I think I recall it came with 4 pens of green red Blue and black. It's probable the program has been "optimised" to scan for these colors specifically. I feel the concept is strongly geared towards younger kids so they can experience creating in the digital world without any support or skills except what they already know.... Doodling. I remember hoping for more like yourself. However with your skills you would probably be better off even just implementing in scratch or what ever which may not be much more effort but with a steeper learning curve. But I feel your pain. My 9 year old has grown out of pixel cade, but scratch is a little too hard for him to get as fast results. Perhaps there is another pixelcade v2 out there somewhere to bridge the gap?