7th7th

A beautiful, heartfelt, achingly real game that is, on the surface, about a cartoon dog (named after your favorite food) going on a magical, old-school-Legend-of-Zelda-inspired journey to inherit a magical paintbrush that is the source of all colors in the world. Beneath that surface lies an evocative study of imposter syndrome, the pressure of trying to make everyone around you happy, what it means to be an artist (of any kind, really), and a painfully, cathartically genuine portrait of several distinctly different types of mental illness. You'll cry, but you'll laugh far more often, and if you have even the slightest hint of a creative spirit in your heart, you'll be moved to try and be the best you that you can be, and to reach out as best you can, to help those around you along on the journey up to the metaphorical mountaintop. The gameplay is just as deceptively simple as the overarching themes; what begins as a sort of platforming-by-way-of-coloring-in-the-world-around-you evolves into some of the more technically complex boss fights I've run into, bending and twisting the way you use a controller/mouse, all with a deeply forgiving, customizable level of difficulty that keeps things as fun as they are challenging. With music by the composer behind Celeste's soundtrack, an immense amount of depth and thought put into even the simplest of mechanics, a deeply thoughtful array of options to make the game as user-friendly as possible (ty misophonia filter!!!), Chicory is easily one of the best indie games to come out in recent years, easily and readily comparable to all-time greats like Undertale and Celeste in almost every way. Take the time to play this one, I've no doubt it'll be near the top of all the GOTY lists come December.