Cozy

Tchia is a love letter to New Caledonia. From the outset it is obvious that the developers wanted to share the culture, music, landscapes, and peoples of this Pacific Island. Tchia is a heartfelt adventure with a variety of small gameplay elements that contribute to the greater whole. While no aspect in particular is remarkable, I had a good time just exploring the island and messing around with its various ideas.

The game follows the story of a young girl who lives on a tiny island with her father. When her father is kidnapped by a local warlord, the girl realizes that she has a special power to briefly possess objects and animals. You play as the titular girl as she sets out to rescue her father. The story itself is cute as you get to visit a bunch of small towns and peoples as you make friends. Every group you meet is seemingly accompanied by a jam session on your trusty ukulele.

Interestingly, the story takes a pretty dramatic tonal shift about halfway through as you start to learn more about the backstory and villain. While the main character and setting remain cheerful, the narrative gets pretty dark and disturbing. Honestly, I enjoyed this dramatic shift as it will forever stick out in my mind as opposed to if the game remained 100% wholesome for the entire duration.

Tchia is first and foremost an open-world exploration game. While I’ve grown a little exhausted from these types of games, I think Tchia still manages to be fun because it is a more compact experience. The map is small and the game is short. While the game crams in a ton of side activities and points of interest, I didn’t feel obligated to do them all. I stuck to the stuff that I enjoyed and things that happened to be on the path where I was going.

The main gameplay hook is the possession mechanic. You can briefly possess any animal that you come across as well as a handful of inanimate objects. The animals behave as you would expect, and you can fling the inanimate objects as a projectile as you release your possession. The animals are fun to mess around with as they are mainly used for traversal. The islands are small, but the main character is quite slow. Possessing a bird, a deer, or a dolphin to get around greatly expedites exploration. Some animals such as the crab or dog have special uses for puzzles to snip and dig for treasure.

The other place where possession comes in handy is combat. There isn’t much combat in the game, but there are a handful of enemy camps spread around. The enemies are made of possessed cloth, so your main form of attack is to launch objects such as oil lanterns, explosive rocks, or flaming branches at them. The smaller enemy camps are a bit of frantic fun as you quickly swap between possessions and take out enemies on the fly. The bigger enemy camps at the end of the game are a bit tedious as you end up having to wander around for a while to find any opposition and oftentimes there isn’t any flammable material nearby to possess. I had to carry around a ton of explosive rocks in my backpack to take out for these occasions but it just wasn’t as fun as looking around and possessing objects strewn about the camps.

Aside from combat, Tchia has a handful of mini-games and challenges to play with. There’re timed races with different animals, shooting galleries with your slingshot, musical rhythm sections using the ukulele, traditional platforming, stealth, acrobatic diving challenges, claw machines, boating, and photography. There’s so much variety here that it’s hard to feel bored of any particular element. None of these gameplay segments are revolutionary or amazingly executed, but they are fun enough to fuel exploration.

Exploration is the core of Tchia. Whether you walk, boat, or possess a bird to get around there is a beautiful island to discover. Aside from possession, the main form of traversal is similar to that of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, stamina-based climbing and gliding. Between the mountains, crispy blue waters, dense jungles, and cozy towns there is a real natural allure to the environment. As I previously mentioned, the world is absolutely packed with collectibles and challenges if you want to engage with those. One aspect of exploration that I enjoyed was that there was no constantly-updating reference point on the mini-map. You had to infer where you are based on landmarks and directional knowledge. This was nice as it lets you appreciate the environment and look for ways to discern your location rather than relying on a 2D projection.

Part of what makes Tchia so charming is its dedication to New Caledonia. While the world of Tchia is fictional, it bases itself heavily off of the people, culture, and landscapes of New Caledonia. It is a place that I barely knew existed, and now I find myself researching its history and culture to learn more. Everything in the game pays homage to the culture in a respectful way. It doesn’t feel like it’s just using the setting as a backdrop, but rather it’s really immersing the player in the way of life of New Caledonia’s people.

As far as performance goes, Tchia is serviceable. I personally didn’t run into any bugs, frame-rate drops, or slow loading times. Graphically, however, Tchia isn’t the best game to look at. I love the environments and setting of the game, but the hyper-stylized art style looks a little too generic and cartoony. The character models in particular look off to me. I am usually an advocate for stylized art styles as opposed to hyper-realistic graphics, but the art style of Tchia just feels outdated and worn-out. All that being said, I don’t think it’s a huge detractor from the game considering that the environments still look nice.

Tchia isn’t anything revolutionary, and that’s ok. If you are exhausted of open-world exploration games, Tchia isn’t for you. But if you do want a charming trek through a small-but-dense island then Tchia does have a lot to offer. There’s a ton of variety in the activities and mini-games to play with. The heartfelt homage to New Caledonia is what really makes the game standout, as it lets us have a window into a culture that most people are entirely unfamiliar with. It is for these reasons that I give Tchia a 7/10. It didn’t blow me away with new ideas or mechanics, but it was a much needed relaxing and wholesome adventure.

