Developer Finji, best known for Night in the Woods, has announced its upcoming adventure RPG, Chicory: A Colorful Tale. Wandersong developer Greg Lobanov began a Kickstarter of Chicory back in August 2019, which met its funding goal within a day thanks to overwhelming fan response.
Chicory is set in a 2D cartoon-style world, where an unknown event has stripped all land and objects of their life and color. The player controls an anthropomorphic dog named after the player’s favorite food and attempts to restore color to the universe while wielding a magic paintbrush.
The titular Chicory, a legendary and beloved artist, is the original owner of the brush and the player character has taken it, possibly resulting in the world losing its color. The player attempts to speak to Chicory but they fade with the life and color from the world around them. As the brave dog you are, you explore the now colorless world, unlocking new areas and solving puzzles using your magic paintbrush. Fans of puzzle games will be pleased to hear about the freedom surrounding the puzzles, where the developer states that all puzzles have a solution but it’s up to the player and their own creativity on how to solve them.
You're not just trying to find out what happened to the colors, though. There are also bosses and action sequences in the game, so you'll be fighting to save the world for you and the NPCs. The further you get, the strong the bond you will have with your brush, which will unlock better abilities. As you interact with NPCs, you'll discover there is more to the story of Chicory and the world around you. As Chicory’s #1 fan, you are afraid you won’t be able to live up to their legacy; the game's story becomes about about building your confidence as an artist and a local hero.
Lobanov wanted the player’s creativity to be the core element of the game, so you can paint on anything in Chicory, as well as collect décor items, clothing and plants. The game also contains other adorable smaller features that indie game fans will appreciate, such as being able to pet cats and herding away bugs that eat at your painting.
If you enjoyed Animal Crossing’s Custom Design Editor, you'll appreciate Chicory's painting editor, where the player recreates classical artwork which then gets framed in their house. There are also art classes available in the game, so players can get more satisfaction out of their drawings. Your work will be critiqued and displayed in the world, with NPCs admiring and appreciating it similarly to Art Academy for Nintendo DS.
Fans of hand-drawn pen and ink style graphics such as Cozy Grove and Hollow Knight will appreciate the cartoony top-down visuals of Chicory. The game style appears somewhat simplistic but, even without color, lends itself to a detailed world for players to color in. The developers saw an opportunity to make art a main focus of the game, paying homage to similar titles such as Epic Mickey, where the main character used a magical paintbrush but the player's creativity was never front and center.
In addition to single-player, Chicory has localized co-op mode, meaning that players can paint the universe together. Player 1 controls the character while Player 2 controls a secondary brush, so the game has left plenty of room for an art competition. Co-op mode is available for solving the puzzles and sidequests, so technically the game can be completed as a co-op experience.
Although no official release date has been given, Finji has announced it will be Spring 2021 and released on PC, PS5 and PS4. This adorable game is a must-have for art fans who want to have a creative outlet while saving the world using their artwork.