Released last year on PC, Art Sqool is an independent game born from the mind of Julian Glander, who wanted to create a title based on art and creativity, a work that asks the player to exploit some indications and materials he has available to create designs that meet requests. Since the paintings are the basis of the gameplay, the Nintendo Switch touch screen could have been an excellent addition, however the porting for the hybrid console that we will talk about today does not emerge much in this sense, even if this is certainly the last of the his problems.
Artistic exploration
In Art Sqool we play Froshmin, a nice character struggling with a very particular art school. Right from the start the wacky teacher will give us tasks to do, that is, more or less vague indications on something to be painted. Apart from some cases, these requests are not too trivial and try to push the player's creativity, which is also fueled by the game world that we find ourselves exploring.
Exploration, in addition of course to drawing, it is in fact one of the main points of the work. Within the particular world created by Julian Glander various "materials" are scattered, such as colors or styles of painting. The more we find, the greater the creative possibilities will be when we go to design. For example, there are fine or thick brushes, but also rainbow effects, stickers and the ability to insert words in digital characters. Although the places and structures, depending on the tastes of the user, may still be original and suggestive, the real problem is the search for objects in itself. If in the first moments it could be relaxing to wander in this sort of sandbox, also due to some sound accompaniment, after a short time everything becomes extremely boring and uninteresting, also due to the tedious controls with which we will move our protagonist. Looking for materials therefore becomes part of an exploration that is unfortunately not very engaging.
However, the exploration of the world is not the only problem of the title, which even in its phase linked to the drawing does not shine for various reasons. One of these is about convenience; paint on the Switch, despite the touch screen, it's not very comfortable, and it is even less so using the console's right stick. The interface itself is also inelegant and fails to put the player at ease. There is also a problem, which we do not know if it also involves the PC version of the game, related to the enlargement of the drawing pad. The latter can in fact be put in full screen for a (theoretical) greater accessibility, however in this case drawing is practically impossible due to a great inaccuracy of the commands.
Another big flaw of the game are the evaluations of the strange professor in charge of giving us the tasks to do. The votes he assigned are in fact completely random. It does not matter if we draw a masterpiece or if we make a scribble, if we respect his request or if we depict what we want, in any case the degree we will get will not depend on all this. The result is therefore a game experience as an end in itself, which fails to thrill either in its main component or in the exploratory one. Even technically the title shows some gaps. In fact, it can happen that the camera gets stuck while we are drawing, forcing us to switch to exploratory mode to unlock it. Other times it could happen that the character himself gets stuck in some structure, forcing us to restart the game. The latter fact, even considering the poor longevity of the work, is still something very rare and certainly not a problem to be taken into too much account.
The idea of a particular and imaginative art school, immersed in an imaginative and creative world, is basically a good one. Bizarre and colorful places like those present in Art Sqool, perhaps expanded and evolved more and accompanied by a good level design, can potentially be perfect to motivate the player to create ingenious designs. It is therefore a shame that the title did not create engaging gameplay structures and mechanics around the basic concept, on the contrary resulting in an experience which, given its incompleteness and its defects, leaves nothing to those who immerse themselves in it.
