on one side and left/right on the other). I decided to be true to the nostalgia and make Scrawl A Draw the same way.

Thanks for playing!

Absolutely loved the baroque song for the game. You absolutely killed it man!!

Wished the line while drawing was kind of bigger or that you could change the color of the lines. Also there seems to be a issue sometimes moving and it not drawing anything! I found it pretty frustrating at times and sadly gave up drawing my masterpiece.. :c

I to thought the controls were a little odd as well but after reading the comment above this one I think you definately made the right choice! I like the homage to the original Etch-a-Sketch however I will add that I to did find it a little odd. Maybe add an option to pick controls?

Loved it overall! Was a good project! Congrats again on finishing a compo project!

Thank you for the feedback, as well as the kind words!

I encountered that bug as well (though it was actually much worse before!). I think it is somewhat tied to performance/processing (as opposed to logic), as different machines seem to have different levels of dropout. I don't know enough about Stencyl to say for certain, though.

Really original soundtrack there :wink:

:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:

Man, going back to flash was quite the experience, I really like your take on the theme, you really start with nothing but it's not a game you'd expect to see in a jam!
It's a great mood make too, brought me back to when I was younger looking at experimental stuff like this on the web.


I love the etch-a-sketch style controls. Those things always drove me a little crazy as a kid. And the music is perfect for this :D

@gabriele Thanks! That's exactly what I was going for. I'm glad you enjoyed it. <3

@irock SWEET! Thanks for posting that. You're a much better artist than I am (the 'heart' was made by my wife, even).

@marchmain Thanks! I'm glad you like the style of music. I knew the controls would be frustrating (just like the original Etch A Sketch), so I decided to compose something interesting enough to distract and also, inspire creativity! Baroque was a natural fit (although I took some *ahem* liberty with the style to spice it up a bit).

With that elegant Bach-esque Baroque music in the background, I feel this has to be done (sorry in advance):


Great job! Enjoyed my little (ahem) 5 minutes with the game.

Cool! It's a simple idea but it works well. The music is really excellent - I can't believe it's possible to compose a whole piece like this in a weekend. Nice job.

@eugsun You are forgiven! I knew it was only a matter of time. ;)

@marhalis "I can’t believe it’s possible to compose a whole piece like this in a weekend." Thanks! I honestly couldn't believe so either. :persevere: I went one measure at a time though, and ended up very happy with it! And now, I know that it CAN be done. I won't doubt myself as much in the future.

Fun toy - this really achieved flashbacks to my youth. I was tempted to do what I did with Etch a Sketch and try to color the whole screen purple, but I must be fusty now that I'm old and lacked the initiative. The music was great - I love the harpsichord and all the ornaments. Very neat.

@dob Thank you for playing, and for the kind words. <3 I'm glad you could connect it with your childhood. It's hard to imagine much better feedback than that!

What a zen experience.
I drew my zz plant :)


@zillix Thank you for posting it. <3 You seem to have mastered the controls. I am envious!

pretty great to have an online Etch A Sketch

@cobear25 Glad you like it! I'll keep the link up indefinitely, if you ever need to relax and draw something. :wink:

Will you be making more games like this in the future?

Some Dragon / Monster Thingy. Propably spend too much time with your game :D


@nachtwitch Maybe? I spend most of my time making music, but if I have time during a game jam weekend, I like to try to work at least a little bit in something like Stencyl/Unity. I don't have the time to devote to fully making games, though. Music is my life!

@pilarius AWESOME! That's adorable. Thanks for sharing it with me. :heart:

"Propably spend too much time with your game :D"

What?! Nonsense! I don't believe any person can spend "too much time" drawing/painting/singing/dancing/etc. Creativity is a fundamental part of being alive. If it brings you joy, that's all that matters.

great job for completing project

" If it brings you joy, that’s all that matters." a-freakin-men, great work and message!

That's some great music!

