Welcome once again to PCGamesN’s Spotlight on Greenlight, our regular Saturday feature where we look at the best and the most interesting Greenlight games that are hoping to make their way onto Steam. We’ve already looked at dozens of other titles in weeks past, so do take a look at our back catalogue.
Leonardo Da Vinci was just arrested on charges of sodomy. Everything was going so well, too. He’d just drawn level in painting ability with his master Verrocchio, and far surpassed the old man in speed. My guild was filling its coffers with gold and it looked like I would go on to draw patronage from Italy’s wealthiest gentry.
But Leo had to go and spoil it all by having illegal sexual congress with another gent’s posterior.
Painters Guild is a unique management sim, that’s for sure.
Your task is simple: make enough money to keep the doors of your guild open. Anything extra you can use to better furnish your creative cubbyhole, attract more painters, and expand it in size.
To make money you must paint and to paint you must be patronised (not talked down to but commissioned by patrons). Patrons will queue up outside your door and demand works of art to fit their fine sensitivities
The works of art vary in size and complexity. The larger and more complex a painting is the more you are rewarded at its completion but the longer it takes to finish. If your artists fail to complete the painting in time, these paintings carry a greater cost against your guild’s prestige, too.
You’re forever balancing the amount of work you take on and trying to keep your artists fit to paint the works. Once you commission a painting you are given a time limit within which to paint it. All you have to do is place an artist in front of the canvas and watch as they turn it into a masterpiece. Except artists get tired, so you have to send them to rest. Artists can only paint so fast, too, so sometimes you’ll need to put a second painter on a large canvas to complete it in time. And not all artists were created equal, the less skilled ones will take longer to paint these more demanding pieces.
It can get quite frantic. You’ll be accepting commissions, assigning artists, caring for their needs, meeting the tax quota, buying new equipment for your studio, and all this while accepting letters from messengers arriving from all over Europe.
The messengers queue up with the patrons and they bring news of approaching dignitaries, shifts in political power, arrests of famous people. All of which can have an effect on you. Dignitaries will often commission you for special works which bring with them a greater profit, different politicians in power can lend you prestige but also take it away. And, arrests, well that can see a fellow painter taken into custody.
And this is all ready to play in the demo. The final game promises much greater diversity to keep you entertained. Your artists are free to form relationships with one another, paint in different renaissance art styles, you can hire more artists, and see a greater variety in their paintings.
I’m looking forward to seeing that final, full-featured release as Painters Guild will benefit hugely from a greater spectrum of activities.
The game will take place between 1400 and 1650. Playing through the entire span of time will see new, famous painters arrive on the scene as well as letting you watch your painters grow in skill and age before eventually dying.
I recommend you go and play the demo for yourself, it can be played online easily. After that go and upvote it on Greenlight. The developers deserve to have this game available through Steam. I mean, whatever game has pixellated renaissance masters?