Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Dekorating Blues tasks you with guiding Walter Wall through a sprawling 101-room mansion, where every square of the floor needs a fresh coat of paint. You trace lines across the grid-based corridors, filling in tiles as you go, while racing against a strict fifty-second timer. The core loop is deceptively simple: paint most of the room’s floor, avoid your relentless pursuer, and move on to the next challenge before time runs out.

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Adding tension to this paint-and-dash formula is Matt Gloss, an adversary with two dangerous talents: in some rooms he can instantly end your run on contact, while in others he can absorb your freshly laid paint and reclaim territory. To keep Gloss at bay, Walter carries a limited supply of paste that he can drop onto corridor junctions—barriers that halt Gloss for a precious few seconds. Effective timing and placement of these barriers become critical as rooms grow more complex.

Rooms are anything but uniform. Intricate shapes and winding corridors form unique challenges—one dining room resembles a fork, complete with dead-end prongs that can trap the unwary painter. Each level introduces new layouts and junction configurations, forcing you to plan your route carefully. Coupled with the ticking clock and Walter’s ten-life limit, the gameplay strikes a fine balance between strategic mapping and high-speed reflexes.

Graphics

Dekorating Blues adopts a crisp retro aesthetic, featuring brightly colored floors and simple, clean sprites that evoke the heyday of 1980s arcade design. The stark contrast between Walter’s pastel paint colors and Gloss’s shiny metallic sheen makes it easy to track both your progress and your predator’s location at a glance.

The mansion’s 101 rooms burst with visual creativity: tile patterns shift as you paint, revealing new hues, and each specialized room—whether fork-shaped, star-shaped, or otherwise—offers a distinct layout that feels handcrafted. Subtle animations, like paint dripping in real time or Gloss skidding across wet tiles, add character without distracting from the core gameplay.

Interface elements are minimal but effective. A simple timer, life counter, and barrier-supply indicator sit unobtrusively in the screen’s corners, keeping you focused on painting and evasion. Sound effects for dropping paste or escaping Gloss heighten satisfaction, while upbeat chiptune music drives the action forward.

Story

While Dekorating Blues isn’t a narrative heavyweight, its playful premise provides a charming backdrop: Walter Wall, the world’s most determined decorator, seeks to beautify an abandoned mansion one room at a time. His nemesis, Matt Gloss, represents the slick, oppressive force of mass-produced finishes determined to wash away Walter’s handiwork.

The rivalry unfolds purely through environmental storytelling. Each room’s shape and color palette feel like chapters in Walter’s grand artistic statement, and Gloss’s ability to absorb paint underscores the thematic tug-of-war between DIY creativity and corporate sheen. It’s a simple conflict, but it gives every corridor chase real purpose.

Between levels, brief visual vignettes show Walter peeking nervously around corners or wiping sweat from his brow as the timer ticks away. These small touches lend personality without slowing down the action, ensuring that players remain invested in Walter’s mission throughout all 101 rooms.

Overall Experience

Dekorating Blues delivers an addictively challenging arcade experience. The tension ramps up quickly as you juggle coverage goals, barrier management, and time constraints. Early rooms ease you into the mechanics, but by mid-game you’ll be carving precise paths and hoarding paste just to stay alive.

Replay value is solid, thanks to the allure of mastering each room’s layout and beating your personal best times. Precision becomes key: the fewer tiles you retrace or the more strategically you place barriers, the smoother Walter’s painting spree becomes. Speedrunners will find plenty of depth in optimizing routes and barrier usage.

Though deceptively simple at first glance, Dekorating Blues offers layers of strategy beneath its colorful surface. With its blend of fast-paced drawing mechanics, clever room designs, and a lighthearted adversarial twist, this game is an engaging pick for anyone who loves arcade-style challenges with a dash of artistic flair.

Retro Replay Score

null/10