In Paint Buckets, you are given a picture of exactly 16 colors, in which the "pixels" are very large. The main activity in Paint Buckets is pouring colors of paint onto your picture. At the start of the game, you have three buckets of each color located along the right side of your game window. You also have three special tools; more about these below. Once you have used all your buckets and special tools the game ends, even if you have time left, and even if you haven't completely erased the picture. The main object of the game is to erase the whole picture before the time runs out.

Three special tools available, which you'll find in the bottom right corner of your game window, below the paint buckets. Each of these tools can only be used once. The Balloon creates a splatter of color. The color of that splatter will be the color of the exact pixel on which you drop the balloon. The Eyedropper essentially gives you a fourth bucket of whatever color you choose. Once you've chosen a color, the Eyedropper turns into a bucket of that color, which must then be used immediately. The Paintbrush draws a line of color between any two pixels in the picture of your choosing. The color of the line will be the color of the starting pixel.

Your base score is based on how much of the picture you erased. You receive 20 points for each percent of the picture you erased. Thus, if you completely erased the picture, you'd get 100 * 20, or a base score of 2,000 points. If your percent complete was 92.4 percent, you'd get a base score of 92.4 * 20, or 1,848.