Passpartout 2: The Lost Artist will have you creating paintings for the citizens of an art-starved city, bringing your own unique works to the people.
I really do mean that these are your own works. The game is filled with an array of brushes, sprays, and tools that you can use to draw whatever you like on your canvas. You’re the one who’s playing as an artist here, so it’s expected that you’ll be making your own paintings. I’m not sure how the game figures out if someone will be interested in your work or not, but even for someone with my clumsy art skills, there were some townsfolk who were into my work. Even if it’s a fish with a knife, someone will dig it. Which is, unsurprisingly, kind of empowering? Although maybe it’s given me a bloated sense of the value of drawing sea life with weaponry.
Your character initially set out to pay the rent with their art, but every penny doesn’t need to go into your lodgings. You’re also free to spend a little bit of your money on new art supplies, increasing your capabilities and giving you more tools to play around with. I’m sure folks with more artistic skills could do far more with these, but for me, they were more of an excuse to continually play around with what they did. It was fun to toy with these things, see how the finished art turned out, and then put it up for sale. Maybe my murderous fish didn’t deserve to be in a museum, but if I keep at it in this game, it could still happen.
Passpartout 2: The Lost Artist is a playful experience in finding the joy in drawing even if you aren’t that great at it. It’s a reminder that we can do things just for fun (which is interesting when that theme is couched in a game about selling your art to survive). Being able to make money off of anything you make creates this sense that your drawings, as bad as you think they are, have some value. And that maybe there’s value in just goofing off with your art, too.
Passpartout 2: The Lost Artist is available now on Steam.
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