Paint the Town Red (PTTR) is a decent action sandbox game that can appeal to multiple kinds of players. For those of you who wanted a gorier version of Minecraft, this game is for you! However, the controls/mechanics are difficult to deal with. The roguelike mode Beneath is an interesting step in the right direction, but it pales in comparison to other modes. If you want this game, it's because you literally want to paint the town red in a sandbox environment, and paint the town red you shall.
You find yourself in a bar packed from floor to ceiling with blockheads (not stupid people, mind you, but actual folks with blocks for heads). You’re here for a drink. At the far end of the room, a cover band is playing what you think is rock music, but their dreams of musicmaking need not leave the premises. You need a drink. The bartender is overwhelmed with unruly customers, and there is nowhere to sit. You still need that drink. In a fit of sober anger, you grab the nearest barstool and clobber blocky drunk after blocky drunk to make your way to the bar where your drink awaits. It is not an alcoholic drink you seek, but one of blood. Tonight, you will paint the bar, and the town, red.
This scenario is but one of many you can find yourself experiencing when playing Paint the Town Red (PTTR), a an indie Steam early access game that has in development since 2015 and is now available on consoles. While it markets itself as an action game, calling it “just” an action game would discount the variety of ways you can enact bloody mayhem on blockheads like those in the bar. Instead, this game is best considered an action sandbox game with a decent rogue-like mode.
The sandbox genre is one I have always struggled with enjoying: having too much freedom overwhelmed me. When I would talk to Minecraft and GTAV enthusiasts, they would praise the opportunities of playing however they wanted, whether it be creating elaborate buildings, stealing cars, and performing exhilarating feats. The freedom that exists in PTTR is not worldbuilding nor performing tricks in an open world environment, but one of killing. Lots and lots of killing.
GAMEPLAY & OBJECTIVES
When you begin PTTR, you’re presented with three modes (Scenarios, Beneath, and Arena), all of which play slightly differently. Scenarios are short but sweet sandbox environments featuring unique elements that give you the opportunity to enact chaotic mayhem in many ways. The objective in Scenarios is simple: kill everyone using whatever weapons you find until no one is left. You can kick, punch, use weapons, and throw weapons at anyone you see. As you defeat enemies, your character gains energy that can be used to create shockwaves (blowing enemies to bloody smithereens), become enraged (making your melee attacks kill enemies in one hit), and smite enemies with laser beams from the sky. If killing enemies with barstools, prison cafeteria trays, and scimitars ain’t enough, you can modify the scenarios’ difficulty by adding perks that can help you AND hurt you. When I was still figuring out the game, I enabled Hard Hitter and Unlimited Power so I could create endless shockwaves and melee enemies in a single hit.
Each individual scenario comes equipped with its own unique environment, set of weapons, enemies, and music, meaning that you’ll have to change up your tactics in each area. It was refreshing to rush through tight hallways in the Prison scenario with shanks and police batons, smacking down prisoner and prison guard alike. When I tried out the Disco scenario, it was really entertaining to throw drinks at patrons and take hair picks out of characters’ hair and slice through blockheads in bell bottoms and bandannas. The environments differ to a certain extent (and the modifiers add to the variety of the game’s difficulty), but the replayability begins to wane after a while.
Beneath is PTTR’s roguelike mode that offers an entirely new set of mechanics and environments for players to explore. The mode itself lets you choose from several different kinds of characters, like Vanguard or Warlock, all of whom have different abilities. As a Vanguard, I could energize a weapon so that it could kill enemies quicker. As a Warlock, I could throw fireballs that lit zombies on fire. Like other roguelikes, the basic gist of this mode is to proceed through the levels until you die, restarting from the beginning with next to nothing. Rinse and repeat. PTTR’s Beneath is no different: After selecting a character, you’re sent into caverns full of blockhead zombies, floating skulls, and crystalline crabs.
Advancement in Beneath is much slower and requires much more of a slog than other popular roguelikes, such as Hades and Enter the Gungeon. In Beyond, killing enemies grants you gold and purple gems: the former of which spawn often and are used to purchase/unlock weapons while the latter of which spawn significantly less frequently and are used to slowly unlock upgrades. Failing to spend any currency means that, upon dying, you lose all of it. The merchant on each level has to be found as you play, so you have to play carefully until you find them so that you can spend your currency.
