I don't mind doing tasks around the house, but when it comes to painting, I just can't be bothered. Getting all the stuff together, sanding, masking, getting paint, choosing a color, even just writing about it, I'm getting wound up. Thankfully, the team at North Star Games has done all the hard bits for us with Spray Paint Simulator. So, let’s grab our brush and get stuck in.

I'm a huge fan of simulation games, so when Spray Paint Simulator was announced back in September last year, I have been eagerly awaiting its release. We were lucky enough to get a demo and then an extended demo to tide us over. I was also fortunate enough to talk with Nick and Adam from North Star Games about Spray Paint Simulator.

Getting Our Hands Dirty

Spray Paint Simulator starts us off being offered some money to start our own painting business. Luckily, our rich friend Vincent has some spare cash and a vehicle lying around to get us started.

Our first job is to spruce up our car. Who wants to see a painter in a shabby car, right?

The gameplay loop for Spray Paint Simulator is simple, and this is what North Star Games had in mind. Easy mechanics, no time limits, just pure relaxing fun, and I must say it's very relaxing. I popped on a podcast, and all of a sudden, I had been playing for 5 hours. There is an in-game radio that plays a handful of songs, but that got old quickly.

Now back to the loop, you must first remove any objects that you don't want to get paint on, wing mirrors, door handles, bull bars, you know the usual. Then you must buy paper and tape from the store. This is extremely cheap, but you do have limited money at the start. Thankfully, if you run out, Vincent will just give you more cash.

I did find your paper and tape inventory extremely small, which got annoying as the jobs got bigger. How it works is there are paper and tape icons on the bottom right of your screen. As you use them, a bar would drop. Now, you would think you could just pick up paper and tape until it’s full, right? Wrong. It feels like you can only carry 2 rolls. So, if you use one and a half rolls, you can’t pick up another two. You can only grab one, then replace the second when the first one is completely finished. It seems like such a small thing to get annoyed about, but when you have 80+ things to tape up in the later levels, going up and down ladders to grab more tape is frustrating.

You use the paper to cover parts of your objectives that you don't want to paint or want to paint a different color.

Once everything is taped up, you can begin spraying. The spraying is very similar to Power Wash Simulator, you just spray back and forth to cover the base color with the new color. Each area is broken up into smaller parts, which give a very satisfying ding and a flash when it’s complete.

During story mode, the colors you use are decided for you; however, in Free Spray mode, you can choose any color you want.

At the start, you only have one spray paint gun and a couple of attachments. As you progress, you can unlock and buy different guns that hold more paint or spray further, as well as ladders, scaffolding of different sizes, climbing shoes, and all sorts of goodies to help make the job easier.

There are currently seven levels in Spray Paint Simulator, the first few are extremely different from a car, a kitchen, and a tour bus. Then I was hit by the bridge. This job is mammoth and took me 6+ hours. You do get to use a cherry picker to help get into all those weird angles, but it’s all one color. I thought we were supposed to be saving the residents of Splatterville from a boring existence. Obviously, I didn't get the memo.

Performance

With the reward of an achievement for completing the bridge, I powered on. Sixish hours later, I was putting the finishing touches on the final beams and nothing. This wasn't the only problem I ran into, either. Some of the collectables didn't spawn in for me, and during my first playthrough, the first round of scaffolding didn't unlock. So I painted most of the Gallery, then couldn't reach the roof. I had to delete my save file and start again. Luckily, Spray Paint Simulator is extremely relaxing, and I just continued with my podcast and started again.

Some of the objects you have to paint don't register as being finished. I had half a dozen cupboards in the kitchen stuck at 95%. If this happens, just continue to spray over them and they will eventually unlock. It feels like each object has "˜x' amount of pixels, and you just change the color. However, if you miss a few because there are so many, you can’t see which ones you have missed. I might be wrong, it’s such a small thing and so easily fixed by passing over them again.

Verdict

Even though I had to start again and there were broken achievements, I still had a lot of fun with Spray Paint Simulator. I hope that North Star Games has lots of DLC planned for it because I need more. With it being on Game Pass, it's well worth spending a relaxing afternoon in the sun painting your car. With the curtains closed, of course.

Gamer Social Club was supplied a copy of Spray Paint Simulator for this review.

Reviewed on Xbox Series X.

Spray Paint Simulator is available on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC via Steam.

There is a demo for Spray Paint Simulator available on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1811340/Spray_Paint_Simulator/

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