My art and history professors would be turning in their graves, if they were there. Wait a minute… I don’t know, maybe they are. Anyway. Scriptorium threw me into the role of a medieval artist, innocent and unaware. Faced with the choice of a nun, a knight, the devil, and an elephant, of course, I chose the elephant. Purple.
And the tutorial starts, I have an uncle I don’t remember, green. And he leaves, and I’m running the shop. Customers start coming… let’s just say they are colorful - no spoilers, but the Devil shows up very quickly and is totally chill. He moved in with me.
The game is really well described as "medieval Canva." That’s how it plays, with of course a healthy dose of storytelling, which is humorous and serves well as a connection between "days" or missions. The musical background is also cozy, serving its purpose.
If you’ve ever fiddled with paint.net, GIMP, Photoshop canvases, or if image editing is, heaven forbid, your profession, the game’s interface will be clear to you. Or it will instantly trigger PTSD as if you were at work. Heh heh. Heh... hmm. There are tools and (rudimentary) layer management and a shop with objects and sketches, and it even allows exporting your creations.
If all this seems like a medieval skin for Canva, wait until you see Sandbox mode. All your artistic dreams and pretensions for a lucrative career as a manuscript illustrator on papyrus are a reality here.
With a little extra acrobatics, I don’t see why some more ambitious artist couldn’t use Scriptorium for something other than fun. The tools are there. And Scriptorium is definitely fun, if something like this is your thing. I mean, you’re reading a review for it. You’re interested. Buy it! Try it yourself.
A copy of the PC version of the game for review purposes was provided by the development studio Yaza Games and the publisher Mythwright
