I picked Let’s Draw! off the list of available games for review because I have an 8-year-old niece that loves to draw; she doesn’t follow directions too well, as we were to see, but she loves to draw. I handed the DS to her without the instruction booklet to see if the game was written for little kids or if an adult would be required to help.

She powered up the DS, selected English out of a choice of English, French and Spanish, selected “Learn to Draw,” and a pleasant voice read her selection and provided directions on what she could do: “Choose one” of 12 icons representing the subject matter. Touching any of the icons showed what it was on the upper screen, and the same pleasant female voice intoned the subject, which ranged from vehicles to dinosaurs to bugs to sea life. After selecting one, we were again shown a screen of icons asking what we wanted to draw. Selecting each showed us a picture and the name pronounced clearly. Once we picked one and touched OK, we were shown how to draw with the stylus with proper demonstration and voice over, as well as a line of text.

That was when she decided to do free drawing instead of what she had chosen, tapping the arrow when she was done to get through the instructions.

“Draw a circle for the head and smaller circles for the ears,” she was told when she chose to draw a panda, the upper screen showing the motions and lines with a stylus. She drew a butterfly. Added flowers. Then she colored it in as instructed and hit the arrow again. “You did it!” The voice exulted, placing her butterfly and flowers into a background with an elephant and a giraffe, where they moved around as if it was a panda. Finally, she saved it.

I took the DS away from her, took the game back to the menu and showed her that if she wanted to do free drawing, she could do it on the Sketchbook. Chagrined, she decided to show me that she could indeed follow instructions and drew a credible rabbit, then drew a T-Rex but added flames from its mouth and turned it into a dragon roasting marshmallows over a campfire with a rabbit on the other side of the campfire with its own branch of marshmallows.

Her younger brother had decided to investigate by then and demanded to try out the new game. The moment the DS got into his hands, he found the minigames. “Whack-a-mole!” I heard the voice intone. “Animal Race!” “Air Hockey!” The instructions were also given by voice over, then “Ready, Set, Go!” and the game started. The kids spent the rest of the day trying to beat each other in minigames. Even I was challenged to get a gold medal in Popping Balloons. So much for the drawing!

Let’s Draw! by Majesco is a actually a credible piece of art software directed at teaching kids how to draw, with simple directions that kids can follow easily, without need for adult supervision — even kids who are not reading yet — as long as the adult can get them into the right area and show them the “back” and “OK” buttons. There are 12 subjects, each with five to 12 different drawings. For example, dinosaurs had a tyrannosaurus, brachiosaurus, triceratops, stegosaurus and pteranodon. There were 12 different animals, such as dog, cat, chicken and squirrel, and 10 big animals, such as panda, lion, elephant and giraffe.

The coloring template provides 12 colors via marker-shaped icons and four different tools: a thin pen, a thick pen, a crayon and an eraser — each represented by a recognizable icon. Instead of flood fill, you actually have to make the coloring motions — a feature I thoroughly approve of.

There are 12 slots to save pictures drawn, and each picture can be edited or erased manually with the eraser tool or saved over. It teaches kids the basics of drawing, with basic shapes, and actually, one of the subject matters is basic shapes, and these range from triangles to squiggly lines.

There are 10 minigames, and some of them like Whack-a-Mole, Animal Race, Car Race and Jumping Dolphins each have a “draw” feature, which allows the child to draw up to four of his own creations and use them in the game. The Paper Airplane game makes use of the microphone on the DS. The harder you blow, the higher it flies.

The child not following directions is something else altogether and not something that simple software like this is capable of handling. I left my DS with the kids for the weekend, and when I got it back, I found a total of six drawings saved and a cat drawn for the animal race. Someone drew a brachiosaur and train! I wonder who did those. Now if only there were software for cursive handwriting ... I can wish.