Tap and drag along the paper surface. You'll make a path of where you're going to draw. Make sure that none of the sparks cross your path - you'll mess up and lose a stroke if that happens. Then let go, and you'll draw part of the painting across the surface. Longer strokes will give you more lives.
Design Notes
Casual Games Constraints
&emsp This prototype took the constraints of mobile devices, touchscreens, and casual players in mind. So, it has touch/mouse interaction, no real-time pressure, short rounds, and so on.
Success to Continue
In this prototype, play continually exhausts a limited resource, but successful play generates more of that resource. Every Extend is the first game that drew my attention taking this approach so explicitly. In Every Extend, a player's only attack is killing themselves by exploding, but their explosions cause chain reactions. Long explosion chains earn extra lives. But this idea is at the heart of several old arcade games, where big scores, earned by risky play, give extra lives. See Pac-Man or especially Robotron. This prototype explores that relationship, with painting a stroke using a limited resource, but risky strokes, which you fail more often, generating extra strokes. This is a powerful game mechanic pattern. It sharply foregrounds risk versus reward choices.
On Art
I would love to make games teaching players about paintings and visual art. Game mechanics and rules lead player attention, focusing repeatedly, even repetitively, on variations of patterns that players couldn't stay interested in otherwise. This is a powerful tool. But if I can't, maybe someone else can make such games for me. I'd love a game to use tons of works from great masters as content for such a game, much like Guitar Hero used rock songs as levels.
This game points vaguely in a direction like that, but only vaguely.