Straight off the photocopier or 3D printer, depending on your era, is Spray Paint Simulator, with PowerWash Simulator as the source. This game couldn’t get any closer to being a carbon copy, which sometimes can be incredibly frustrating, lazy, and quite possibly a quick money-maker. However, all of those things, while accurate at times, don’t apply here. I already know what to do, and I have all the time in the world to binge it.
Back when I was doing news coverage until reclaiming my life, this first-person simulation from North Star Video Games was on my radar, then promptly dropped off the face of the Earth without so much as a PR campaign. After finishing Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, plus a series of reviews and previews, I wanted something a bit more chill, and while hovering over the download button to replay House Flipper for the umpteenth time, I clocked the thumbnail for Spray Paint Simulator and thought I’d check it out. Within two days, I’d finished it.
The same applies as with every other simulator that seems to be corrupting youth with how business works. Here’s a tenner, buy yourself a van and set up a business. Forget about tax, registering for VAT, marketing, expenses, overheads… ok, that would be a boring game, and it’s equally boring to have to do every April, so heading out with a box of spray paint and not being tagged by the po-po seems more appealing. It is.
If you’ve played PowerWash Simulator, simply imagine that. Now, let’s focus on what makes Spray Paint Simulator different. First of all, it’s spray paint you’re using, not water. Additionally, paint gets everywhere, so you have to mask everything out. Using House Flipper as a quick reference point again, you go into an online shop, purchase masking paper and tape, put them on the floor, pick them up again, and then start applying them to the areas you don’t want covered. That reference point is to allude to the arcade element where you simply point and click – the right mouse button highlighting where you need to put it, and in the top right, a counter for how much is left.
Once safely done, you can then buy a pot of paint (dictated by the game), load it into your sprayer, and away you go. Like that game, you can upgrade to more powerful equipment and switch nozzles horizontally, vertically, and pinpoint style. A couple of other literal filler points include filling spots with filler before painting, but from memory, that was for one stage only. Oh, you can also get a trampoline to jump on. Reaching hard-to-reach areas can be accessed by step-ladders and scaffolding, and eventually an indispensable cherry picker. This is a little tricky to control at first, but it makes painting so much easier and fun.
Besides equipment upgrades and spiked shoes that let you stay on vertical surfaces longer, you can also customise your character. This is a little pointless for a first-person experience and more appropriate if playing with others. Which I didn’t do. My biggest beef with Spray Paint Simulator was the duration. As mentioned, I completed this within two days and thoroughly enjoyed my time spraying rusty bridges and oversized robots in vibrant palettes, but just as I was smashing through, it abruptly ended. No doubt this will get a series of updates like <ahem> PowerWash Simulator has had over the years, but until then, despite some relatively lengthy stages, there’s not enough content to keep out of mischief for long.
Buuuuut: I’m still recommending this, despite its duration, despite its lack of concern in copying that game so closely, and despite being incredibly tedious in some areas, Spray Paint Simulator is immersive, relaxing, and legal (you won’t get arrested by the fuzz).
