Spray Paint Simulator is the opposite of Power Wash Simulator and just as satisfying

Spray Paint Simulator is basically the opposite of Power Wash Simulator, instead of cleaning up you're making a slight mess - with paint. Disclosure: key provided for me.

I am a huge fan of these laid-back casual sims, so checking out Spray Paint Simulator was a no-brainer for me. Life is stressful enough, so games need to have a wide variety of genres for everyone to get into. Although, it does still make me chuckle a fair bit that these work simulators are so popular. I could be painting my office (I should be) but instead, I'm painting things in a video game. At least if I make a mess here it's not going to be a problem…

As much as the idea of doing job games makes me laugh, it's anything but funny. It's ridiculously relaxing watching it all come together, and it's such an easy game to get into. With a warm and welcoming atmosphere, easy to understand controls and a simple tutorial while on the first small job painting a car that does enough to get you going.

There's hardly any setup of why you're doing it to speak of though, the story side of it is pretty bare. You're thrown a bit of cash to start a business and away you go. That's about it. In a way, it's nice it doesn't add needless padding forcing you through a story to just get painting, after all how much story does a game about painting like this need? But the way it dumps you into it is a bit too abrupt.

The gameplay makes up for that though. They have a wonderful idea here and I really enjoy the gameplay loop overall.

Each job begins in exactly the same way. You start off buying tape and paper to cover every bit you're not painting from the shop, then place them on the floor, to then add them actually into your inventory. That extra step there feels like it could have been cut away though. The actual masking is also incredibly basic, just click and it's there. I really do wish they expanded that side of it, making it more of a manual process as it just would have helped fill it out. That said, the masking and taping is a little bit tedious on some levels with multiple paint colours, with so many little bits needing covering.

When it comes to the painting though, that's where the real fun begins. It's so insanely satisfying seeing your paint layer up on whatever it is you happen to be covering. Much like Power Wash Simulator, I could happily spend hours and days playing through it, painting more and more and just forgetting all of life's little troubles. Once every bit is 100% done, it's then time to remove all the coverings and replace fittings you removed and job done.

I think the game length is pretty reasonable too. It doesn't overstay its welcome at about 15-20 hours but, the problem is the lack of overall content with it. The game is more limited than I was expecting with the amount of levels on offer. While you can jump into completed levels in free-play to mess around, that's just not the same.

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The locations are nice though, with all of them getting you to paint something very different which requires the use of many different types of tools, each come with there own little challenges when using them. The variety it has in that way is definitely good. Again though, just not enough of it.

It's quite an accessible game too. Not only are the controls really easy but there's no time limits to the game, so you can just go at your own pace. Leaving a job and coming back later is possible too, no punishments for saving and quitting. I especially like how you can unlink camera controls from the mouse to send it to the paint sprayer, so you get to fine-tune exactly where you're pointing. That, and you just click and it sprays continuously, no need to hold down the mouse button.

As you go through it you'll unlock some more tools too like a step ladder, a bigger paint sprayer nozzle and more. All of which become necessary as you get into the later levels with bigger objects to wrap and paint. Just a small gentle bit of tailored progression with nothing to really worry about here.

Quite appreciate the feature that highlights bits you haven't painted too. At a single button press, areas will flash white that need to be done. Some of those bits hide away quite well too, with a few of the jobs taking a while to get all those little nooks and crannies. You'll be making use of this button often, as you scratch your head thinking "it looks great, how have I missed 1% on it?!". That feature does almost feel like you're cheating though because it just completely spoon-feeds what you need to do.

Overall it's a nice entry into the casual job sim with some truly enjoyable painting mechanics but it's lacking in total content. North Star Video Games is mainly just two people and their first game as a studio, so they've done well considering and I think it's priced appropriately for what you get. I enjoyed it but I want more locations - which is not exactly a bad thing, it's good. Just needs more of it.

It's a testament to the great idea and painting mechanics that I repeatedly told myself, "I'm going to take a break now", and yet I carried on painting for a while longer.

The game works great on Desktop Linux with the latest Proton 9.0-4. No technical issues at all.