art sqool's strengths hit a very touching, subconscious part of my soul, but its weak points were fucking embarrassing and egregious.

just exploring around the weird abstract campus and drawing stuff with an extremely limited toolset evoked a lot of memories and fears surrounding my childhood and my current experiences at college. all the little islands are super charming. i was really happy with a lot of the things i made in the game, and i'm glad they give you a folder of your drawings as shareable pngs. nothing about its execution feels cynical or dramatic, it's just there to let you take your own experience from it.

but goddamn fuck the grading system on this game, i have no idea what these prompts are checking for. i got stuck on one where they wanted you to draw your first memory, and it rejected 10 drawings before finally accepting a grease brush blob.

also the main character design looks like someone that would emotionally manipulate me

overall i don't think this will do much for people who aren't already into art, but it's a nice 2-3 hour trip for people that wanna break their art block or get a neat change of pace. recommended.