Drawn: The Painted Tower is an amazingly gorgeous game featuring hand-painted graphics and a wonderfully moody atmosphere. The presentation is so effective, in fact, that you'll forget, or at least overlook the fact that you're playing a Hidden Object game.

You are looking for Iris, a girl who's been imprisoned in The Painted Tower, an imposing structure into which you must venture to unlock its secrets. Iris is a girl with the power to create worlds by painting them. Whatever she paints comes to life. You'll visit many of her paintings and meet the characters she's created, each of whom has a number of items they'll need you to find to help them help you find Iris.

Your cursor changes shape to tell you how you'll be interacting with the environment. Normally an arrow, it changes into a hand when you can grab objects. When you do this, the items will show up in your inventory, to be used at the appropriate time and place. Sometimes you'll need to combine items, and this is a simple matter of dropping one on top of another.

Sometimes your cursor will become a magnifying glass, indicating that you can get a little more information on the item in question. The cursor will also change into a puzzle piece at times, which tells you that the object being hovered over requires an inventory item to be used before you'll get anywhere.

Finally, the cursor will turn into directional arrows when near the screen's edge, which lets you know that you have the ability to move to the next area of the Tower by clicking. Sometimes a room will have multiple exits, including diagonals and moving upward and downward.

You'll often come across one of Iris's paintings, and by clicking on it, you'll be transported into the painting itself, to enter the world depicted there. Each painting will have a character in it and a goal to accomplish. For example: the first painting you'll find features a pastoral scene and a scarecrow who's missing a number of his accoutrements. He asks you to find his gloves, boots, belt, etc., which are strewn about the painting's landscape. You'll also find items that help you progress through the Tower, opening up areas that were inaccessible before.

If you get stuck, you can always click on the Hint portrait, which depicts a retainer who was close to Iris, but who is now turned to stone. To the left of the portrait is a list of the current puzzles, and you'll need to specify which one in particular you're requesting a hint for. The hints are actual hints -- not spelled out immediately, but tantalizingly offering just enough to help you figure it out for yourself.

There are also occasional puzzles that you have to complete in each painting, and these can be skipped if you've waited long enough.

Drawn: The Painted Tower is a fantastic experience that offers more story than many such games do. Check it out!