Very nicely done. Audio is a bit much after a while but this is a lovely entry. Well done!

Fantastic music. May I ask what your workflow is like for composing a piece like that?

@terribly-awesome-games As this was a game jam, and I was pressed for time, my workflow was pretty much just: improv on my keyboard. :sweat_smile: I noodled around a bit to come up with the main theme/motifs (first four measures), then recorded it into MIDI. After that, I basically just went measure by measure, adding the kind of motion/harmony that I thought would be appropriate by recording each measure, then making adjustments by hand if I needed to.

Occasionally, I'd have to stop and think through things like voice-leading ("Oops! That's a direct octave") or harmony ("Wait a sec, what key am I in? How the hell am I going to get back to Gmin?!"). A lot of that kind of thing comes naturally to me now after having studied/played/written music for so long. I used a lot of suspensions/fourth-species, because they're *ahem* relatively easy to use, sound great, and helped to 'slow down' the music after some of the very 'active' passages.

To keep the entire song familiar (and not be TOO confusing/jarring), I started off with a strong theme that I knew I could use again and again, then simply brought it back, in different keys, at different times, with different rhythms/notes. One of the ways to make interesting music seems to be balancing contrasts, and that's a lot of what I 'thought about.' E.g., I started in a minor key, so I wanted to make sure to have a strong secondary theme in major. I started in simple duple (4/4 or 2/4), then at some point moved to compound duple (6/8 or 12/8). I had sections that are slow followed by sections that are fast, sections with long notes followed by sections with short notes.

I knew that I wanted to have a basic ABA' sort of structure, and I knew I could get away with having a crazy long development (B) so long as the expo+recap (A+A') was pretty solid. I started the recap off by returning to the main theme in MAJOR, which is uncommon but not unusual, then I basically just wrapped it back around to the beginning to get it feeling as seamless as possible.

A lot of the weird key changes ('modulation') that I accomplished were due to using very strong 'dominant pedals', which is basically just a V -> I/i. I used a lot of leading tones as non-chord tones (primarily neighbor tones) to set up the movement, then reinforced them through longer phrases to emphasize the pedal. Dominant sevens helped a lot too.

It may seem like a lot, but this kind of stuff is pretty much all I ever do or think about anymore. I play piano and practice musicianship and ear training every day specifically so that I don't have to 'think about' this kind of stuff when I'm composing, so a lot of it happens by reflex.

Great idea, took me back to doing Etch-a-sketches as a kid! The style and music really help tie the whole game together.

Really really liked the music and the Etch-a-sketch feel is kinda nice though sometimes it would stop placing new pixels until I changed direction. Still enjoyed it though.

Now you just need to add sensor support so I could shake my laptop to clear the screen :P

Good job!

Silly but fun

I'm just as bad at this as i am at regular etch-a-sketch - love it though :D

Simple, but beautiful:

Pretty cool that you made game like etch a sketch and it's awesome we can draw whatever. I think it would have been nice for there to be a reset button.

Nice BGM, although SFX are missing and that did take away from the sound quite a bit.

With all due respect, I think having awkward controls is a questionable way of imposing difficulty/interest. Sure games like QWOP get away with it, but here it feels quite artificial.

The music was really awesome!

The game itself would have been a much more relaxing and pleasant experience, if the cursor did drew the whole time. But as already mentioned by other people it didn't do that quite often which is quite frustrating.

After a minute I stopped drawing and just listened to the music (still doing while writing the review :D)


The music is definitely the highlight.


Btw: On my german keyboard the z and x keys are actually quite far away from each other which did make it even a bit more awkward for me ;)

Really good music. But unfortunately I'm not the best at drawing, so I don't have much to show for my time playing around with it.

I call this one "Ottoman mountain climbing".


So strange I'm giving you bad rating on graphics because I can't draw! Just kidding! :laughing:

Thanks for the fun toy!

I was always terrible with the etch a sketch, but this entry was great. A cool take on the theme. Good job!