Chicory: A Colorful Tale still packs an emotional punch five years later

Chicory: A Colorful Tale, the June 2021 indie hit from developer Greg Lobanov and publisher Finnji, shares some surface similarities with a 2D Legend of Zelda: top-down overworlds, environmental puzzles and gradual abilities that open new areas. The game’s central tool is a paintbrush, and many interactions feel more like a coloring book than a dungeon crawl — you might light a cave with glow-in-the-dark paint or trigger trees and flowers to grow, and there is no combat outside of a few boss battles.

You play a cute dog named after your favorite food, the default name being "Pizza", a janitor for Chicory who finds the titular brush abandoned in a colorless world. Taking up the brush, you set out into Picnic to color the province back in. Early scenes, like painting at your sister’s Art Academy, reward earnest creativity rather than technical skill, and the game encourages exploration and experimentation rather than tricksy puzzles.

The story turns on pressure and impostor syndrome.

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