(Bought for $15)

TLDR: I recommend but only if you are into more minimalist games like The Witness, Baba is You, Stephen Sausage Roll or even The Stanley Parable. It's not a 'first person puzzle platformer' like Portal but more of a 'puzzle shooter'.

I found this game as an overlooked submission for IGF 2023. I am writing this review because there aren't many here.I will update the review more after I play more of it but my first impressions are pretty strong.

One thing I will mention first off is that atmosphere at the start is dead silent, giving a lot of room for the percussion of the paintball bullets to echo in the room. Don't let it deter your first impressions though. I do like it personally, and have seen this kind of deliberation to avoid a musical backing done well in other games too (The Fantastic Game is a good example).

It can give off a first impression that the game is unfinished, as there aren't any ambient echoes. I do encourage people to just embrace that silentness as its apart of the atmosphere... in practice it does give you the space to think and I do like how it makes the abstract game world feel almost... a stasis in time. Kind of like an art museum. The game does lack a narrative hook or 'zinger' at the start to create an initial goal, but as soon as you do the first puzzle the sense of 'oh i want to solve them' is captivating enough for me.

How the game's main mechanic works is almost a mini spoiler, so I will leave it at the end but it was really rewarding once it clicked and figure it out. The gameplay loop of the puzzle reminds a little bit of The Witness of all things, but taking advantage of 3D geometry rather than a world environment. I found myself having to look around to figure out where to bounce my paint balls to solve the puzzle, and it felt like the puzzle space was both my canvas and toolbox at the same time.

[Game Mechanic which can count as a mini spoiler]
This game's concept and hook isn't super from the promotional material but once you get into it and get it, it is really captivating. You have to match colors to patterns on walls, but your paint gun can only color different shapes with the correct color after projectiles have bounced off of things. So, for example, in order to hit the sphere with red, your gun needs to have 'red' in the circle sphere part of it... but that means that your first bullet will always be some other color like green or blue. it'd only become red after it bounces off a surface. I think this is fun to work around because it makes me align shots with walls and other geometric shapes so that I can color things the way I want.

Art is Rifle is a Simple Color Puzzle Shooter, With a lot of content and Puzzles, It is very much a chill and enjoy the flashy lights and drum beat noises as everything bounces off the walls.

---{ Graphics }---
☑ Has it's own style
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☑ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

Additional Note : The game itself is good and really psychedelic with it's own filters that you can change them once you defeated the game. Music is not completed yet so once it's done I'll change "Audio" rating too. Despite the game is made with UE5 and I have a very weak system but it runs for me very smoothly. Also I didn't see any bugs while I was playing so I can easily recommend it to everyone who's looking for an experience like Antichamber but a little bit different

Open-world first-person puzzle with fresh mechanics and secrets.