CHICORY: A COLORFUL TALE
Format PC, PS4, PS5
Developer Greg Lobanov, Alexis Dean-Jones, Lena Raine, Madeline Berger, A Shell In The Pit
Publisher Finji
Origin Canada
Release 2021
The blank canvas. It’s where almost every creative project begins. In the case of Chicory, it’s also where your adventure begins: a colourless world that practically begs you to fill it with paint. And that blank canvas? For director Greg Lobanov, it wasn’t the beginning at all, but rather the result of many months of effort. “I tried a bunch of prototypes, for a long time. I made a lot of bad ideas.”
Development of Chicory began even before Lobanov’s previous game, Wandersong, was complete. “There’s always that period of time where you can’t really touch anything, and the game’s not out yet,” he says. “So I just started thinking about what I would do next.” This non-stop work is typical for Lobanov, it seems. “The thing about Greg is, Greg’s always making things,” says Lena Raine, composer of the game’s score. “The moment that something’s done, he’ll be onto the next.”
, who would become ’s artist and animator but at this point in development just happened to be Lobanov’s housemate, remembers the, or he would be really excited about this new thing.” It’s easy to relate: there’s nothing that reinvigorates the creative process quite like the feeling that you should be working on something else. But more than that, we get the sense that Lobanov is fundamentally happiest when he has a blank canvas, stressful as it might be to decide what will be painted on it.
