Tag: The Power of Paint

Developer: Students of Digipen Institute of Technology aka Tag Team

Publisher: Students of Digipen Institute of Technology aka Tag Team

Format: PC

Tag: The Power of Paint is one of those games with a very fitting name. It's a somewhat difficult game in where you spray different colored paints with different powers. It may seem simple at first, but with a steady difficulty curve it gains complexity. It's also a first-person platformer, which can make for some nauseous moments down the line.

The game is a mix between puzzle and skill platforming in a way where all the puzzle aspects aren't always from just the level, but how you spray it as well. You first get a spray gun that only has the ability to spray water that gets rid of paint, but as you continue you gain paint cans to spray paint. There are three colors you gain over the course of the game, those colors being green, red, and blue. The green paint is the paint that bounces you then you walk on top of or into it. The red paint is simple enough, speeding you up when ever it's walked upon. The blue paint is a bit more complex, and is called "Stick"(with green being called "Jump" and red being called "Speed"). You spray this on a wall, or even the ceiling, and you can then walk on the wall or ceiling wherever that spray is sprayed. This is the part that can be REALLY nauseous, due to how the camera adjusts to the change in perspective when moving to a floor to a wall or from a wall to a ceiling. The camera automatically flips your perspective the appropriate 90 degrees it's to be flipped. So if you were to look down at the floor and then move to the wall, you would move onto the wall and would still be looking down. It can be somewhat disorienting, but mostly nauseous. You can spray paint everywhere, making for lots of messes, but also lots of freedom and fun.

A cool thing about Tag: The Power of Paint, is it's way of doing difficulty. It does it so right, using a basic formula for doing difficulty right in a skill-based game. You let the player have a limited amount of abilities to work with, but present them with a variety of challenges through the level design. That way the player easily knows what they have to work with, which makes dealing with the levels faster and less taxing on the mind. You're given a set of tools, and with those tools you make you way around the level. With a limited variety in available tools, you make it easier for the player to deal with a variety of problems presented through the level design, leading to faster-paced gameplay.

Super Meat Boy does this well. Limiting what he can do to very basic platforming, you keep the way in which players can approach obstacles presented by the level limited, adding up to faster-paced gameplay. tl;dr: Keeping the player simple allows you to add different obstacles for them to adapt to while still maintaining fast-paced gameplay, which can be key to a skill-based game. You let them create techniques from what they have, and if what they have is very limited, it'll lead to faster decisions on how they deal with a challenge presented by the level.

In each level you are allowed to keep your spray gun, but all of your spray cans are taken away. This leaves you only with the ability to shoot water to erase paint. This is key to level design, as it limits what the player can do to solve problems. When introducing a new paint, you get your previous paints taken away, and are forced to solve the problems at hand with the preset paint laid out for you, forcing you to fully understand how it works. Once you go through the paint's tutorial, you're awarded by being able to spray it from your gun. From there you use it to obtain previous paints, and then learn how to combine them on your own. Once you have all the paints introduced however, you still get them taken away, forcing you to deal with the problems with whatever the paint you're provided. This way the game could be set up to start off with puzzles that could be solved with all the paints, but was only meant for one or two.

The aesthetics are pretty badass here. The levels are always in an urban environment, and is a solid grey with cell shading. This makes it a lot more clear that there is paint somewhere, adding to the game design. Even if the level does look bland, you can change that! There are even some witty signs giving subtle hints on how to do overcome an obstacle. The music is rad, and also very fitting. This game's OST is so rad that I've decided to go over at least two of them in one of my VGMCs.

So yeah, although the blue paint might lead to some major nausea, this is a fun game. Great level design (the train level being my favorite), great aesthetics, and great gameplay. It's a very unique idea I've only seen in one other game after this one. That's a game I'll also be looking at. All around, very well made game. If you can fight the nausea, then have some fun!

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