I was shocked by how much I enjoyed Chicory: A Colorful Tale. I expected to like the game, but I often find “relaxing” games to grow boring rather quickly. I find that I need a level of tension and challenge to keep things interesting. Yet Chicory: A Colorful Tale is an enthralling adventure game with almost no action. The gameplay is an addicting mix of coloring book and adventuring which is supplemented by a deeply emotional story and a phenomenal soundtrack.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale is set in a cutesy world of talking animals where everything has food-themed names. This world places great importance on art and creativity, as a magical paintbrush has been passed down through generations. This paintbrush is what gives the world its color, and each new wielder puts their own artistic spin on the world. Suddenly, all of the world’s color disappears along with the current wielder. The player takes the brush and sets to paint everything back in. You travel through towns and varied environments, painting as you go and conversing with all the quirky characters.

What begins as a charming adventure with cute characters and storybook art quickly establishes itself as a much more mature tale. I always appreciate when a game tackles mental health topics in an intelligent manner. Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a game about self-doubt, imposter syndrome, depression, and isolation. The drive to create can lead to perfectionism and overly-harsh self-criticism that spirals into deep insecurity. The characters in the game battle these inner demons, but there’s no magic fix. The story is deeply emotional and its core themes will resonate with many players.

The main hook that sets Chicory: A Colorful Tale apart from other top-down adventure games is the painting mechanic. Along with controlling the main character, you also control the paintbrush that they wield. You use it to fill in color on landscapes, buildings, people, or whatever you want. You can acquire alternative brush styles that let you use it like a paint bucket or to plaster patterns as you go. There’s something so satisfying about filling in each area and leaving a paint trail wherever you go. Revisited areas have a distinct visual indicator of what you did there based on where you left trails of color.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale is absolutely full of things to do. Aside from the main story there’s a good number of side quests and collectibles to find. You can find clothes to show-off your own personal sense of style, or find lost kittens that can be given back to their parents in exchange for furniture sets, or collect litter that can be turned in for other goodies. The side quests are fun little distractions to engage further with the world and its characters. And the best part about all of this is that it never feels necessary. There’s no stats or upgrades, everything is purely aesthetic. You can choose to collect everything and complete the side quests, but there’s no obligation to, and I think that was a great choice for a game like this.

Painting the world is inherently relaxing. There’s no wrong way to do it, and you can mess around however you like. There’re no enemies to contend with and most of the game’s environmental puzzles are fairly simple. As you progress your paint becomes a tool. You can use it to make certain plants grow or create paths where you couldn’t go before. The game commits further to being a chill painting adventure as there are a ton of phone booths to use that can give you hints of where to go and what to do at any given point in the game. It’s clear that the creators of Chicory: A Colorful Tale did not want players to get stuck or frustrated, and this is evident by the lack of combat.

As previously mentioned, there are no enemies in the game to contend with. But there are a handful of boss fights that heighten the tension of the game exponentially. At the end of each chapter, you’ll enter a pitch-black room inhabited by an unholy monstrosity. The juxtaposition between these sections and the rest of the game is fantastic. The sheer panic as you run around and dodge projectiles plays so well into the game’s structure and themes. But even if the fights feel intense, they are very forgiving. You can’t really die, only lose a tiny bit of progress on the current phase. And there are options that you can enable to become invincible if these fights are too difficult. I think this was a good choice as these difficulty spikes might be off putting to players who were looking for a more chill game. I loved the adrenaline rush of these fights, and a huge component of that is the music.

Most of the game has a nice mix of relaxing instrumental music. Tracks are calming compositions of flutes, pianos, and violins. But as you enter the boss chamber, the soundtrack morphs into an electronic chaos as synths and fast-paced drums dominate the tracks. The music throughout Chicory: A Colorful Tale is stellar and varied, I’ve already added some of the songs to my playlists. Lena Raine has done a wonderful job capturing the motifs of the game and applying them through music. I believe that she is one of modern gaming’s best composers, and I hope she becomes as prolific as the all-time greats. I may start playing games based on the inclusion of her music alone.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a perfect blend of elements to create a one-of-a-kind cozy experience. It’s a giant coloring book filled with adventure and charming characters. The story is cute and heartwarming, but its mental health themes are very real and will be relatable for much of the game’s audience. While the game’s slower pace and lack of action may not appeal to some, I had a great time restoring color to the world. It is for these reasons that I give Chicory: A Colorful Tale a 9/10. Look no further if you have been wanting a cozy adventure, Chicory: A Colorful Tale is the perfect game to relax with.

stephensopinions

Tchia (2023)

Chicory: A Colorful Tale (2021)