Watch Real-Life Artists Play this Starving Artist Simulator

I'm a big fan of Passpartout: The Starving Artist, which slipped out onto Steam last month shortly before E3. Though I'd stop short of calling it a full-blown artist simulator, Passpartout puts players in control of the simple, MSPaint-y brushstrokes of an undiscovered artist working out of their garage, churning out canvas after canvas to pay the bills and impress an endless stream of critics.

But there's one thing I've come to enjoy more than actually playing Passpartout myself, and that's the members of YouTube's art community who have picked it up. Here and there Let's Plays have been popping up on channels otherwise populated with tutorials, timelapses, supply hauls and creative exercises like Three Marker Challenge.

It turns out that the best part of watching proper artists play Passpartout isn't necessarily the skill they demonstrate or the brilliance of their work—it's watching them push against the constraints of the game.

Take the giddy couple behind Doodle Date, for instance. After their first video, they returned to Passpartout with a new plan. They attempted to recreate a series of famous paintings and see how well they would perform in the game's highly discriminating art economy.

Meanwhile Jazza (of the channel Draw with Jazza) wavered between high and low effort pieces in his first video as he tried to crack the game's system. Success finds him going all-in on a string of high volume memes, and by the end of his second video he's worked his way up to a pretty cushy studio as a result.

Admittedly none of this is likely to impact the butt-oriented oeuvre I've curated in my own game, there's still a measure of satisfaction in watching talented people struggle to sell their own colorful blobs and smears to all the little judgy jerks walking by.

While we're on the subject, here's my pro tip for getting the best possible Passpartout experience. Although the game feels like a natural fit for a touch interface, its developers have said that it's not currently viable for them to port it to Android or iOS. So for players who don't have a drawing tablet on hand, simple screensharing apps for phones and tablets (I've personally been using Duet Display) are a pretty reasonable stopgap solution. Anything that can turn a touchscreen into an extra display should do the trick. Just turn it on and slide the game window over and voilà, you'll be churning out your MSPaint masterpieces with the best of them.

Regardless of who's playing and how, though, Passpartout is simple fun that (much like 90 Second Portraits) encourages players to relax a little about their artwork. Just be quick, have fun, and pay the bills.