I spent 1,700 hours coloring pixels in a game—and its sequel is already stealing more of my time – Destructoid

I have nearly 1,700 hours in a coloring book game. My go-to destress games are cozy farming simulators, nostalgic titles that take me back down memory lane, and a cute coloring book game, Coloring Pixels. I’d known about an upcoming sequel for about a week now, but I wasn’t anticipating its demo to be released so soon.

As part of Steam Next Fest, ToastieLabs officially released the demo version of Coloring Voxels, Coloring Pixels sequel, a few hours before the event began. Its first level, simply titled “Volcano,” has you creating different parts of a scene by coloring each piece in one block at a time. It’s a color-by-numbers game, requiring you to follow each number, color the corresponding area, and then repeat the process with the rest. You start on the bottom layer and work your way up before you, at last, have your completed set piece.

In one part, you might have a small bird, while the next is a huge volcano that takes you an hour to complete. At the end of it all, it forms a cohesive image that represents the level’s theme.

And that, ultimately, is what makes Coloring Pixels so enjoyable to me. I start with a blank canvas, and with each numbered color chosen, I color in the sections, watching the image unfold before me. While sure, its name gives away what it is, seeing its completed form right in front of you is satisfying in its own way.

Based on Coloring Voxels’ demo, I already know I’ll feel the same way about this. It’s not perfect; it eats up quite a bit of my PC’s performance and has a rather rigid camera in its current state. But with some polish, it’s a shoo-in to land at least a few hundred hours from me if ToastieLabs continues a similar level release trend that Coloring Pixels and another favorite of mine, WooLoop, have.

Coloring Voxels will officially launch on Aug. 15. I don’t know about you, but I already know it’ll stand alongside its predecessor as one of my top relaxation games.