THE MAKING OF... CHICORY: A COLORFUL TALE

From broad strokes to tiny details, how a team of five crafted an adventure-game ode to creativity

- Alex Spencer

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.”

Alexis Dean-Jones, who would become Chicory’s artist and animator but at this point in development just happened to be Lobanov’s housemate, remembers the project’s beginnings: “I would come home from work at the end of the day, and Greg would either be like, ‘Grr’, working on bugs for