Developer: Greg Lobanov, Alexis Dean-Jones
Publisher: Finji
Rrp: £15.49 (Steam) £14.42 (Humblebundle)
Released: 10th June 2021
Available on: Steam and Humblebundle
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: 11 Hours
Colour is one of those things we take for granted. The sky is blue and grass is green, these are things that we just ‘know’. But, imagine that one day all colour everywhere disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving only a world of black and white. Saying that it would be chaos would be considered something of an understatement.
Before I start my review, I want to bring attention to the fact that I backed this game on Kickstarter, so please take that into account when reading.
Chicory is a adventure game that has taken inspiration from games like the original Zelda, although unlike Zelda there are no wandering enemies for you to fight, instead this game likes to confront you with puzzles. The name of this world is Picnic and just like its name the various areas you explore and people you meet are all named after foods or spices, such as the town of Luncheon where the game starts. It should be noted that while Chicory is a character in this game they aren’t YOUR character. No, the character you play as is an anthropomorphic dog that gets named after your favourite food.
So what’s the call to action in this game? Well for some reason all the colours in the world have all been suddenly wiped away, leaving only black outlines on a white background. Thankfully, you quickly come to the rescue with a magic paintbrush that you have…. ‘borrowed’. The magic paint brush allows you to recolour the world again as you see fit. The colours that are available to you are specific to their location or at least they are until fairly late into the game where you can find an ability that will allow you to add a few more colours.
I really found a simple joy in colouring in the world around me as I explored. I think my time with the game would have been much shorter if I hadn’t been constantly stopping to fill in the blank world around me. Something that made this all the more satisfying is that sometimes other characters will compliment you on how you’ve coloured an area, even turning up in odd parts of the map just to see what you’ve done.
It wouldn’t be an adventure game without side quests and general busy work and this game is no different. There are lots of little side quests you can take on from delivering mail to finding treasure. For the most part the reward for doing these quests is a cosmetic item or ‘trash’. Thankfully, trash isn’t useless, there are quite a few places that take it in trade for cosmetic items.
Speaking of cosmetic items, there are ‘gifts’ both large and small scattered around the world that you can open. The smaller gifts have a cosmetic item where as the larger ones have a ‘brush style’ that lets you add a bit of added texture to your painting.
As you play through the game you’ll gain more skills and abilities as well as brush styles. Much like in Zelda where a specific item becomes useful in earlier areas so too does that apply here.
I have to admit I found the hint system to be both clever and cute. Around the world you’ll find phone boxes that you can use to call your parents. It’s always your mum that answers the call and she’ll give you a vague hint as to what to do next. However, hovering nearby is a hand, desperate to grab the phone from your mum. That hand is your dad who will tell you in extreme detail what to do next but he’ll only do so if you allow him to. Getting these hints doesn’t affect the game in any way.
I did try to play this game with my control pad but found it to be a bit too imprecise for what I wanted to do. Plus during the boss battles (yes, those are a thing) I found it much easier to control the brush with my mouse and use W,A,S,D to control my character.
Now, I don’t want to go into specifics about the story, but I can say that this game has a really heartfelt and touching narrative which covers subjects like self doubt and self expectation. Also, in a way, a story about growing up. I found myself really connecting to several of the characters that I chatted to.
It’s clear that this game was a labour of love and it turned out really well. I’m happy I supported it and I’m certain its worth the price that they’re asking for it.
Actually, I’ll put this here because I couldn’t find an appropriate place for it within this review, the developers included a choice within the options menu to disable ‘wet’ sounds, not something I need but I know a few people who would appreciate that.
