Hey! Hallie here!
And I’m back with another video game review! Continuing on with my love of playing cozy games, I saw that this game was basically a coloring book with cute animal creatures and I knew that I had to try it out. But if you know my taste in games, you also know that I like deep storylines. Fortunately, this one delivers on that too! As cute as it is, the heart of ‘Chicory: A Colorful Tale’ is the hardships of being an artist, including topics such as imposter syndrome and depression due to burnout. But how do these elements work together? And does a coloring book translate to good gameplay? This is a non-spoiler review, so I’m just going to go into the basics of what I liked and disliked about this game. Mainly I want to talk about how cozy it is because, as usual, I want to make sure the people with anxiety like myself can find games that will feel comforting!
The Story:
This story follows a main character (The character is named after the player’s favorite food but the default name is Pizza), who works as a janitor for the artist Chicory. Chicory is the protector of the land of Picnic and is known for being a Wielder, or the artist chosen to wield a magical paintbrush. Picnic in its natural form is colorless, but the Wielder is able to bring color to the world by coloring it in themselves. But one day all of Chicory’s colors vanish from Picnic. When Pizza goes to check on Chicory, they find the magical paintbrush left on its own. In a split-second decision, they pick up the brush and begin to re-color Picnic. However, Picnic’s in a worse state than they thought. And to make matters worse, Chicory is bed-ridden and refuses to pick up the brush again when it’s offered to her. Pizza quickly finds themselves in the position of not just coloring everything back in, but also figuring out what happened to Chicory’s colors. While each character in this game is absolutely adorable, Pizza and Chicory are the focus of the game and the way the hardships of being an artist are explored. Though they’ve always wanted to be the Wielder, Pizza was never confident enough in their art to pursue that. And when they end up in the position of showing their art to the world on a large scale, they’re hit with criticism they aren’t prepared for. On the other hand, Chicory was chosen to be a Wielder. But she’s both tired of her work and convinced that she isn’t good at art anyways, so she quits. As an artist I found it really cathartic to play through a story where the main characters have the same problems with finding confidence in their art. And though the game shows the lows of being an artist, it also shows the process of coming to love your art and approaching art on your own terms. I highly recommend this for anyone who’s struggled with their abilities in any sort of art form.
The Gameplay:
As I said above, this game is basically a virtual coloring book. Instead of fighting any enemies, each new screen has a new set of trees, flowers, and houses to color. You can color as much or as little as you want to, and throughout the game you can even collect “brush styles” which are basically stamps you can use to add more precise shapes to your creations. I also really enjoyed that each area of the Picnic map has only four colors to choose from, which felt like enough variety to have fun with the colors without making be spend way too long trying to pick colors on a color wheel. If you find coloring books calming like I do, this game is the perfect way to unwind. However, the brush is needed for more than just coloring. In order to get to each new area, you need to use your paint to interact with the environmental puzzles around you. On some screens that means using paint to grow plants to walk across, on others it means coloring in an otherwise pitch black cave, and on others it means finding a pattern to paint into a doorway in order to open it. Each area is a series of new puzzles, and while they’re fun to solve, they aren’t too difficult to figure out. Whenever you’re stuck, there are also telephone booths in most environments. When you use them you get to talk to Pizza’s adorable parents! Pizza’s mom will talk to you first and will give you your general objective, which is helpful if you end up lost and unsure of what you’re supposed to do. If you need more precise help, Pizza’s dad will give more exact hints to help you get through the area. There are also boss battles in this game. They can seem complicated at first, especially because they require you to control both Pizza and the brush at the same time, but the game does help you get used to it. Dying during these battles doesn’t restart the battle either, but instead puts you right back where you were so you can keep going. Overall it’s really calming and creatively satisfying to play.
Collectables and Side Quests:
There are A LOT of collectables in this game. I’m not someone who likes to go around collecting everything in a game, but there are so many collectables around the map that I wound up finding a lot of them anyways. The collectables mostly consist of clothes you can dress Pizza in, brush styles, and lost kids which, when delivered to the home of a woman who looks after them, can be traded for decorations for your house. These are just fun little aesthetic details, and the game provides more for you even if you don’t decide to grab more collectables. For example, in one area of Picnic there’s a shop that allows you to trade any of the clothes you do have for a piece you may have missed. There’s even a hairdressers that gives you mystery haircuts depending on your mood, kind of like ‘Animal Crossing’. On the other hand, side quests aren’t as large of a presence in this game. They don’t impact the storyline much at all, but they do give you slightly more time to get to know some of the side characters that pop up in towns around Picnic. They also aren’t very hard to complete. While there are characters who might ask you to deliver a lot of letters, others will just ask you to paint their house or make a mural. But if you’re worried that completing side quests are the only ways to get to know the cute animals that live around Picnic, don’t be! Talking to the characters gives you just as much personality, and sometimes characters will come up to talk to you and admire the landscapes you painted. One character even gave me some fan art they drew! There’s a lot to do in the land of Picnic, but you can trust that none of it is overwhelming and (almost) everyone you interact with will be perfectly pleasant!
That’s it! I feel like I went on for a while about ‘Chicory’, but this wound up being one of my favorite games I’ve played in a while. It was relaxing in a way I really needed without it being so short that I felt like I went through it too fast. I clocked in around twenty hours of gameplay, ten of those being story related and the rest being dedicated to coloring in everything I could and exploring everywhere I wanted to go. But even with there being lots to do, I never felt overwhelmed. I especially loved this game’s approach to the topic of making art, which I found very relevant for the week before I start my college art degree. I highly recommend this game and I hope you have just as much fun creating with it as I did!
Don’t do anything fun until I get back!
Hallie
Oreos & Peanut Butter 