Dark Fairytale Color by Number

Review by eFreeware

Coloring apps tend to fall into two camps: bright, cheerful pictures that feel like a children's activity book, or generic landscapes that could belong to any title on the store. If you want something with a stronger mood, the cheerful end of that range gets old quickly. Dark Fairytale Color by Number, from BrainArt Studio, is built for the other direction entirely, with artwork that leans into gothic fairytales, enchanted dolls and eerie castles.

The premise is simple enough to explain in a sentence: numbered regions, a matching palette, and a tap to fill each area. What separates this one is the subject matter. The developer describes moonlit forests, broken princesses, cursed toys and gothic roses, and the whole catalog is aimed at people who find that atmosphere relaxing rather than unsettling. It is free to download, with ads and in-app purchases, and sits in the Board category on Google Play.

It has found an audience already, with more than 100,000 installs and a 4.7 average across 1,289 ratings. That is a healthy signal for a title released in June 2025, and it suggests the dark aesthetic is landing with the people it was made for. The question worth answering is whether the coloring itself holds up once the novelty of the theme wears off.

What makes this one different

Most paint-by-number games treat the picture as a puzzle to finish and move past. Here the artwork is the point. The developer leans on storytelling language throughout, describing each page as part of a wider fairytale world, and the themes are consistent rather than scattered: gothic girls, witches, dolls and shadow princesses on one side, moon forests, castles, lantern streets and haunted gardens on the other.

The detail work reinforces that. Roses, crosses, jewels, lace and mystical symbols recur across the catalog, and the palettes stay in a narrow band of purple, crimson, midnight blue and silver. That consistency is what gives the app a recognizable identity rather than a random assortment of pictures. If you have tried other coloring apps and found the art forgettable, the coherence here is the main draw.

There is also a willingness to go darker than most. The developer mentions pages built around creepy dolls, voodoo-inspired charms, stitched toys and haunted roses, and describes the result as a blend of eerie beauty and dark magic. That is a specific taste, and the app does not soften it. For the right player, that is the appeal; for anyone who wants gentle, pretty pictures, the theme will be the deciding factor.

How the coloring works

The core loop is as straightforward as the genre gets. Each image is divided into numbered sections, each number corresponds to a color, and you tap a region to fill it in. There is no drawing skill required and no freehand brushwork to learn. The developer calls it simple color by number gameplay, and that accuracy matters: this is a game for people who want to switch off, not one that asks for precision.

Difficulty comes from the artwork rather than the controls. The pages range from simple to highly detailed, so the same app can serve a short session with a bold, chunky design or a long one with a dense illustration full of small regions. That spread is useful, because a coloring game with only intricate pages can feel like a chore on a tired evening, and one with only simple pages runs out of interest.

The catalog is described as hundreds of pages, organized into themed story packs, with new pictures added daily. Named worlds organize the packs, among them Cursed Castle, Haunted Doll, Midnight Rose and Dark Wonderland. If you like working through a set rather than picking at random, the pack structure is likely to be the way you use it.

The artwork you will actually be filling in

The subject list is unusually specific, and that combination gives the catalog a storybook feel, closer to stepping into another world than to completing a series of pictures.

The color palettes are worth noting separately, because they shape the experience more than the line art does. Purple, crimson, midnight blue and silver glow dominate, giving the app a dreamy, mysterious mood. Coloring in those tones at night is a different activity from filling in a bright cartoon, and the app is explicit that it is designed for exactly that setting.

Some pages push further into horror-adjacent territory, with stitched toys, creepy dolls and charm figures drawing on voodoo aesthetics. It fits the same enchanted world, where innocence meets darkness. It is a deliberate choice rather than an accident of the catalog, and it is the clearest dividing line between this app and the broader coloring category.

Daily pages and themed packs

A coloring app lives or dies on how quickly its catalog runs dry, and this one addresses that directly. New pictures arrive daily, alongside the themed story packs built around the named worlds. For anyone who colors most evenings, a steady trickle of fresh pages is more valuable than a large static library, because it removes the moment where you open the app and find nothing new to start.

The packs also give the catalog a shape. Rather than scrolling a single endless grid, you can work through a set with a shared theme, which suits the storytelling angle the developer is going for. Whether the packs are organized by mood, by character type or by world is something you will see once you are in, but the structure itself is a sensible fit for the material.

The most recent update, from late September 2026, mentions optimized performance and faster rendering. For a game where every tap fills a region, responsiveness is not a minor detail, and it is the kind of improvement that matters more here than in most categories.

Who this is built for

Adults get a calm coloring game meant to ease stress, and the art supports that. This is not a title for children looking for bright animals and cartoon scenes; the themes are gothic, the palettes are dark, and some pages lean into spooky imagery. It is built for adults who already like gothic fantasy, creepy-cute characters and fairytale aesthetics, and who want a quiet activity that matches those tastes.

It also suits people who want a coloring game they can return to in short bursts. The tap-to-fill mechanic means you can complete a section or two in a few minutes without losing your place, and the range from simple to detailed pages lets you match the session to your energy. If you already keep a coloring app for winding down at night, this one is designed for that exact slot in the day.

The free price with ads and in-app purchases is the practical starting point for anyone curious. Since the whole appeal rests on whether the artwork speaks to you, the sensible approach is to look at the style first and decide from there. Fans of gothic fairytales will recognize the appeal immediately; others will know within a minute whether the mood is for them.

A midnight coloring book worth trying

Dark Fairytale Color by Number does one thing with a clear identity.

The trade-offs are the ones that come with the format. It is free with ads and in-app purchases, so the experience includes both, and the theme is narrow by design: creepy dolls, cursed castles and voodoo-inspired charms are the whole point rather than a side note. If that aesthetic appeals, the narrowness is a feature; if it does not, no amount of polish will change the pictures.

For adults who want a slow, atmospheric coloring routine and like their fairytales on the darker side, this is an easy one to try. Install it, open a page from one of the themed packs, and the artwork will tell you quickly whether it belongs in your evening rotation.

What's new in version 1.1.5

Enjoy seamless coloring with optimized performance and faster rendering.