Chicory: A Colorful Tale is an adventure where you play an everyday dog thrust into the role of wielding a magic brush. The world starts black and white but you colour it in with your paintbrush to solve puzzles and help your animal friends. It looks like a children's storybook but also engages with themes of performance, competition and impostor syndrome.
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As the game progresses you explore the Picnic Province, drawing as you go to access new areas. You can interact with the environment in different ways, using your paint to solve puzzles. This unlocks new paint abilities that let you access hard-to-reach places.
You collect clothes, plants and furniture as you go so you can dress your character and the place in which you live. How you do this has a permanent effect on the world. This is encouraged with side-quests that leave their mark on the world too, and often attract the attention of other characters and cause them to gather somewhere new.
It's unusual because your character is a reluctant hero, and wrestles with the feeling of not being good enough: impostor syndrome. She is suspicious of the legacy the brush holds and nervous that it might control her. More than that though, she is driven to prove that she is not surplus to requirements. She will do anything to live up to and surpass the heroes that hang on the walls she passes every day.
On PlayStation 5 the DualSense wireless controller lets you paint using the touchpad, complete with the option to flip the controls so left-handed players can draw with their dominant hand if they prefer. The controller also offers lots of haptic feedback of soft texture rumbles so you can feel as well as see how the world looks.
The result is a game that is enjoyable to spend creative time in, as much as it is to advance the story and adventure. It's a great game for families and newcomers. You can visit the phone booth at any time and call your in-game parents to get a reminder of what you are doing and precise directions to the next goal. It includes further hints with the PS5’s Help system, even offering a thorough 100% walkthrough if you would like it.
