Chicory is a really well put together game with unique mechanics and a lot of heart. I had a good time with it, playing mostly as the second player (you just paint).
This game looks great. Everything is simple line drawings and most of the objects and people in the world look like uncolored stickers. As you progress and paint everything at your whim, the world becomes explosions of color, stamped hearts, lines, and squiggles, or fields of paint-bucketed grass.
This painting of the world and characters as you play is the main mechanic of Chicory. Each area has four colors that look pretty good together, and you are free to paint things with tools of varying power as you progress through the game, from a regular paint brush to a paint bucket and paint stamps. Painting is very satisfying and the screens usually end up looking fairly good no matter what you do. Some of the painting hit detection for objects in the world can be a bit finicky, which is a bummer.
Gameplay consists of painting and light traversal and platforming mechanics to navigate the world interspersed with boss fights.
The puzzles are never super hard, but they are interesting and the analog nature of the painting makes solving them feel creative and satisfying.
There are also various design and painting tasks the characters in the world ask for help with. These are mostly open canvasses you paint with a prompt which is then applied to the world in various ways. Designing a shirt that you later see the animals of the world wearing or making your own stamp you can use with your paintbrush are both cute, satisfying, and cool.
The boss fights all have a few unique mechanics but share the same basic goal (paint the enemy). Most of them feel a bit too random and chaotic, but one in particular is really dynamic and amazing (the second one, I believe? The giant head with antennae!).
Playing Chicory with two players was extremely fun. The puzzles all felt like a collaboration and the bosses (while probably considerably easier) felt like we each had specific jobs to do, which was very fun.
The narrative is fine and has some important things to say about imposter syndrome, external and internal expectations, and acceptance. It is a bit heavy handed at times and most characters don't really grow in anything more than a two dimensional way (especially the titular Chicory). I didn't find anything really surprising or moving in the story here, though it is well told.
I had a great time with Chicory. It isn't super long, but there is a lot crammed into its short runtime and it entertained me throughout. I would definitely recommend playing it co-op -- solving puzzles and painting this world together with a friend is pretty awesome.
This game looks great. Everything is simple line drawings and most of the objects and people in the world look like uncolored stickers. As you progress and paint everything at your whim, the world becomes explosions of color, stamped hearts, lines, and squiggles, or fields of paint-bucketed grass.
This painting of the world and characters as you play is the main mechanic of Chicory. Each area has four colors that look pretty good together, and you are free to paint things with tools of varying power as you progress through the game, from a regular paint brush to a paint bucket and paint stamps. Painting is very satisfying and the screens usually end up looking fairly good no matter what you do. Some of the painting hit detection for objects in the world can be a bit finicky, which is a bummer.
Gameplay consists of painting and light traversal and platforming mechanics to navigate the world interspersed with boss fights.
The puzzles are never super hard, but they are interesting and the analog nature of the painting makes solving them feel creative and satisfying.
There are also various design and painting tasks the characters in the world ask for help with. These are mostly open canvasses you paint with a prompt which is then applied to the world in various ways. Designing a shirt that you later see the animals of the world wearing or making your own stamp you can use with your paintbrush are both cute, satisfying, and cool.
The boss fights all have a few unique mechanics but share the same basic goal (paint the enemy). Most of them feel a bit too random and chaotic, but one in particular is really dynamic and amazing (the second one, I believe? The giant head with antennae!).
Playing Chicory with two players was extremely fun. The puzzles all felt like a collaboration and the bosses (while probably considerably easier) felt like we each had specific jobs to do, which was very fun.
The narrative is fine and has some important things to say about imposter syndrome, external and internal expectations, and acceptance. It is a bit heavy handed at times and most characters don't really grow in anything more than a two dimensional way (especially the titular Chicory). I didn't find anything really surprising or moving in the story here, though it is well told.
I had a great time with Chicory. It isn't super long, but there is a lot crammed into its short runtime and it entertained me throughout. I would definitely recommend playing it co-op -- solving puzzles and painting this world together with a friend is pretty awesome.