Is Painty Mob the best game on Apple Arcade? Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Is Painty Mob the best game on Apple Arcade? (Besides Grindstone, obv.) Feature by Christian Donlan Features Editor Updated on 3 Oct 2019 17 comments Hello. Last night I almost leapt out of bed and ran into the street wearing just my pyjamas, grabbing anyone I could find and loudly yelling, "Apple Arcade! It's this new thing on iOS! First month's free! The only game you need is Painty Mob!" I had been playing Painty Mob for about five minutes by that point. Now I'm several hours deep. The only difference is this: now I would yell even louder. What is Painty Mob? God that is hard to say really. Years from now there will be college courses designed to answer that question. People will write dissertations and check out inter-library-loan books on Painty Mob and write, "Agree!" in the margins next to the really clever lines. Anyway, take a phone screen, held landscape. Imagine a line dividing it down the middle. The left half? That's for moving your thumb to run around. The right half? That's for sending out bursts of paint. So what is Painty Mob? It's a game with a mob and you paint them. The more of the mob you paint the higher your score. But the mob chases you and tries to kill you. And there are bombs and other problems. It's all over so quickly. "It's All Over so Quickly: Mortality and meaning in Painty Mob." That one gets a first. What else is Painty Mob, though? It is a sensation, delivered through the art and up via the screen and the thumbs. It is a softness, a squishiness, a rounded, inflated world of flat colour and emoticon grins that you race across blasting everything with emergency yellow, with hot coral, with Dulux Heartwood. The world is inflated to the point where it might burst any second. Bang. It's done. You're done. Painty Mob is done. Back, inevitably, to Painty Mob. It is a lot of stuff happening on screen all the time, most of it delightful. It is unlockable characters and coins and things to buy with in-game currency that sometimes falls out of a pig. Your paint runs down as you use it and you have to collect more paint all the time. Maybe you hold off painting everything. Maybe you let the mob get in close so your paint builds up and then: pow! Knock them all back. If Painty Mob is so simple, right, why do I have all these strategies brewing? Why do I dream of peering beneath the paint, beneath the mob, and touching the void itself? Painty Mob! This game is so good. I might faint it's so good. Maybe I will. Maybe I will just faint. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More Features Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. 14 Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Feature What games get wrong about horses And what they could do about it. 34 Feature Shout out to all the Overwatch supports - where would we be without you? Merci. 55 Latest Articles Digital Foundry Sennheiser's legendary HD 599 open-back headphones are just £70 at Amazon in the Prime Early Access Sale Comfortable with neutral sound and a wide sound stage. Preview Football Manager's new Console edition is the best you'll get without a PC Getting Touch-right. 1 Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 61 Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store