Why I’m Excited For ‘Chicory: A Colorful Tale’
Chicory: A Colorful Tale, better known as Drawdog, is the charming new project by Greg Lobanov, the developer behind Wandersong – which was one of my favorite games of 2018. Even better, the game is scored by Lena Raine of Celeste fame – another indie darling of 2018. And to add the cherry on top, sound design by A Shell in the Pit, known for their work on Wandersong amongst other things. In other words, this is a dream team of game designers and musicians collaborating on a brilliantly fun and wholesome-looking idea. I was lucky enough to play the demo prior to today’s big announcement, rebranding, and Kickstarter launch. Getting a hands-on session with the game only amplified my hype.
In Chicory, you run around the world as the “drawdog,” which you name, adding color and bringing life to the map. It cheers up the local citizens when you do this, and causes the world to react to your painting of it. You have a limited series of colors at your disposal but can be entirely creative with how you use these colors to interact with the world. It reminds me of my time playing 2D Zelda games in terms of exploration and level design, but with a sense of originality and humor blended into the worldbuilding and storytelling.
The designs for the game are adorable from characters to the environment itself. Painting can cause silly reactions from the non-playable characters that appear throughout the world. It makes me care about the game’s world even though I’ve only dipped the tip of my brush into it.
Even as I praise the visual charm of the game, it’s worth noting that black and white games usually repel me from playing them. As much as I love Minit, a 60-second adventure where you only have a minute to explore before death, the art style got lost in the DDOS aesthetic. And I have outright avoided games that I would otherwise love, like Gato Roboto, because it hurts my eyes to stare at the black and white contrast for too long. Though both of those are awesome games, I just usually veer away. With Chicory, however, I feel like the black and white world is an inviting aesthetic that, by virtue of allowing me creative freedom over coloring in the world, pulls me in when other games push me away.
The writing in Chicory feels welcomingly familiar in tone, both in terms of its charisma and its sense of humor. The amount of times the demo made me crack a smile and chuckle was definitive proof that this is a Greg Lobanov game. Wandersong and Chicory are very different games, make no mistake, but there is a spiritual warmth that resonates throughout both games – or at least what I have seen in the demo so far.
I was happy to play Chicory even if I was just painting landscapes and houses, but was delightfully astonished to learn throughout the demo that your paintbrush changes the environment and your ability to move through areas. For instance, there are plants that, when painted, thrust your character into the air, which allows for access to higher ledges and new paths. There seems to be a lot of potential to how this paintbrush will allow interactivity with the world of Chicory. I am excited to see what other clever ways our paintbrush can influence the game’s world.
As expected, Lena Raine’s soundtrack fills the game with a unique life and vibrance that only her music could capture. I was shocked and awed when the final track kicked in towards the end of the demo. In this final scene, you encounter a kind of “boss battle” in which the tone of the music goes from relaxed and meandering – or as some might describe it, “Baroque Pop” – to exciting and epic. I don’t know that I was expecting the tone shift within the game’s soundtrack, but it fit the energy of both sequences perfectly.
Though the demo is short, perhaps half an hour in length, it serves as an evocative example for how much potential Chicory has once it fully releases. As a fan of experimentation in game design, this is one of my most anticipated releases – indie or otherwise – in the near future. Today they’re launching a Kickstarter to finish the game on their own terms, which looks like a release date is on the horizon for 2021. But if the demo is any indication, it will be well worth the wait. Now if I can only get my brain to stop calling it “Drawdog.”
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