Paint Wars
Platform: Flash
Hearken back to the days of yore when rainy days meant arts and crafts. Are you hearkening? Good. You may need to call on some of those childhood artistic skills.
Paint Wars, by Coolio-Niato, challenges you to fill in the outlines of different shapes using as little paint as possible, while an army of vehicles tries to destroy your masterpiece. Just click and drag around the board to draw and fill in over the white shapes. You don't have to cover the entire area within the shape — just the outline. When you've successfully filled in a shape, the white template will disappear and you will feel a little sense of accomplishment. Do this enough and you'll beat the game!
But it won't be as easy as it sounds. When the tanks drive erratically across the board, they leave a trail of paint that covers your hard work. Planes drop paint bombs to hinder you in a similar fashion. If a shape isn't completely covered by your purple paint, the template will reappear. Don't worry, you can fight back. Your weapon of choice? Your pointer — just click them to blow them up. Doing so will also splatter evil-paint, so be careful!
Analysis: There's no escaping it: Paint Wars is difficult. When I first found it floating around the net, it had only one difficulty: Basically Impossible. The author has since adjusted accordingly, first decreasing the overall difficulty of the game and later creating an Easy ("Let's Get Painting!") and Hard ("Let's Paint A Masterpiece") difficulty. Jump into the Masterpiece difficulty and you're likely to pull your hair out by level three. Still, it's an engaging game that uses a familiar draw mechanic in an innovative way. Having to decide quickly where to destroy enemies so as to minimize splatter-damage gives the game a frantic feel, while completing a board is a gratifying experience. Furthermore, as you add more paint to the board, the bonus — which starts at 5,000 on Easy and 10,000 on Hard — quickly drains, and your high score is cumulative across all the levels. So if you aim to be the best, you'd better be conservative.
Paint Wars would be great to play on a tablet, but for those of us that aren't technologically up to speed, the game is mouse compatible. With varying degrees of difficulty and a high score function, Paint Wars is worth a try. Play Paint Wars.
Thanks to dotcomlarry for the screenshot!
Interesting idea, but it gets a bit rough on the mouse hand after a while.
Kind of lame, all you do is drag your mouse back and forth really fast a lot.
Level 1: "This is going to be fun!"
Level 2: "This is impossible!!!! Too many tanks!! Drowning! Can't... pass... level! AAaaaaa"
This probably isn't the place for feedback, but can we get a new version with less tanks, or slower tanks? Maybe you can boot the tanks by running over them?
Why isn't this the place for feedback? Feedback on JIG is arguably better than most sites due to the community here, and many game authors visit here and participate in the commenting as well. :)
I love the feel of this on a touchpad. Finger painting, anyone? =D (That said, it's impossibly difficult even on easy unless you use a mouse.)
If only it had been this exciting in kindergarten.
This is just ridiculously hard on a touchpad. The first level on easy, where there's no tanks to screw with your painting, was kinda fun though.
I played with my tablet and even so I found myself scribbling a lot, and by the end of the 12 easy levels my wrist hurt.
But it's cute, and I like the music.
Sorry, but I can't believe that anyone would have trouble with this game, as I completed hard in about 2 minutes. Just scribble, and you can complete the level usaully with only a few shapes ever 'decompleted', which are easy to fix.
Hmm... It lags a bit on my computer. I defininatly need a new computer.
Anyway, this game is okay - but i got to level 4 or 5 and quit (lag problems). Suho1004, you can't keep doing that - as Scramble125 said, "...Furthermore, as you add more paint to the board, the bonus — which starts at 5,000 on Easy and 10,000 on Hard — quickly drains, and your high score is cumulative across all the levels. So if you aim to be the best, you'd better be conservative."
Very VERY VEERRRY hard. I couldn't quite master it. Why do I feel that the level amps up to quickly? Here I was, level 1, splotting paint nicely on the shapes. "Gee, this is boring..." Then BAM level 4/5 - planes and tanks on every side! Being sarounded! No where to go! Need to finish shape - no! they painted all over it! Retreat, retreat! - no, there are too many of them... they're closing in on us! Ah, they're swarming all over the shape!!! AHH LAG! We have been defeated!!!
I think what would be a nice twist would be the ability to paint all over the tanks, coloring them so that they drag across the stage your color paint, until it runs out and you need to recolor the tank again. That could be interesting. More variety of attackers. And even better - an ability to change the paint color. Ugh, purple...
a bit too easy with the planes. i would like planes that would be killed in 2 clicks like the red tanks!
Why on earth don't they show the tank's paint trails over your now-marred shape? I went crazy trying to find the one spot where my previously perfect square was incomplete. Frustrating game.
These games would be far more fun if they wouldn't have to do techno music all the time.
Dancomono, i agree with that issue. I had a lot of trouble trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with my shapes!
dont play this if you have OCD it made me mad its so hard and the trucks are to unpredictible
this game is just frustrating on a touchpad. I got to level 5 and now I'm just annoyed. heh.
I'm playing with my tablet, love the feel, but it is just too annoying! Great idea and all, but "easy" mode is just insane.
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