Concrete Genie allows anyone to be an amazing painter and bring their creations to life with a full suite of painting tools.
Throwing Ash into the world of Denska that could use some color from its sad dark state.
You are on a mission to fill the world with your creations and utilize your imagination to the fullest in order to bring the world to life.
Video Timestamps
- 0:00 Painting Like a True Artist!
- 1:18 Welcome to Denska
- 18:00 Painting a Masterpiece
- 22:30 Down into the Sewers
- 35:25 Is Concrete Genie Amazing?
Table of Contents
- Painting the World of Denska
- Just What’s in a Paintbrush?
- Super Paint is the Ultimate Paint
- Building a Masterpiece and Avoiding the Bullies
- Is Concrete Genie Amazing?
Grab a paintbrush, get that creativity flowing, and let’s find out if Concrete Genie is a masterpiece.
Painting the World of Denska
Denska is a city that is devoid of life, color, and well, anything you can think of that would exist in the sunshine.
The city has fallen on some hard times and after Ash visits a lighthouse he creates Luna.
Luna is Ash’s first creation and the original Genie in the world.
From there it’s up to Ash to restore Denska to its original glory after many years of struggling.
It acts as the main overworld to the game with a hint of open-world but it is mainly linear with giant spaces for you to traverse and paint on everything.
You will go through a variety of locations, like the docks and sewers, solving puzzles and creating a wide variety of Genies.
There are collectibles to find and billboards to cover in paint, but the main draw is the lights and many pages throughout the world.
When you paint around the world you have specific paint templates you can use. As well as finding more pages that open up more fun things to use.
Just What’s in a Paintbrush?
The main point may be to bring Denska back to life but the fun comes from painting on everything.
Ash has a giant paintbrush to paint on walls to get further into the city.
You create electric and wind-style Genies to solve puzzles and help Ash on his adventure.
It can be a bit weird since you can call them to your location and a trigger causes them to act.
The electric Genie can start power boxes, so you need to get them to a power box and after a few seconds just hit it with a jolt.
A Wind Genie will push objects out of your way, which is helpful to make certain jumps.
I wish that there was a dedicated button to call and have the Genie do an action, rather than just counting on the event to trigger.
It slows down the gameplay to sit and wait for the Genie to realize it is in position, rather than just pressing a button.
Although the Genies are stuck to the wall, it adds to the puzzle element if they can’t reach your destination.
In this case, you would need to move something or close a door for them to pass to where they’re needed.
The core to progression is tied into lighting all of the lightbulbs in a single area, then moving forward and doing it again.
It’s cool to always have a blank canvas to paint on in the city, so let’s move on to discussing it!
Super Paint is the Ultimate Paint
One of the core mechanics of the game is utilizing Super Paint to paint on certain services.
As you explore the world you’ll come across these dark sections of walls that can’t be painted on by just using normal means.
You’ll need a special Super Paint to paint on these particular walls.
To get Super Paint you need to help Genies with random requests that pop up. As you play a Genie could ask you to paint something specific in a given area.
If a Genie asks for some stars, just paint some near it and you’ll make it happy. Then you’ll be rewarded with Super Paint!
It’s nice because what you need to paint always flashes white on the menu, so you don’t need to worry about trying multiple solutions!
Throw in the fact that you can paint anything you want around the requests and your imagination can go wild!
Once you have Super Paint you can paint on the special walls and get those out-of-reach lights, once all the lights are lit comes the fun part.
Building a Masterpiece and Avoiding the Bullies
At the end of every section comes the coolest part of the entire game where you can take everything you’ve learned and put it into one giant skyscraper-sized painting.
The masterpiece is said giant building with a blank section that you can fill in with anything and everything you want.
There is total freedom and you say when you’re happy with it to move forward.
It’s a great section and a fantastic way to finish off the level.
The last thing worth a mention is the Bully’s, they act like the villains of the game.
You can’t do much more than run away from them so they feel like a last-minute roadblock to pad out the game.
Avoiding them isn’t too fun and they are pretty mean to Ash for what feels like no reason. Just there to be there.
Worth bringing up but more like a story point and some added stealth mechanics at the end of the day.
Is Concrete Genie Amazing?
Concrete Genie is amazing no two ways about it!
The gameplay is super fun, the ability to be creative shines in the world you help to create, and Ash is a fantastic character to move everything forward.
The Genies are always interesting and add a nice dynamic to the painting gameplay.
Overall, it all works together to make a unique game that sets its own rules so you can have the freedom to be as creative as you want.
