(Adjusted from a review written in 2019 Feb)
It's always nice to see Julian Glander's art on my social media feeds—it's charming, it looks great, and it's instantly recognizable and unique. I respect Glander a lot as an independent artist and content creator. I truly believe that artists like Glander keep art vibrant and alive in the Internet era, which is part of what makes writing this review so difficult. I generally don't like making heavy criticisms of these kinds of artists. But the monetization of one's work—which I wholeheartedly support—does, I feel, open creators up to a higher level of critique. ART SQOOL has Glander's signature aesthetic, the music is fairly great, and the humor is generally pretty good, but it falls short on gameplay—even approaching it as an experimental audiovisual experience.
It's unfortunate that an art game billing itself as having "assignments generated & graded by an A.I." actually has "assignments graded arbitrarily with no regard for what you've drawn." Don't buy this under the impression that some program is going to actually analyze your art, because that certainly isn't the case. And that's unfortunate, because I feel that the branding of the game—the selling point, in fact—conveys the opposite. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't under the impression that it was actually some super-advanced AI that was going to analyze my work. But I was hoping that my work would, y'know, have at least some impact on the scoring, but that's not the case here.
One could say that's an intentional dig at how academia tries to weigh subjective works on an objective scale, but there's nothing else to really suggest that's the case, so the interpretation seems generous. There was no real desire to actually carry out the prompts the game gave me once I realized that the "A.I." is actually just throwing out a random score. It's possible to see this when being handed a "D" or "F" grade—the professor sends you back out to campus to "try again," but a quick press of the undo button brings your old work back. This allows you to re-submit the same work for a potential passing grade. Sure, one could just do the prompts for one's own amusement, but they are often vague or difficult to the point of impossibility—usually as a joke. While the humor lands every once in a while, in time this just feels like a joke at the player's expense. "Here's a vague challenge, draw something random and hope the A.I. picks a good letter this time."
One must also traverse the campus to find and unlock the various tools and colors. This is neat at first, but the world quickly reveals itself as empty with no interactivity. I actually became disinterested in finding all of the artist tools, and ended the game missing two of them. Finishing the game requires the player to complete several prompts, and once that's done, the player is unceremoniously brought right to the menu screen. No "you graduated ART SQOOL" or "you beat the game!" Attempting to continue the save will drop the player back into the campus world, but with no sketch pad or prompts. Sorry, no post-game free-draw mode. This wasn't the only gameplay issue I had, either—footstep noises continue as one "walks" through the air, and occasionally the player may spawn without a pad to draw on.
There was the promise of something greater that was left unfulfilled in ART SQOOL—that, combined with some rough edges, on top of my rapidly deflated hype, really tore into me as the prompts continued. I really wanted this game to be one of those special little experiences, but ended up with a bit of buyer's remorse instead.
It's always nice to see Julian Glander's art on my social media feeds—it's charming, it looks great, and it's instantly recognizable and unique. I respect Glander a lot as an independent artist and content creator. I truly believe that artists like Glander keep art vibrant and alive in the Internet era, which is part of what makes writing this review so difficult. I generally don't like making heavy criticisms of these kinds of artists. But the monetization of one's work—which I wholeheartedly support—does, I feel, open creators up to a higher level of critique. ART SQOOL has Glander's signature aesthetic, the music is fairly great, and the humor is generally pretty good, but it falls short on gameplay—even approaching it as an experimental audiovisual experience.
It's unfortunate that an art game billing itself as having "assignments generated & graded by an A.I." actually has "assignments graded arbitrarily with no regard for what you've drawn." Don't buy this under the impression that some program is going to actually analyze your art, because that certainly isn't the case. And that's unfortunate, because I feel that the branding of the game—the selling point, in fact—conveys the opposite. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't under the impression that it was actually some super-advanced AI that was going to analyze my work. But I was hoping that my work would, y'know, have at least some impact on the scoring, but that's not the case here.
One could say that's an intentional dig at how academia tries to weigh subjective works on an objective scale, but there's nothing else to really suggest that's the case, so the interpretation seems generous. There was no real desire to actually carry out the prompts the game gave me once I realized that the "A.I." is actually just throwing out a random score. It's possible to see this when being handed a "D" or "F" grade—the professor sends you back out to campus to "try again," but a quick press of the undo button brings your old work back. This allows you to re-submit the same work for a potential passing grade. Sure, one could just do the prompts for one's own amusement, but they are often vague or difficult to the point of impossibility—usually as a joke. While the humor lands every once in a while, in time this just feels like a joke at the player's expense. "Here's a vague challenge, draw something random and hope the A.I. picks a good letter this time."
One must also traverse the campus to find and unlock the various tools and colors. This is neat at first, but the world quickly reveals itself as empty with no interactivity. I actually became disinterested in finding all of the artist tools, and ended the game missing two of them. Finishing the game requires the player to complete several prompts, and once that's done, the player is unceremoniously brought right to the menu screen. No "you graduated ART SQOOL" or "you beat the game!" Attempting to continue the save will drop the player back into the campus world, but with no sketch pad or prompts. Sorry, no post-game free-draw mode. This wasn't the only gameplay issue I had, either—footstep noises continue as one "walks" through the air, and occasionally the player may spawn without a pad to draw on.
There was the promise of something greater that was left unfulfilled in ART SQOOL—that, combined with some rough edges, on top of my rapidly deflated hype, really tore into me as the prompts continued. I really wanted this game to be one of those special little experiences, but ended up with a bit of buyer's remorse instead.