Play Splashwright • Free

Splashwright mixes paint the way paint mixes, not the way light does. Each spot on the wall remembers how much of each of the five paints is in it, and every new splat thins what is there by half and adds its own. That means the order of the coats matters: red then yellow gives an orange that leans yellow, and yellow then red gives one that leans red.

Two coats of the same paint come close to that paint, and three coats are almost pure, so you can always paint a colour back over a mistake. Red, yellow and blue together turn a muddy brown, which some murals ask for. A splash of white softens a colour into a pastel and a splash of black dulls it into a shade, which the Garden Wall, the Desert Town and the Rainy Alley lean on.

When a ball lands on a different colour, a little swatch of the new mix pops out of the splat, so you can see what you made. The mix chip next to the sight shows the same thing before you fire.

Every paintball splats. A shot fired while the sight is still swaying throws fingers of paint out from the splat, a ring of little splatter dots, and sometimes a drip that runs down the wall. That is fine in the middle of a big shape, but on an edge it puts paint where the mural has none.

Hold the sight still and it steadies. When the crosshair ticks and the splat ring turn mint, the next shot is a clean one: a neat round splat exactly the size of the ring, with no fingers, no splatter and no drips. Firing kicks the sight, so it takes a moment to settle again. This works with every gun, including the free Street Marker, so a careful painter can always cut a tidy edge.

Each wall is sketched in faint pencil, and a clean shot is taped off: it only paints the one sketched shape it lands on, even if the ring is bigger. Aim a clean shot right on a thin line, like the cross on a kite, and only the line takes the paint, so every mural can be copied exactly.

On a phone, a quick tap fires at once and splashes. To place a clean shot, hold your finger down so the sight lifts above it, keep still until it turns mint, then let go.

The wall and the mural are both cut into a grid of small squares, and each square's colour on the wall is compared with the mural, the way your eye would see it. A square scores fully when it is close in colour and well covered. Squares the mural leaves bare should stay bare: paint on them counts against you, so spraying the whole wall never helps.

Squares that match closely shine as perfect, and they twinkle in a sweep across the wall when the floodlights come on. The stars need a higher match as the levels go on, from a little under half for one star on the first wall to well over four fifths for three stars on the last.

The Corner Bakery teaches the basics with single colours. The Market Lane brings in oranges and greens, the Harbour Wall purples and sea blues, the Garden Wall soft tints and the Desert Town deep shades. In the Subway Underpass the order of the coats matters, the Sunset Rooftop uses more colours at once, the Rainy Alley asks for dull, muted tones and the Snowy Square for tints and shades together. The Night Carnival ends the street with murals of up to eight colours.

Each wall has its own setting, time of day and weather, from a sunny bakery corner to a snowy square and a carnival under the lights, and its own music. Later murals have finer parts, more colours to mix and less spare paint in the tanks.

From the second wall on, the street joins in. Pigeons land on the wall for a rest, and a ball fired at one is blocked and wasted until it flutters off. Wind pushes every ball sideways, and the windsock beside the meter shows which way and how hard, so aim a little upwind.

Glass panes are set into some walls. Paint will not stick to glass, a ball that hits a pane skips off and lands just past its nearest edge, and the glass is not scored. Subway trains and carnival ride cars roll along the bottom of the wall, catching any ball that hits them, and an amber light warns you before each one. A window-cleaning robot drops down a lane and wipes it clean after the lane lights up, and gutter rain drips and then pours, washing a strip of paint away. Repaint once they have gone.

The first time a challenge appears, a card with a small animated picture explains it before you fire your first ball. Levels with challenges give you a little more paint.

Every level pays coins for its stars: 20 for the first star, 30 for the second and 50 for the third, each only the first time you earn it. Spend them at the Paint Truck, parked on the Block Party Street, where guns hang on a pegboard and special balls sit in tubes. Each item has a swing tag that shows what it does and how it rates.

There are six guns, and you carry one at a time. The Street Marker is free and does a bit of everything. The Steadyhand has a long barrel and a scope, and its sight barely sways. The Pinpoint throws small, neat splats for fine details and tight edges. The Bucketmouth's flared muzzle throws big, fat splats. The Quickpump fires twice as fast, which helps round pigeons and passing cars. The Muralist is steady, generous and quick.

Special balls come in packs of three and are spent one a shot. Wide Spray bursts into a fan of six small splats, Roller Shot lays a long flat stripe across the wall, Stencil Shot snaps to the grid and paints a crisp square, and the Primer Ball wipes a patch of wall back to bare primer without using any paint, which is the way to undo a mistake. Load one with the slot before the tanks, or X, and it stays loaded until you switch back or run out.

Every wall you paint is kept as a photo. The gallery hangs them on washing lines, one pair of lines for each district under that district's sky, and the photos sway as you scroll along. Tap one to lift it up, tap again to turn it over and read the notes on the back, with the mural's district, your stars and your best match, and choose Paint again to have another go at that wall.

Splashwright is about painting. The paintballs only ever hit a wall, a pane of glass, a passing car or, now and then, a pigeon, which simply flutters off in a puff of feathers. There are no people to aim at and nothing gets hurt.

All the sound is made in code: the pop of the gun, splats that move from left to right with where they land, drips, a chime when a new colour mixes, the street's trains, rain and wind, the camera flash, and light lo-fi music with one tune for the street and one for each district. The speaker button or the M key turns it off, and the game follows the site's mute as well.

Your stars, best match and a picture of your best wall for every mural, your coins, guns, special balls and sound setting are saved on Unihfy Games in this browser.