It’s not often I get to play a game that’s genuinely not sophisticated enough for me, but at last I’ve found one in Crayola Treasure Adventures! It says 3+ on the box but realistically I think it’s aimed at a narrow demographic; the real tinytot DS-ers out there, 4-7 year olds (at least I hope it is). The game has a simple adventure mode which tells a story in speech bubbles (so being able to read helps) and has a mini game that needs you to be able to count to 10, so I was just about okay.

It’s all very jolly, colourful and bright, and controls simply and easily. Even changing your crayon or felt tip to one of the huge selection of colours is a simple couple of taps of the stylus. Thankfully the game is designed specifically with the DS in mind, so nearly everything is done with the stylus. The colouring has a very clever system which means that you only colour in the area in which the stylus was first placed, so as long as the tip stays in contact you literally can’t go over the lines and mess it up. Rubbing out can be done in the same way, and changing the colour in a picture is simple too. It’s a bit of a shame you can’t save any pictures though, all you can do is quit back to the main menu once you’ve finished a picture, and I can see a kiddy or two being disappointed that they couldn’t save it to show Mum or Dad. Fortunately pictures can be coloured in really quickly once you have the hang of it, so this isn’t too much of an issue.

Crayola Treasure Adventures refreshingly fills a niche for the real li’l DS gamers out there, I’m just not sure how many of them there really are, or how many DS owning Mums or Dads would actually let their sticky-fingered babies within bargepole distance of their DS...