Without needing much convincing, you take up the brush, convinced someone needs to bring color back. Things kick off when you find the brush just laying around with no sign of Chicory, the current wielder, anywhere to be found.Ĭolor vanishes from the entire land, leaving everything in black and white. Color slowly fades, and the brush is needed to replace it. The wielder is the holder of a sacred paintbrush, the device that gives color to the world. At the start of Chicory: A Colorful Tale, you’re the janitor at the tower where the wielder lives. You play as a character named after your favorite food. Somehow though, Chicory takes these subjects and creates one of the most charming, fun, and beautiful experiences in modern gaming. If that doesn’t sound like a fun time, I get it.

Subjects like depression, jealousy, self-loathing, impostor syndrome, and not living up to what you expect of yourself and others expect of you all are explored deeply. In the latest game from a team lead by Greg Lobanov, maker of Wandersong, a lot of Chicory is spent dealing with artistic merit. That’s a lot more relevant to Chicory: A Colorful Tale than it might initially sound. I’d never make a living at it, so what was the point of continuing? That I loved what I was doing, that it was my passion, no longer mattered. Instead, after nearly a decade of working toward my goal, I decided I wasn’t going to get where I wanted to.

From the time I read my first issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly in December of 1998, I wanted to do this for a living. The reason I stopped writing about gaming for so long isn’t that I stopped loving it. It’s a period I talk about less, not only because it’s boring, but also because it was a fairly dark period. It leaves out the part, however, where I went about 8 years mostly away from doing so. I like to say I’ve been writing about video games for nearly twenty years, and that is true.

Chicory a colorful tale trailer