The Painter's Playground

Calming, relaxing, yet always interesting and stimulating. Manage your collection, expand your toolset, paint and sketch to earn renown, paint and sketch for fun. Browse the waterfront market for an underpriced masterpiece, or simply spend an afternoon at the community gallery. Yep, you can even just jump in for 10 minutes and paint the daily challenge.There's always something to do. Even if you're really not that good at painting (me), highly recommended! 9/10

This is not a game. It's a way of life. If you like painting or drawing then this is for you. You'll spend your time creating art and sharing it with the community. Players can view and 'like' art created by others, as well as being able to sell your art and buy masterpieces that have been created by others. You can also take part in daily challenges that task you with creating a painting based on a specific topic or word. People with some real-life artistic talent may be discouraged by their results when working with a mouse instead of a real brush or pencil, but with practice and patience you can create some stunning artwork. Optionally, you can also purchase pen-style mice designed for artists. The UI is easy to navigate and understand, and the music is soothing. It plays like an RPG version of an old Microsoft Paint program, trying to simulate real painting, without the bells & whistles of programs like Photoshop. There is no 'undo' button in real life. There IS an 'undo' feature in this game, but using it will cost you some of your hard-earned game-currency and respect points. You'll need that in-game currency because you only start-off with a basic brush and a few basic colors to use. New brushes, canvases, and individual colors of paint have to be purchased, and the prices all become exponentially more expensive as you purchase more supplies. There's a reason they're called 'starving artists'. Luckily, your brushes never wear-out, and your paints never runs-out.

There are other games that have you draw -- but you are only satisfying an algorithm to provoke an artificial reaction. [i]The Painter's Playground[/i] is the first true [i]game[/i] I've played that earnestly seeks to draw out the divine spark of the creative, and it hits that mark squarely. It's presented in the form of an on-line RPG; only instead of unlocking swords and farming kills, players create works of art, mastering an ever more diverse collection of painting tools purchased with in-game currency: the proceeds of gallery sales. The daily challenges and informal contests never fail to get creative juices flowing, and it's nearly as satisfying to build a collection of other players' works as to make them yourself. You won't believe the artistic depth of some of the stuff already on here! It just goes to show that this is [i]not[/i] simply MS Paint on gamified steroids; Next Zen's digital brushes have a certain smoothness that's hard to fully describe, an easy precision that expresses itself well even through a standard mouse. Truly, players are limited only by their imaginations in this game. Whether you're a common doodler or a bona fide [i]artiste[/i], you're guaranteed to have fun with [i]The Painter's Playground[/i], Steam's very first art MMO. I think it's going to get big.

I've been playing The Painter's Playground since the beta version and bought it immediately when it was released. The first time I sat down to play, I got sucked in and played for over an hour and a half. I'm not really an artist but I have so much fun playing around with different tools and colors, and love looking at all of the amazing art people create. It's a really cool concept to be able to relive the old MS Paint days in an interactive/competitive way. Besides the cool concept of the game, the art is gorgeous. The oil paintings are beautiful and the music is inspiring. It's really original and REALLY fun.

The Painter's Playground is a game where you let your creativity (or lack there of) flow. It is a peaceful painting sim. Where you draw, paint, sell, display, or buy paintings. Some who have played it compares Painter's Playground to Microsoft painting. Gameplay is solid. If you love drawing and painting, then this is your game. There are several modes you can use : community, art house, your gallery, the harbor, and the crafty merchant, where you buy items. You can also take part in daily challenges. You level up the more you paint. Music is in the Parisian style and very relaxing. The graphics are good and reminds me of art class in junior high school. The only complaint I have is for us non creative folks. That there is no ruler in the game to help us stay inside the lines. That is minor though and does not take away from the fun of the game. The controls are simple and easy to learn. I suck at painting, but not at gaming, so I give this game a 10/10. Two thumbs up.

So, it doesn't work well with my seldom-used graphics tablet, but that's not really the point of this game at all anyways. It's really about working with limited tools to make something you're still happy to call your own. I'd say it's worth your time, if you ever wanted to dabble with drawing/painting, especially with the daily challenge mode to give you ideas and more limits to play with.

