Drawing Games

Drawing games let you create with the mouse or a finger: paint graffiti, make a mandala, connect dots or draw a line to solve a challenge. There are about 70, all free and with nothing to download.

What you'll find

• Free creating: Graffiti Maker, Mandala Maker Online, Magic Pen or Cute Little Dragon Creator.
• Draw and guess: Pinturillo 2 and Pintamonas.
• Connect the dots and trace: Connect the Dots, Point to Point Happy Animals, One Line Draw or Symmetrical Drawings.
• Drawing puzzles to solve: Draw the Rest, DOP Draw One Part, Draw a Pig or Delete Puzzle Erase One Part.
• Drawing to make something work: Draw Race 3D, Rope Car or Draw Car Fight.

Three ways to draw

Not all of them ask for the same thing. In the creating games, like Graffiti Maker or Mandala Maker, there's no goal: you draw and that's it. In the puzzle ones, like Draw the Rest or DOP Draw One Part, the game asks for something specific: finish what's missing, erase a part or trace a path. And in the ones where you draw to play, like Draw Race 3D or Rope Car, what you draw is then used in the game, so the drawing doesn't have to be pretty, just useful.

For parents

With small children, connect-the-dots games like Connect the Dots are the best start: they have a guide and they build hand control. The free-creation ones suit kids who already enjoy making things up, and the puzzle ones are for older kids. Tracing is harder with a mouse than with a finger, so a tablet is a good way to begin.

Tips

In the challenges where you complete or erase parts of the picture, look first at what's missing: the clue is almost always in some detail of the drawing itself. If the game lets you undo, use it without worry. When you trace a path, draw calmly and in one go. Jittery strokes usually come out worse than slow ones.