Compared to popular roguelikes such as Hades and Enter the Gungeon, Beneath feels significantly more difficult, significantly less rewarding, and significantly more barren. I became increasingly frustrated when I was playing through the levels as I looked for the merchant to turn in my purple gems. The most I ever found on a single run of the first level was 10, and a single upgrade costs 50. Although you can donate whatever you find, you won’t unlock the upgrade until you reach the threshold. It felt unrewarding to slog through a horde of zombies to end up with 20% of what was needed to make a single upgrade.
There is much room for improvement in Beneath, and I feel that with continued support and some minor balancing tweaks, South East Games can make the learning curve much less steep. The few levels I’ve encountered sometimes felt half empty and incomplete because of how few enemies were in some areas versus others. The character class system is an excellent addition to this mode, as the characters are distinct enough from each other to offer noticeable benefits and drawbacks and force players to make decisions about how they want to play. However, as it stands, Beneath is less fun than other roguelikes. If you’re looking for a good roguelike to play, PTTR might not be for you.
The final mode of PTTR is its Arena mode. Like Scenarios, your goal is to defeat waves of enemies using whatever is at your disposal (but in a giant arena). There are several arenas, each with their own sets of enemies, weapons, and traps, forcing you to make strategic decisions about how to use your weapons and how to whittle away at enemies’ health before you land final blows. Upon completion of a single wave, the arena resets, giving you new weapons, enemies, and traps. The console version of Arena lacks a level editor, meaning you can’t create your own arenas like you can in the Steam version, but the amount of challenges in the PS5 version were enough.
My two overall critiques of the gameplay of PTTR involve its precision (well, lack of aim assist) and the lack of gameplay information in the game. I understand PTTR was developed for the PC, but using a controller to hit enemies with weapons can prove challenging. There were many times where my melee attacks missed because the reticle was not exactly on their body. Console games are not often known for their precision (except at high level of play), so having some form of accuracy forgiveness/aim assist would have been nice. The learning curve of the game’s accuracy is quite steep, so be prepared to miss attacks more often than you would expect. My other concern about this game is the lack of information about playing the game. When you enter into a scenario for the first time, the controls are briefly shown on the bottom of the screen and then disappear. Having an interactive primer would be really helpful for new players who are unfamiliar with the game’s controls given that they are different than other first person games’ controls. The game does not tell you much about critical information either, such as a weapon’s durability. When playing Beneath, I was frustrated about how I did not know how many uses of a weapon I had left, since each weapon has a finite number of uses before it breaks.
WORLDBUILDING
Although Scenarios and Arena function as action/arcade segments, much of the worldbuilding that exists in this game is done in the Beneath mode. This doesn’t mean that Scenarios lack environmental immersion; what it does mean is that Beneath contains more information about the world of PTTR beyond killing everything. Scenarios and Arena give you just enough diverse content to make each environment feel unique, but you won’t have a need to become attached to characters or seek out hidden secrets by exploring the levels.
Beneath has some worldbuilding elements, and I fear that it needs more compared to other games in the roguelike genre. As you play and defeat Elder Gods (the final boss of each level), you unlock more of the Facility (the homeworld featuring tidbits of Beneath’s story). Exploring the Facility can be done in between Beneath runs, but once you’ve done it once, you have no reason to explore further unless you advanced further and slain another Elder God. I wish that there was more to do and see in the Facility, as there are giant empty spaces that could use a little love in rewarding the player in seeking them out.
ART & MUSIC
The voxel-style graphics of PTTR are really interesting and unique. I think the best way to describe the art of PTTR is imagine playing Minecraft with injury/blood mechanics from Mortal Kombat 9 (2011). Human/Zombies are generally block heads with giant blocks for heads and with varying styles of dress and “enhancements” (such as a mutant with a gigantic tentacle for an arm). The enemies visually respond to the kind of weapons you hit/bludgeon/slice them with. For example, when I used spiked knuckles against an enemy in the arena, their eyes squinted shut and they stopped attacking me to cover their face. When I used a lance, I tore off a chunk of another enemy’s torso and showered the area in pixelated blood. While the graphics are not “game of the year” material in terms of gorgeousness, they are enough to feel like using your weapons have actual consequences.
The music is solidly okay. While each area contains unique music spanning multiple genres, from sea shanties to hard rock to disco, none of it was particularly catchy enough to remain in your head when you’re not playing the game.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Paint the Town Red (PTTR) is a decent action sandbox game that can appeal to multiple kinds of players. For those of you who wanted a gorier version of Minecraft, this game is for you! However, the controls/mechanics are difficult to deal with. The roguelike mode Beneath is an interesting step in the right direction, but it pales in comparison to other modes. If you want this game, it’s because you literally want to paint the town red in a sandbox environment, and paint the town red you shall.
