Artists work in many mediums — acrylic or oil paints, pencil on canvas, inks and markers, or through a variety of digital methods. But true visionaries are all flocking to a paint program with unprecedented features and tons of fun tools. It’s called Worm Paint, and it’s available on itch.io or, if you prefer to play in-browser, Newgrounds.
“When I first started Worm Paint a few weeks ago or so, it didn’t have a name yet and was just called ‘paintgame’ temporarily,” Worm Paint developer Tristone told Polygon via direct messages. “I then added a worm feature cause I thought it would be really funny to have worms crawl around on your artwork, after that my little twitter post with the worms being shown off blew up, I decided to theme the game around the worms since that’s the feature that really got the game decently popular in the first place.”
you really gotta *think* hard while drawing now! https://t.co/RVn2qF5HnV pic.twitter.com/tafibaP3Dr — Tristone (PLAY WORM PAINT!) (@OocTristone) July 11, 2024
Worm Paint immediately reminded me of KidPix, a similarly zany art program I enjoyed as a kid. Tristone was inspired by different sources: “I was more so inspired by games like Mario Paint and WarioWare DIY since those games have a lot of fun options that you can be really creative with,” Tristone said. “But I was also inspired by some more obscure free games like the old ‘Stress Reducer Desktop Destroyer’ from years ago, and LeatherIceCream’s game ‘Hedgehog Dilemma For Robots’ which has a really neat stamp and drawing feature on the game over screen.”
So whereas some art programs focus on having a great color picker or perspective tools, Worm Paint offers an entirely different arsenal. There’s a portal gun, if you want to teleport pieces of your art, or a hammer if you prefer to smash the canvas up. There are the titular worms, of course, and you can watch them inch their way across your screen, hook ‘em on a fishing pole, or simply stomp them and watch little worm ghosts go to heaven.
The game has so many of these unusual little tools that some streamers are making their own rudimentary games inside Worm Paint. The game is also designed to be moddable, allowing players to add their own tools if they so please. Is Worm Paint functionally a great art program? Well, no, it’s not for making masterpieces — it’s for making your own fun. In that vein, explosions and slot machines are all part of the experience.
learning new things at the last minute pic.twitter.com/eqnBjkvHS1 — Felps English Updates (@felps_ENG) July 23, 2024
#wormpaint the cool duo level (I had to leave before I could beat it, so this is my best attempt) pic.twitter.com/0aMVaxHjtO — Notivat (@Notivat_) July 21, 2024
Artist with MS Paint pic.twitter.com/xSmKiHr4W0 — Deimos yuri (@LEIXO_MC) July 21, 2024
We live in an age where there are countless weird, ambitious, and interesting indie gems buried among the usual release schedule. I’m glad that in such a busy year for big game releases, people are discovering Worm Paint. There’s something tremendously freeing about creating art on a destructible, temporary canvas before blowing it up or covering it with wriggly worms.
Art, and the process of creating it, is fun. Worm Paint understands this, and so I’ll keep it on my PC alongside my high-end art programs.
Worm Paint is the only art program with full worm functionality
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