IHow do you make painting fun for those who don’t have a shred of artistic talent? Game developers have found some answers, or at least tried. There’s a simple approach, like Mario Paint., In Ōkami, a painter’s paintbrush is used as both a weapon and a magic wand in a Zelda-esque world. In The Unfinished Swan, the world (and story) is gradually revealed through ink splashed by the player.
Upcoming painting game Été isn’t so much about the process of creating art on a canvas, but about making players feel like they’re making the world more beautiful. It lets you create art without any friction. “Like many games, Été fulfills a fantasy through role-playing, the fantasy of being a painter, and to do that we assume your avatar is already a talented painter,” says creative director Lazlo Bonin. “Painting in Été isn’t about skill, it’s about creativity and enjoyment.”
Bonin was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, where the game is set. He loved its beautiful summers. “With many months of harsh winter in between each one, it seems like the city suddenly comes alive during the season, and everyone strives to make the most of the moment,” he says. Été translates to both “summer” and “what has been” in French, and describes his nostalgic, rose-tinted memories of the summer of his childhood.
The game didn’t start out as a painting game — it became one because it seemed the most natural way to tell a story about being surrounded by nostalgic beauty. A mix of aesthetic influences includes the 1998 French children’s game L’Album Secret de l’Oncle Ernest, which inspired Été’s canvas design, and the film Amélie, which shapes the tone of the game. Bonin calls it a “celebration of everyday happiness” in an “idealized city.”
In Été, painting is fun because it’s a vehicle for exploring and understanding your environment. By walking around the city, the player beautifies and adds color to their surroundings—think Super Mario Sunshine, with its dirt-blasting water gun, but in reverse. “We use paint to make walking and exploring active rather than passive,” says Bonin. “You have to paint to reveal the shapes and colors of the world around you, which makes you pay much more attention to your surroundings than if the world was already revealed, pre-colored.”
There’s also more open-ended creativity in Été’s canvases, which function more like a simple art tool: you can draw whatever you want. Bonin says the game’s 2D creation tools, which are featured in pre-release demos, have already inspired obsessively detailed works of art.
Bonin hopes his game about finding beauty in everyday places can spark the same impulse in the real world. “A good friend once told me that Été is a game that makes you look instead of see, listen instead of hear,” he says. What better time to launch it than in the middle of the Montreal summer?
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