This game offers a short but sweet experience that ultimately left me satisfied even though I think the last third of the game could have been handled better gameplay-wise.
The core gameplay consisting of painting on all the walls of the little town, a bit of platforming and solving rather easy puzzles with your genie friends is fun throughout. It is not meant to be challenging, the focus lies in the imagination of the protagonist and his - and your - creative work in filling the world with colorful flowers, rainbows, trees,… and monsters, called 'genies'. These cute little guys act as animated NPCs that can move along the walls around the town. They are necessary to solve puzzles, but are more importantly the lonely protagonist’s friends, and their purpose is strongly tied to the narrative. Their cute, caring or funny behaviour and the fact that they can interact with your paintings make them very endearing and are big factor in making the world you create feel alive.
While you’re having a pretty free hand in designing the monsters, I wish that would also apply to the scenery. I realise that the scope of the game and the dev team doesn’t allow for a huge amount of different things to paint, but it would have been nice to customize what ended up being in the game more, e.g. changing colors/color palettes. And while you are collecting more blueprints along the way, the last few don’t offer much variety in colour because they were snow/ice themed. It also would have been better if the last third of the game weren’t action-oriented and instead would have stuck with or elaborated on the painting or monster interactivity mechanic.
Nevertheless, the art style and atmosphere are gorgeous and I think that the game achieved what it set out to do overall, creating a sweet, cozy and (mostly) relaxing experience with its gameplay and story. I would be happy about a more consistent sequel that could further improve the player’s own creative freedom and the 'liveliness' of the paintings.
The core gameplay consisting of painting on all the walls of the little town, a bit of platforming and solving rather easy puzzles with your genie friends is fun throughout. It is not meant to be challenging, the focus lies in the imagination of the protagonist and his - and your - creative work in filling the world with colorful flowers, rainbows, trees,… and monsters, called 'genies'. These cute little guys act as animated NPCs that can move along the walls around the town. They are necessary to solve puzzles, but are more importantly the lonely protagonist’s friends, and their purpose is strongly tied to the narrative. Their cute, caring or funny behaviour and the fact that they can interact with your paintings make them very endearing and are big factor in making the world you create feel alive.
While you’re having a pretty free hand in designing the monsters, I wish that would also apply to the scenery. I realise that the scope of the game and the dev team doesn’t allow for a huge amount of different things to paint, but it would have been nice to customize what ended up being in the game more, e.g. changing colors/color palettes. And while you are collecting more blueprints along the way, the last few don’t offer much variety in colour because they were snow/ice themed. It also would have been better if the last third of the game weren’t action-oriented and instead would have stuck with or elaborated on the painting or monster interactivity mechanic.
Nevertheless, the art style and atmosphere are gorgeous and I think that the game achieved what it set out to do overall, creating a sweet, cozy and (mostly) relaxing experience with its gameplay and story. I would be happy about a more consistent sequel that could further improve the player’s own creative freedom and the 'liveliness' of the paintings.
FallenGrace
1 year ago