The world of Picnic is the most vibrant I can recall in recent memory, full of unique animal NPCs quirkily named after various food items, each with a personality and place in the world. While drenched in pure sentimentality, the game never loses sight of itself for even one moment, remaining completely sincere from beginning to end without a hint of irreverence.īut that’s not to say the game is humorless or dry – quite the opposite. It can be darkly terrifying one moment and saccharinely sweet the next. Plot devices like the Brush or the position of Wielder are not merely functions but their own symbols, allegories for more complex and challenging ideas of artistry and proficiency. Chicory develops from a symbol of the player-character’s affection to a crumbled lump of self-loathing to a deep and complex character, and she (and the relationship she shares with the protagonist) is as multifaceted as that of any AAA game of the past decade, if not more so. The basic plot and straightforward writing belie a narrative rich in metaphor and theme, simple enough for a child to understand and dense enough for an adult to peel back the layers of meaning. With sudden acquisition of the unique and multifaceted power of color, you set out to figure out why the colors all disappeared – and, naturally, save the world along the way. As the Wielder, Chicory is charged with coloring in the world in various ways – but one day, all the color is mysteriously drained from the land, and she leaves the Brush behind for you to stumble upon. You play as a fluffy dog person (named after your favorite food, in the first of a million different charming details) who serves as janitor for the titular Chicory, the current Wielder of the Brush in the land of Picnic. These questions lie at the rainbow-colored heart of Chicory: A Colorful Tale, the most recent title from Greg Lobanov (Wandersong), which delves into the topic of artistic satisfaction with such grace, nuance, and pathos that it becomes its own masterpiece, a triumph of self-expression and game design that explores what it means to create – and what it means to be happy with such creations. What gives art value, purpose? What separates good art from bad art? And is just anybody capable of creating such works? Whether it be as simple as “a drawing” or as complex as “a piece of media that deeply affects the spirit” or a broad as any definition you could pull out of a dictionary, the idea of “art” means something different to each person – whether they be a patron or an artist themself. Art is a word that evades easy definition.
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