Easily my GOTY this year. This is a very fun, extremely well written game. It looks simple on the surface, but mechanics never feel stale or boring.

This game has a lot going for it. The most important thing, in my opinion, is that it's just plainly fun. In fact, it's very fun. I never felt that the game got stale at any point; I never got lost or confused about where to go or what to do. There's always something you can do, and it never feels like a drag or something you simply have to do to complete the story. Excellent design on this part.

The writing is also excellent. The main characters feel real and by-and-large warm. Even the characters that are arguably most villain-like are enjoyable and I never hated them. (In fact, they were always compellingly written). The game excellently touches on topics of self-worth, self-confidence, depression, anxiety, and generational trauma and power dynamics. These topics focus on these issues within the art world but will be relatable for anyone who struggles with these issues regardless of whether or not they consider themselves involved in the art scene.

The world is endlessly delightful. Minor characters are fun and playfully written in a way that's never annoying or boring. Many minor characters even have small arcs. Different parts of the world have small arcs and change as you experience them too; you may find yourself returning to paint and repaint sections you've already explored for various reasons and it never feels forced or boring.

I also want to SERIOUSLY praise this game on the accessibility features. There's a lot of them and they're VERY well designed. You can customize the game to be very comfortable to you. It's colorblind friendly (which is awesome for a game focused on color); nothing ever demands you are able to recognize the standard names for the colors you use. There are optional trigger warnings, you can make the fights easier should you want them (although it's basically impossible as far as I can tell to "fail" the few fights that there are--and this doesn't make it feel like the game is going easy on you. It's mostly appreciated because I imagine the boss fights would feel tedious and annoying otherwise). You can filter out gross paint noises, change the rate text scrolls, etc. I most of all appreciated the in-game hint system, which is entirely optional, but can go into varying levels of depth depending on what you need and can help you stay on the right track and not ever become frustrated. It also never shames the player and even encourages googling/searching for help when the in-game system just wouldn't be capable of guiding you on some of the more complex puzzles, which is refreshing to see as an encouraged option instead of one that you feel embarrassed to need to use. That being said, I rarely ever felt the need to use the hint system, and largely just ended up using it when I was feeling bored of trying to figure out some mechanic that wasn't interesting to me or wanted to double check I was on the right path.

EASY game of the year, very very good.