Chicory is a charming puzzle/adventure game with clever mechanics and level design, endearing characters and an emotional story.
The game has you take the role of a janitor working for Chicory, a kind of mystical official known as a wielder who is responsible for providing color to the game's world. At the outset Chicory and all of the color of the world have vanished leaving you to pick up her magical brush and solve the mystery of where the color has gone and the origin of strange black trees that have appeared throughout the world.
As the new wielder, the brush grants you the ability to color in your surroundings and earn new ways to interact with the paint, such as swimming in it a la Splatoon or using it to illuminate dark caves.
The core gameplay loop has you uspgrade the brush's powers and use them to solve environmental puzzles to navigate to the sources of the corruption infesting the world, obtain collectibles such as clothing for your character and new ways to paint with your brush and complete tasks for NPCs.
Puzzling can be a little dry in some of the early sections where your brush's powers are limited, but as you gain new abilities the game does an excellent job at introducing new mechanics that combine your skills in interesting ways and force them to think about them differently. The game also has an excellent tip system, reminiscent of Link's Awakening, if you find yourself stuck and one of my personal highlights was taking some time to backtrack and paint in areas I left blank to take a break from a puzzle that gave me some trouble.
There are no hostiles or combat outside of boss battles, which begin by simply having you swipe your brush over an enemy while avoiding their strikes but evolve mechanically with each encounter ultimately leading to some pretty stellar battles.
Outside of the gameplay, Chicory really shines in its writing and world building. All of the characters you encounter have memorable and endearing personalities and NPCs will often show up at shops or on random screens throughout the world to comment on how you've colored them in.
This all helps feed into the stellar story which offers commentary on the demands of being a public creative, as well as exploring your path in life and the impact you have on others.
All of this is underscored by an absolute banger of a soundtrack that emphasizes everything from tender emotional moments, the adrenaline of a boss fight, the spectacle of a big city and a reference to another popular game series that made me laugh out loud.
Chicory draws on the spirit of 2D Zeldas and other adventure games, combining those inspirations into a modern and polished package with a well implemented gimmick and satisfying gameplay mechanics.
The game has you take the role of a janitor working for Chicory, a kind of mystical official known as a wielder who is responsible for providing color to the game's world. At the outset Chicory and all of the color of the world have vanished leaving you to pick up her magical brush and solve the mystery of where the color has gone and the origin of strange black trees that have appeared throughout the world.
As the new wielder, the brush grants you the ability to color in your surroundings and earn new ways to interact with the paint, such as swimming in it a la Splatoon or using it to illuminate dark caves.
The core gameplay loop has you uspgrade the brush's powers and use them to solve environmental puzzles to navigate to the sources of the corruption infesting the world, obtain collectibles such as clothing for your character and new ways to paint with your brush and complete tasks for NPCs.
Puzzling can be a little dry in some of the early sections where your brush's powers are limited, but as you gain new abilities the game does an excellent job at introducing new mechanics that combine your skills in interesting ways and force them to think about them differently. The game also has an excellent tip system, reminiscent of Link's Awakening, if you find yourself stuck and one of my personal highlights was taking some time to backtrack and paint in areas I left blank to take a break from a puzzle that gave me some trouble.
There are no hostiles or combat outside of boss battles, which begin by simply having you swipe your brush over an enemy while avoiding their strikes but evolve mechanically with each encounter ultimately leading to some pretty stellar battles.
Outside of the gameplay, Chicory really shines in its writing and world building. All of the characters you encounter have memorable and endearing personalities and NPCs will often show up at shops or on random screens throughout the world to comment on how you've colored them in.
This all helps feed into the stellar story which offers commentary on the demands of being a public creative, as well as exploring your path in life and the impact you have on others.
All of this is underscored by an absolute banger of a soundtrack that emphasizes everything from tender emotional moments, the adrenaline of a boss fight, the spectacle of a big city and a reference to another popular game series that made me laugh out loud.
Chicory draws on the spirit of 2D Zeldas and other adventure games, combining those inspirations into a modern and polished package with a well implemented gimmick and satisfying gameplay mechanics.