Here’s an artistic puzzle game available on PC, Nintendo Switch, and smartphones. It launched in November 2020 and is by indie developer Thomas Waterzooi from Brussels in that there Belgium.
The concept is to the CHAGRIN of many an art gallery, as players are encouraged to touch the art pieces and mess around with them. With 160 puzzles to solve, you can explore the secret world of many a painting whilst piecing together a love story. Yes, it works a treat.
For the Love of Abstract You Must Please, Touch the Artwork
If you follow this site, you know we have a big thing for abstract expressionist art. A way of conveying thoughts, feelings, concepts, and philosophies through shapes and the like.
Naturally, we were always going to find Please, Touch the Artwork appealing.
The goal of the game is to recreate paintings by applying colours and lines, which you must do in a specific order. Waterzooi uses real life, iconic abstract paintings and you get to mess around with those in a nifty bit of reverse engineering. As he explained in a press kit:
“During a night of light insomnia Thomas wanted to try writing a Mondrian-painting generator which randomly generated paintings in Mondrian’s famous Composition in Red, Blue, Yellow style. He thought it would be nice if the user could manipulate the paintings as a way of ‘becoming the artist’. A little puzzle mechanic was added and ‘Please, Touch The Artwork’ was born.”
It’s very clever in how he put it together. Drag, slide, engage your brain. Behold! Here’s the game in action.
The dev went a step further and turned the idea into an actual artistic piece, which was turned into a professional installation. Waterzooi notes:
“Please, Touch The Artwork has the same name as the game. It works the best if there’s none or few people around. The installation looks like a normal painting but seems to be affected by vandalism. The rope that should prevent you from coming to close is cut and there’s a dirty handprint on the canvas. It triggers the fantasy of being able to touch the untouchable. The visitor starts doubting cultural norms (you normally can’t touch paintings) and gets the feeling they are doing something naughty.”
And here it is, a sneak peek of the piece before it was hung up in a gallery.
Back to the game and Please, Touch the Artwork offers around two hours of gameplay. It’s a breezy experience, not intended to be super challenging, more a relaxing ode to the world of abstract concepts.
Every puzzle is procedurally generated, so no playing experience is ever the same. Return time and time again and you’ll have a different order to unlock.
The love story is irrelevant to the experience, but it’s there if you want that type of thing. But we were there for the yellow (it being out favourite colour) and all the abstract loveliness. Bon.
