I Color Too: Toons 12 1.0

Overview

I'll admit I was a tad bit curious how I Color Too: Toons was able to amass 11 sequels, but I quickly realized how. What I didn't understand, was how they didn't fix any of the major annoyances that occur in this release. I'll get to that a bit more in the Interface section - but as for the program itself, it is essentially a very basic coloring book application.

Toons 12 features 20 different pictures that you can color in by using the fill tool, pencil tool, or a combination of both. There are 12 different colors to choose from, and you're able to print the photos directly from the program. Unfortunately, users would be a lot better off downloading some coloring book templates, opening them in MS Paint, and having a better time. On the other hand this is obviously aimed at children so simplicity isn't so bad, but they could have taken some time to fine tune the program.

Installation

It didn't take long to get everything ready to go for I Color Too: Toons 12, installation was quick and painless and didn't attempt to install any bundleware. The program is compatible with Windows Operating Systems up to 8.

Interface

This is where Toons 12 fails rather miserably, from the very beginning you're launched into a smaller sized resolution in full screen - with no way of getting out without closing the program. After attempting numerous methods (adding -w after the shortcut, alt+enter while running, etc) I decided it was impossible, but beyond that I couldn't even Alt+Tab to get to my desktop. I was literally stuck in Toons 12 unless I pushed Ctrl+X to close the program.

The eraser function actually just wipes out all of your progress, which is fine since you can just use the background color as an eraser, but it was a little annoying when I lost my progress. I also tried turning the sound on which froze the program for a solid 30 seconds (and Alt+F4 wouldn't work of course) but eventually it came back - this is when I realized why it was disabled by default.

Pros

- Very easy to use, making it fun if you're under the age of 10.

- It's free, so you can't complain too much.

- Has a few different templates to choose from, and the print functionality is nice.

Cons

- Extremely annoying restrictions that prevent you from running in windowed mode, alt-tabbing, or getting out of the game without closing it and losing progress.

- Buggy UI with a poor color palette to choose from.

- Some images have pixels which can't be colored in, along with other minor graphical errors

Alternatives

Honestly the best alternative to this program is MS Paint, just download preset templates of coloring books and open them with Paint. You have a much bigger color wheel to choose from and a lot more editing functions.

Conclusion

If you've got kids, you might find this program useful for about a week - at which point you'll probably just uninstall it. If they fix up the glitch ridden UI, remove restrictions on windowed mode and desktop viewing, and add a few more colors to choose, the program might be worthwhile. For now, just wait and see if Toons 13 is any better.