Very rough around the edges, but potentially right up the alley for the more self-actualized. If you're looking for a way to hone your visual arts skills (and share your work with others) you could do worse. I'm writing this from the perspective of someone who loved Passpartout - the point of comparison is rather obvious, as both games are essentially 'painter simulators'. However, where Passpartout actively puts pressure on the player to keep them painting (by having a fail state) and has a very decidedly 'single player' experience, TPP is designed to be more open-ended, with a 'community-driven' experience where players buy one-another's paintings, and you can never really 'lose'. TPP offers a more expansive toolset than Passpartout, with more brush shapes, smearing and watercolor tools, a [i]much[/i] wider potential pallette (you have to unlock each individual color, but you get to pick which ones you get), and even a larger variety of canvas sizes and shapes. However, where Passpartout uses ray tracing, TPP seems to use a grid-based system - this is great for pointilists and pixel artists but could be a problem for those concerned about being able to draw 'clean' shapes. Said grid is fairly small, though, and between the broad color palette and the smear tools it's nothing that can't be easily worked around. In technical terms, TPP is still fairly lackluster, as the in-game interface has a decidedly '90s-webpage' quality to it. The menus switch between a passable low-key toolset when painting to some slightly mystery-meat mode navigation (it's hard to tell what/where options are until you hover over the appropriate spot) to some downright janky help prompts and text pop-ups. The toolset is, at least, easy to manage, as are the store interfaces and the galleries. The first time visiting the gallery seems to take a slightly worrying ammount of time to load, but after that the game gives no problems. Brush size is controlled with +/- keys, whereas the mouse wheel controls canvas zoom: this feels backwards, although it may simply be the fact that I'd played Passpartout first. The other major problem is more of a personal one - where Passpartout gave a very clear goal for the player, TPP is much more open-ended, and therefore leans a lot more heavily on the player's own drive to keep painting. People who aren't particularly good are likely to have a hard time selling their works, and will have to do a lot of grinding to participate in the in-game economy. Thus, where Passpartout was a casual, fun time, great for people looking to just 'play' at being a painter, TPP feels like it was meant for specifically for a more experienced crowd. Or, more accurately, TPP is likely to make one self-concious of their work in a way Passpartout didn't. All in all, it's a bit hard to recomend The Painter's Playground [i]over[/i] Passpartout, but only because it's for a much more specific audience - if the idea it presents appeals to you, it's definitely worth a look.

Are you a seasoned artist? Whether your answer is yes or no, if you love to draw, doodle, paint, or want to learn how to draw, this is for you. The community here is wonderful. Artists have posted everything from food, to video game characters, to things that are wildly creative and imaginative. You can spend hours drawing if you so desire, or put out a quick doodle in five minutes. And you don't have to worry about finishing a piece in one sitting. You can save and come back to it later (the devs aren't that mean). There are daily goals for those that want to keep challenging their creative side, or simply to maintain their drawing skills. That is what makes this game such a gem. You can be hardcore invested, or you can be casually invested. If you're like me and spend a ton of time in class, or work, the fact that you can do this at a casual level and still have fun is a super huge plus. Regarding the devs, they stay on top of things, and are always ready to listen to comments, criticisms, new ideas, bugs... well you get the idea. This is a labour of love, and with how active they are, it is very apparent that these guys are not here to make a quick buck. They are in this for the long haul. You may start out with one size canvas and a handful of colors, but that will easily expand as you keep on drawing your heart out. And don't worry if you cannot draw a straight line. This program is not about being perfect. It is about being creative. Not all artwork needs to resemble a DaVinci painting in order to be appreciated. So don't be afraid to dive into the world of digital drawing and get your pixelated hands dirty.

This game is awesome! I really am not much of a painter but The Painter's Playground has made it easy for me to give it a try. One of my favorite aspects of the game is the Challenge of the Day. I really like that people can interpret the daily challenge however they like and share their interpretations with the community. I find this game especially pleasant when I need to take a break to relax. The whole game has a neat art vibe and I would recommend it to both artists and amateurs!

I love this so far, even if I do feel like it's a tad more expensive than I think most people will be willing to bite for. It's basically MS Paint: Online, where you draw what you want, you put it online for others to view, rate and buy for their personal gallery. You level up, buy new tools and paints and that's pretty much it. While Passpartout beats this in terms of aesthetic, Painter's Playground gives you a good toolset, an easy way to view/admire others work and is generally a great way to spend some time doodling and improving your mouse-drawing abilities. Highly recommended, but do think the price should be about 80% of what it currently is.