Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Every screen is your personal blank canvas
Chicory, $20 on Steam. Runs on Nintendo Switch, and PS4/5. ESRB Rating E. (Comic Mischief and Mild Fantasy Violence) Released 6/10/2021, reviewed on 2/23/2022. Product received for free for reviewing purposes using a code provided by the publisher.
by Rem O’Connell
Chicory is an amazingly crafted mixture of creativity and game mechanics. But wait, there’s more…. the underlying story reminds you that this game has a soul; and a much deeper meaning (spoiler alert; this is discussed in the ending paragraphs).
You start out as a janitor in a black and white world, with a paint brush that allows you to color the world to your liking. As you explore and color, you find puzzles and can talk with the friendly residents.
Gameplay
On the PC version, Chicory can be played with a keyboard and mouse or a controller though keyboard and mouse works best.
The main gameplay revolves around painting with the magical brush to solve puzzles. Over the course of the game, you gain abilities such as swimming in your paint and jumping which allow you to access previously inaccessible areas of the world. I found the gameplay intuitive and fun and I had a lot of fun painting every screen. My adventure took me around nine hours to complete though I am sure there is a lot of side content I missed.
When it comes to painting, every area of the game has a four color palette for decoration. which you can decorate the area with. This has various uses such as painting a path, shrinking trees, and blowing up balloon bomb things. Nearly everything in the game can be colored from the world to even the characters in the game.
If one does find themselves struggling, the game has a few quality of life features such as increasing your health and a really cool hint system that can give you a vague or more exact hint for what to do next.
Story
I found myself really enjoying the story in Chicory and constantly was interested on how it would progress. I was also surprised to relate to a lot of the characters who experience imposter syndrome, burn out, and more.
I feel that anyone who has felt anything similar to these would also relate and get a lot out of the story. Even with some of these themes, the story is able to remain mostly positive and the story ties itself up neatly.
Customization
A feature I really enjoyed in Chicory was the amount of customization the player is given. Both on the world and on yourself. Being able to paint every screen and character naturally leads to everyone’s play through looking visually distinct. On top of this, the game has a furniture and clothing system which allows you to place furniture in every map and allows you to dress your character up in a variety of outfits.
Music
Chicory has an amazing soundtrack from intense boss themes and relaxing level themes, I loved every song I encountered in the game without exception. The songs perfectly convey what the creator wants the player to feel in each area.
Co-op Gameplay
When it comes to co-op, Chicory does a valid effort on making the second player important. Player 2 is given the role of a second brush which can be fun coloring every screen with your partner of choice. However, after testing with a friend, we noted that it feels lackluster as a result.
Player 2 is given a fair amount of control and I think that they did the best they could with co-op but for those wanting an equal share of power co-op game, Chicory is not one of them.
Conclusion
I can easily recommend Chicory to you if you’re looking for a creative way to unwind, or perhaps recalibrate your feelings of burn out, or even imposter syndrome.
Rem O’Connell is a IMM major at TCNJ who loves video games and wishes to create them in the future.
