I must admit that I have always liked those titles that played the trick of simplicity in their favor in pursuit of a high degree of instant entertainment. The history of the ludic software is full of examples: Pac-Man, Qix, Arkanoid, Tetris, and a looooong etc.

Brocha Gorda (Fat brush) is a simple game, yes, it is more, I would say that tremendously simple, now it seems that the author forgot that the simple, per se, does not entail fun, if it is not accompanied by a mechanics that is attractive.

As some of you have already deduced from the title, the protagonist of the program that concerns us is a painter, a painter to whom we will evidently incarnate.

To complete the game we must paint the floor of 7 different rooms. The problem is that, in each of those rooms will live some unfriendly beings, which obviously we must avoid at all costs. In addition, if this were not enough, we must finish each "task" in a time limit of 5 minutes.

During the course of the painting tasks, periodically we must recharge our brush by going to the paint bucket located on the right side of the screen.

Between room and room, we will face a "Slot-Machine" bonus phase, represented by 3 cubes, in which a series of amounts of money will appear randomly. Pressing the space bar three times (one per cube), we must stop an identical amount in each of the 3 cubes. If we get it, we'll get extra points.


A "QIX" COME TO LESS

As we mentioned in the introduction, there have been many simple concepts that have triumphed in the history of videogames, but one of the most minimalist has probably been Qix de Taito.

In Qix, moving around the edge of the screen we had to capture a certain percentage of the playing area, marking it with a line that we were creating, while avoiding the "creatures" (which were also composed of lines) inside the area of game.

All this comes to mind that the author of Fat Broach, most likely, had "Qix" in mind at the time of making the game.

Differences regarding Qix ... There are, and notable, but the fundamental in my opinion is this.

While in Qix it was enough to surround a portion of the area to capture it, here we have to go over the whole area of ??play that we want to "paint". This makes playing "Brocha Gorda" a repetitive and tedious task.

In addition, the behavior of our enemies is somewhat strange, and in the first rooms, one could almost say, colloquially speaking, that "they pass from us".

As if this were not enough, on the aesthetic level the game moves between the poor and the bland ...


TECHNICAL ASPECT

 - GRAPHICS: This section is quite "soulless". The graphics are very simple at the same time as "malillos", presenting a totally amateur finish.
  
 - ANIMATION: Little to say ... The animation of our painter is normal. The adversaries move "en bloc", without presenting any facial animation (they are represented by faces).

 - SOUND: As in most titles of this company, this section is extremely weak. The effects, if you can call it that, are a series (not very broad) of speaker beeps.

 - PLAYING: Qix was simplicity personified on a graphic level but a marvel at a playable level. Fat brush is bad at the graphic level, but almost worse at a playable level since it bores from the minute one until the end. In addition, the levels have a more than sad presentation.

Finishing, we can say that Brocha Gorda can be considered as a failed variant of Qix, which probably was made with few means and in a short time (remember that it is a game published only in kiosks), but at the same time transmits the feeling of having been carried out with enough reluctance on the part of its author.