Chicory: A Colorful Tale PAX West 2019 Impression

Some characters will have specific colour demands while others will be happy with anything, and a rare few will be happy with nothing.

What if the person in charge of colouring the world disappeared?  What if the world disappeared with her?  Those simple questions and much more are answered in Chicory: A Colorful Tale, a different take on an adventure game with light RPG elements.  Billed as a cross between Zelda and Animal Crossing, Chicory is a top-down adventure with ample dialogue, branching paths, and the joy of colouring inside the lines…or outside them.  The demo offered two-player co-op, with the second player controlling their own mystical paintbrush but not the movement of the main character.

With all the colour drained from the world, many fellow anthropomorphic animal citizens will have colourful requsts.  These can be anything from re-painting their homes or businesses to adding a splash of colour to their wardrobe, and much more.  Some characters will have specific colour demands while others will be happy with anything, and a rare few will be happy with nothing.  Exploration also ties directly into painting, with certain trees jumping out of the earth fully grown or retreating into the ground.  Growing and retreating trees and other environmental barriers are key to exploring, and with two players one can manage growing and shrinking the correct plants while the other focuses on the actual platforming, though someone with a normal amount of coordination could no doubt do both with ease.

Jumping into a different part of the demo, brave Pizza armed with their paintbrush and the players’ mediocre painting abilities descends into a sample dungeon.  At the end of a short corridor, navigating through scary dark patches, a boss emerged from the dark!  Made up of numerous eyes, the boss was weak to the player’s paintbrush, and as more damage was taken, the boss attack pattern became more and more complex.  With a buddy in tow, one player can focus on avoiding the increasingly challenging attacks while the second player paints the enemy’s weak spots as often as possible.  When the big eyeball was finally conquered, Pizza gained a new power — their paint would now glow in the dark!  Cool.

Though Chicory: A Colorful Tale won’t be expected until the second half of 2021, the demo already shows an excellent foundation that demonstrates the game’s concept, and the strong early-game narrative shows ample promise.  The game’s Kickstarter will run through September 14, 2019, for those who want to jump into funding the game at its earliest stage.