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Eastshade is a gorgeous pastoral RPG about being a painter

by Amr (@siegarettes)

• Eastshade
• Developer: Eastshade Studios
• Publisher: Eastshade Studios
• PC

Eastshade seems like a fruit ripened just for a me–an art school dropout with little sense for painting. Escaping to the life of a traveling artist is still a potent fantasy–seeing new places, capturing them, and making a living off your art are all about as fantastical as the setting of Eastshade itself, after all. I expected to come out with a certain appreciation for painting, maybe a with the game’s pastoral landscapes. Instead, I learned  about something else I missed in my truncated art education: the hard material reality of trying to make art for a living.

Eastshade doesn’t model the physical process of painting–you select a shot and it develops into an image in front of you, much like a polaroid–but it does model the material and mental cost of the process. Having lost everything except my paints and easel in the shipwreck that brought me to the titular fantasy land, I needed to scavenge both materials for my canvases, and the inspiration to paint its landscapes.

Eastshade’s opening promises of excitement and adventure wash away at the first roadblock, a toll bridge that requires a not insignificant amount of currency to pass. The seaside town that took me in after the wreck was beautiful, but there wasn’t enough there to keep me inspired enough to keep making the paintings that provided my income. So I found myself instead occupied with doing odd jobs for townsfolk, scavenging whatever boards and cloth laid around to make canvases, and at my most desperate, picking up feathers to sell as quills, one piece of gold at a time.

Low on inspiration, I found myself scavenging not only materials and coin for the toll, but new information and sights to stimulate me. On one particular night, I staked out the mysterious abandoned watchtower, freezing without a proper jacket, drinking tea to ward off the cold that fell on everything after sunset. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the lights rumored to show up at night. As it turned out, a certain someone had been hiding there, playing hermit from an overwhelming world. I never ended up meeting them, since it turned out the tower’s interiors didn’t provide shelter from the cold, and I ended up passing out from the cold long before they returned.

Stories like this provide the real fulcrum that Eastshade pivots on. The pastoral tales of the people, their history, and the landscapes they reside in are at the heart of Eastshade, and provide its momentum. The strange world, from its celestial collection of daily eclipses and Earth-like heavenly bodies, to its flora and animal faced people, provide endless visual interest. Perfect for a game about painting.

The spoken and written word provide just as much color. Eastshade’s characters are supported by strong vocal performances, and I relished the new conversations made available each time I discovered a new keyword for its dialogue trees. Its book are also genuinely interesting, with concise snippets of the world, often illustrated. It’s a far cry from the usual verbose, flowery prose most fantasy games dump on me.

Ironically, it was the painting that didn’t capture me. While there are a few different approaches to it, allowing you change the styles and mood in various ways, it doesn’t capture the physicality of painting or the immediacy of photography. The near instant nature doesn’t convey the effort or labor, and the material and inspiration requirements kept me from making paintings frequently.

I got the impression Eastshade wanted me be considerate of its landscapes, and carefully choose when and how I framed each shot. It definitely helped me engage with its world and stay on the lookout for painting opportunities, though the limits placed on how many paintings I could make prevented me from capturing as many of them as I wanted. I ended up relying on the screenshot button a lot, and relegating the in-game painting mechanics to quests and specific situations.

For a game about a painter, Eastshade ends up making it the least compelling part. The cost of painting ended up taking away a lot of the joy of capturing an image. It’s a shame, but its pastoral landscapes and interesting people more than make up for it. On that front at least, it succeeds in giving you an alternative method of engaging with its fantastical world. I personally wish it gave you more freedom in capturing the world it presents you, but regardless, there’s plenty of magic to be found here.