Paintricity Demo

Puzzle games have the potential to keep players occupied for long periods of time, as long as the riddles are worth the bother and the experience is at the very least fun, if not informative. Hence, people feel compelled to match their wits against the most difficult challenges, just to see whether they’ve got what it takes to come up with a pertinent answer.

Paintricity tries its best to provide you with a challenge, but it fails rather short and it doesn’t really try to learn from its mistakes either. As such, while the underlying idea is not bad at all and it does hold a decent amount of potential, the execution is poor and lazy. Not only that, but the poor visuals have an impact on the experience as well, given the fact that everything else is subpar as well.

The main idea behind the gameplay is to guide your character to the door that takes him to the next level. There are obstacles that stop you from just walking there, and since you cannot jump or perform any other trick, you have to use pain in order to make blocks disappear. Realism has nothing to do with it, but the concept is intriguing, and it could have been transformed into something fun and exciting.

While this is obviously an indie production and one can understand the lack of experience on the behalf of the developer, a game needs to be playable first and foremost. Hence, the fact that the character movement is ludicrous and the bugs sometimes prevent you from being able to complete the stage make the experience that much more cumbersome and annoying.

As mentioned before, it’s not always important for the graphics engine to shine and spark like a diamond in order for the players to have fun. In fact, it is barely of any consequence in puzzle games, as long as the actual puzzles distract the eye and the mind. Unfortunately, this is not the case here, so you’ll be constantly gazing at the lackluster level design and wish for something better instead.

Even if Paintricity may have what it takes to turn into a successful puzzle game, it is far from that goal as of right now. On the other hand, with enough effort and dedication, the game has a chance to stay afloat in the muddy waters of the indie scene.