At PAX West, Kotaku got the chance to preview a previously unannounced game which has now officially been revealed to the public as Spray Paint Simulator. If you have played (dozens of hours of) PowerWash Simulator like I have, then you’ll be right at home with Spray Paint Simulator. We got the chance to play 30 minutes of Spray Paint Simulator while interviewing the two-person development team at North Star Video Games who bring a combined 40 years of game development experience to the project.
Rather than thoroughly cleaning surfaces, objects, and locales like in PowerWash Simulator, Spray Paint Simulator has you serving your clients in Splatterville by masking surfaces with tape, spray painting specific colors to their specifications, and also embracing creativity in ways that PowerWash Simulator’s focus on cleaning doesn’t quite allow for.
In my time with the game, my first job in Career Mode is to spray paint a client’s car. At the start of each stage, you need to make preparations before spray painting and for the car, this means you have to mask different parts of it to protect them from your inevitable spray paint. The game’s story sees you being given $5000 to start your spray painting business, so I purchased masking tape from the in-game shop to then place on the driveway.
By clicking on the masking tape on the ground, I can readily mask different parts of the car with a to-do list by my side. I began to mask different parts of the car—headlights, tires, mirrors, and everything else that I did not want to get spray paint onto, much like you would in real life. After masking, I grabbed a radio from the shop so I could listen to some tunes while I continued preparing to spray paint the car. It’s just one small touch that reflects the team’s desire to merge relaxation with creativity, and to allow you to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing things be vibrantly transformed by your work.
“When we started off [in development], it was very ‘simulator.’ So it was a bit too hard. Orange peel overspray, drying, dripping. It was kind of getting in the way of that [vibrantly painted] transformation, which is the main [aspect] to nail. It also makes it more accessible, since once you start getting into that complexity, it becomes [overwhelming to handle],” said North Star.
In other relaxing, maintenance-oriented simulator games, your objective is often to take things away. In PowerWash Simulator, for instance, you eradicate dirt and grime, while in Lawn Mowing Simulator, you are tasked with cutting the grass. In Spray Paint Simulator, by contrast, the objective is all about adding things in the form of colors and painting. “Once you have [completed] the job and unlock it in Free Spray Mode, you can come back in with that whole palette of paint, you can use spray stripes, do whatever you want. But also, you can spray the background as well and just have fun. We have got things like scaffolding, ladders, we have a cherry picker machine we are working on.”
In Free Spray Mode, you can spray paint the entire neighborhood, and the game will save everything. If you want to make squiggly lines on the houses or make an entire rainbow-themed area flourishing and bursting with color, you can do it all to your heart’s content.
As I was speaking to the developers, I was also spray painting every nook and cranny of the car in red. Under the car. On top of the car. I continued spray-painting it like the client had ordered, while I listened to the relaxing music from the radio. I was so serenely immersed by the relaxing experience of playing the game that it came as a bit of a surprise when I was then reminded I only had a few minutes left for the demo session.
I lost all track of time while speaking to the team and spray painting the car. Then I knew that, like I had with PowerWash Simulator, I would lose dozens of hours to Spray Paint Simulator. It was not stressful. The game’s to-do lists on masking and painting took all the guesswork out of it and let me be completely absorbed into the game. It was refreshing to calm my mind and just spray paint with both ease and solace.
Before my demo session wrapped up, I had a bit of time to dive into another job, which was to spray paint the inside of a client’s kitchen. Quickly purchasing masking tape and masking around the windows, doorknobs, handles, and floor, I chose my favorite color, purple with the tartan paint, and started right away.
While Spray Paint Simulator sees you going through many of the steps involved in performing real paint jobs, the developers also talked about the presence of certain colors and ideas—metallic paints, glitter paints and so on—which are rare or non-existent in real life. They feel that opting for a more stylized approach for the game’s aesthetic, rather than adhering to strict realism, “sets the tone that you can be playful.” It’s a choice that should make seeing what players do when they get their hands on the game and its suite of options that much more interesting.
Multiplayer options will be available, as will customization options such as hoodies, sneakers, gloves, and masks to provide variation between players. Accessibility options will also be announced in the coming months by the developers.
Spray Paint Simulator will be released on PC for Steam in 2025.