Mira’s Brush Review

Game: Mira’s Brush
Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie
System: Steam
Developer | Publisher: Duckbill ProDucktions | Angel Star Studios
Controller Support: Partial
Price: US $9.99 | UK £7.19 | EU € 8,19
Release Date: July 8th, 2021

Review code used, with many thanks to Angel Star Studios

Mira’s Brush is a fast-paced, colorful adventure game that requires quick wits and even quicker reflexes. This delightful indie title is from devs Duckbill ProDucktions.

The Story and Gameplay

Mira’s Brush begins in a colorful kingdom. An evil villain comes along and steals the colors from the castle, and the citizens are frightened. But out of nowhere comes our hero, the brilliantly colorful Mira with a magical paintbrush. She’s here to return colors and defeat enemies, and nothing is going to stop her.

The gameplay is very simple; at the start, players can remove colors from enemies or paint their new colors. Enemies that are the same color as the background disappear, and black and white enemies are no longer a threat. The levels get progressively more and more difficult with harder enemies and more dangerous environments.

The game is incredibly fast-paced, and players will need to focus as Mira’s Brush’s incredibly speedy pacing makes seeing and interacting with the environment a puzzle of its own.

The Pros of Mira’s Brush

Mira’s Brush is a fun game with a lot of intriguing puzzles for the player to work out. The heroine wears a hijab, which makes the game both inclusive and even more interesting. The graphics are old-school pixelated, but bright and goofy in a way that makes it visually appealing. It’s hard not to instantly fall in love with the look, the style, the music, and the whole package as an old-school platformer.

I love the message that the game presents. A young woman fixing injustice all on her own. She’s strong, and the villains never had a chance. The evil Captain Blunt can only be defeated by a young lady with a paintbrush. The concept of fighting against evil with artwork is the kind of metaphor that I’m here for.

The Cons of Mira’s Brush

Mira’s Brush has a lot going for it, but it also has a lot of issues. The controls are janky, the movement is also a little wonky, and Mira is very difficult to keep on the level. This game requires a lot of precision, and yet the controls make precision nearly impossible.

While most of the art for Mira’s Brush is beautiful and fun, the opening scene was so egregiously colored that I had to turn down the brightness of my screen just to get through it. The alternating bricks of pink, yellow, and blue in pastels made my eyes hurt so badly, I barely took in what was happening in this scene.

Thankfully, this game is in early access, so it still has some time to fix its issues. And I’m really hoping that the controls are fixed soon; this game could be so much fun if it was a little easier to control the heroine.

Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure.