Portland State Vanguard Volume 76 Issue 19

VOLUME 76 • ISSUE 19 • AUGUST 17, 2021

C O V I D - 1 9 O N CA M P U S :

NEWS

The state of the unions P.4

SPORTS

College athletes get sponsorship deals P.6

ARTS & CULTURE Chicory, a game that feels like a coloring book P.7

CONTENTS

COVER BY SHANNON STEED, COVER PHOTOS BY NICK GATLIN

NEWS HILL TO HALL AUGUST 9–AUGUST 12

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THE STATE OF THE UNIONS

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COVID-19 ON CAMPUS

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SPORTS ATHLETES ONE MONTH LATER: MAKING MONEY OFF OF NAME, IMAGE AND LIKENESS

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STAFF EDIT ORI A L EDITOR IN CHIEF Nick Gatlin MANAGING EDITOR Morgan Troper NEWS EDITORS Conor Carroll Danny O’Brien INTERNATIONAL EDITOR Karisa Yuasa SPORTS EDITOR Eric Shelby

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Ryan McConnell ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Béla Kurzenhauser ONLINE EDITOR Lily Hennings COPY CHIEF Mackenzie Streissguth CONTRIBUTORS Analisa Landeros

ARTS & CULTURE CHICORY: A COLORFUL TALE BLOOMS WITH KINDNESS AND EMOTION BACK COVER “ALL THINGS FALL” CROSSWORD PUZZLE

PHO T O A ND MULTIMEDI A MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Olivia Lee

A DV ISING & ACCOUN TING COORDINATOR OF STUDENT MEDIA Reaz Mahmood

PRODUC TION & DE SIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Shannon Steed

STUDENT MEDIA ACCOUNTANT Sheri Pitcher

DESIGNER Kelsey Stewart T ECHNOL OGY & W EB SIT E TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANTS Juliana Bigelow Kahela Fickle George Olson

STUDENT MEDIA TECHNOLOGY ADVISOR Corrine Nightingale To contact Portland State Vanguard, email editor@psuvanguard.com

MIS SION S TAT EMEN T Vanguard ’s mission is to serve the Portland State community with timely, accurate, comprehensive and critical content while upholding high journalistic standards. In the process, we aim to enrich our staff with quality, hands-on journalism education and a number of skills highly valued in today’s job market.

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A BOU T Vanguard, established in 1946, is published weekly as an independent student newspaper governed by the PSU Student Media Board. Views and editorial content expressed herein are those of the staff, contributors and readers and do not necessarily represent the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. Find us in print Tuesdays and online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @psuvanguard for multimedia content and breaking news.

AUGUST 9-12 NICK GATLIN

AUGUST 9: MULTNOMAH COUNTY ISSUES NEW INDOOR MASK MANDATE

Officials in Multnomah County instituted a new indoor mask mandate for all people aged 5 and older—regardless of their vaccination status—that took effect Friday, Aug. 13, according to AP News. Health Officer Dr. Jennifer Vines said of the new mandate, “The more contagious Delta variant has changed the game. Our hospitals are full.” Those who violate the mandate could face a warning or a fine of up to $1,000, OPB reports. The mandate comes after a surge of COVID-19 cases amid the spread of the contagious Delta variant, with Multnomah County seeing up to 1,000 new cases a week.

AUGUST 9: FREEDOM FOUNDATION SUES TO BLOCK OREGON LEGISLATIVE STAFF FROM UNIONIZING

The Freedom Foundation, a group that seeks to undermine public sector unions across the West Coast, filed a lawsuit in Oregon Appellate Court to block the efforts of Oregon legislative staff to unionize, according to OPB. AP News reports that Jason Dudash, Oregon director of the Freedom Foundation, called the union “fundamentally incompatible” with legislative work. The Freedom Foundation’s argument against the union is nearly identical to objections made by the Oregon Legislature in Dec. 2020, per OPB. Oregon legislative staffers voted on May 28 to join IBEW Local 89 by a vote of 75–31, forming the first legislative staff union in the nation, according to the Northwest Labor Press.

AUGUST 10: GOV. BROWN DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY AHEAD OF “EXTREME HEAT WAVE”

Governor Kate Brown declared a state of emergency Tuesday ahead of another heat wave, as the National Weather Service announced a heat warning from noon Wednesday to 10 p.m. Saturday, The Oregonian reports. “I encourage Oregonians to take proactive steps to keep themselves and their families safe, including drinking plenty of fluids, taking advantage of cooling centers, and checking in on neighbors, friends, and loved ones,” Brown said in a statement. Oregon fire officials have braced for high temperatures, dry air and lightning storms as they prepare for more forest fires during the extreme heat, OPB reports. A New York Times analysis of the previous Pacific Northwest heat wave in June found that about 600 more people died than would have been typical—a number three times higher than states’ official estimates.

AUGUST 12: NEWBERG SCHOOL BOARD BANS BLACK LIVES MATTER FLAGS AND OTHER “POLITICAL” ITEMS

By a vote of four to three, the Newberg school board decided Tuesday to enact a ban on “broadly ‘political’ signs, clothing, and other items,” The Oregonian reports. The board’s three-member policy committee will decide what items are considered “political,” according to OPB. The ban includes Pride flags and Black Lives Matter flags. The policy contradicts state efforts to support students of color and LGBTQ+ students, including the 2020 Black Lives Matter resolution from the state Department of Education in 2020.

According to AP News, discussion on “replacement language” for the district’s anti-racism policy and rescinding the district’s “Every Student Belongs” policy was postponed until the next board meeting. If the district repealed “Every Student Belongs,” it would violate state standards.

PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 17, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

NEWS

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AFTER DISCOURAGING REPORTS INVOLVING VOODOO DOUGHNUTS AND THE UNION FIGHTS AT BURGERVILLE, CALL TO SAFETY AND THE IWW HAVE PLEDGED TO HELP UNION EFFORTS IN THE PNW

THE PORTLAND BRANCH OF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD. DANNY O'BRIEN/PSU VANGUARD

PORTLAND-BASED DOUGHNUT CHAIN VOODOO DOUGHNUTS, WHERE WORKERS UNSUCCESSFULLY SOUGHT TO UNIONIZE THIS SUMMER. THOMAS PEIPERT/AP IMAGES

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NEWS

THE STATE OF THE UNIONS DANNY O’BRIEN A recent wave of union activity has inundated Portland this summer, in light of heatwaves, wildfires, the ongoing pandemic and attempts from employers throughout the labor market to make unionizing more difficult.

Workers in what they allege are unfair working conditions, despite historically significant circumstances, have fought for their labor rights.

Unionization attempts at small food service locations, like Burgerville and Voodoo Doughnuts, are a typically small sector of national union strength, so their efforts and activity can be a good litmus test for union effectiveness.

While many union efforts are being crushed, the fact that there is so much activity bodes well for union strength across Portland.

Workers at Burgerville, a Vancouver-based fast food restaurant, first started their union in April of 2018 with demands for parental leave, access to better health care and wage increases. At the time, that made the Burgerville Workers Union one of the only federally recognized fast food unions.

Last summer, the union held a strike over COVID-19 conditions, and, before that, held a strike over meager pay increases. Following the recent closing of the SE 92nd and Powell Burgerville location—citing the nearby houseless encampment as reason for closure—members of the Burgerville Workers Union are beginning to grow suspicious.

The closure was sudden and unknown to the union, and occurred at the same site where workers first unionized. The company maintains that the closure was not a union-busting move, but one concerned with “health” and “safety,” while the union asserts that workers did not see the encampment as a “serious issue.” The Burgerville Workers Union wishes to respond by filing an unfair labor practice complaint against the company.

Lizz Schallert, the liaison between the Portland branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Call to Safety, a Portland-based crisis hotline created as an alternative to the county hotlines, spoke with Portland State Vanguard.

“This has been an unprecedented burn-out year,” Schallert said. “Folks are beginning to wonder what would happen if they could have a union at their workplace. There’s been a spike in people reaching out to the IWW to try and start a union in their workplace, and this speaks to an agitation felt by the pandemic and working conditions.”

Workers at Call to Safety, an independent, non-profit crisis line, have enjoyed a 10year contract with the IWW, making them a relatively long-standing union in town.

Lizz notes that Call to Safety has a “surprisingly radical union within its structure.”

The union was put in place directly by the

workers mediating between themselves and management, as opposed to negotiating with the help of a paid lawyer. One of the tools at the disposal of the Call to Safety Workers Union that sets them apart as particularly effective is their contract—which is legible, accessible and allows for strikes. It is able to be used flexibly by the workers and their demands, instead of being a more rigid, constitutional framework.

Voodoo Doughnuts, a Portland tourist hotspot and home to many an eccentric pastry, has had a burst of unionization efforts this summer. The workers first began to unionize in response to lay-offs due to COVID -19 early in the pandemic, and fought hard for official union recognition in the face of union-busting attempts from the company.

The union lost in the election for its establishment with the National Labor Relations Board, and, as such, is not legally established.

During the record-breaking heat waves in June, some workers walked out in retaliation for unsafe working conditions, and were fired by the company for doing so.

When asked what she considered to be the biggest threat to unionization in Portland, Schallert said that “Bullard Law firm in Portland is known for union-busting. The fact that there are people making tons of money doing that kind of dirty work is very upsetting.”

She also notes an increase in the rights of corporations, more funding for bosses to hire unionbusting lawyers, a strengthening radicalism on the right and the widely-held “pull-yourselfup-by-the-bootstraps” mentality in the United States as threats to effective unionization effort.

“Unfortunately, it’s easier to get information on how to bust a union, then on how to organize one,” Schallert said. However, she also emphasized that the IWW’s plays a role in a union’s success by getting organizing started or getting involved in active union efforts.

Anyone can join the IWW, regardless of prior union or trade experience, and Schallert stresses that the organization “really believes in direct action and workers’ autonomy.” Their website has a free pamphlet on how to organize one’s own workplace during COVID -19, entitled “When Shit Hits the Fan— Organize.” The IWW also holds training sessions for attendees to learn organizing.

Despite the rocky path of the Burgerville Workers Union and the busted efforts at Voodoo Doughnuts, Schallert said that, right now, “there’s more agitation, more interest in unionization, and less folks having faith in a system that can’t catch them,” and that with the proper organizing, the climate could be right for unionization efforts to gather more and more momentum.

PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 17, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

COVID-19 ON CAMPUS MASKS AND VACCINES, THE DELTA SURGE AND WHAT TO EXPECT COME FALL CONOR CARROLL On August 12, Dr. Mark Bajorek, Director of Health Services for Portland State’s Center for Student Health and Counseling (SHAC), responded to a series of questions from Portland State Vanguard about PSU’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bajorek is a family medicine specialist and graduated from the Ohio State University College of Medicine & Public Health in 1986, where he received his doctorate. With over 20 years of experience practicing medicine, Bajorek has been on the front lines of COVID-19 policy at PSU since the pandemic began.

According to Portland State’s online COVID-19 Testing Dashboard, between May 2020 and August 2021, there have been an estimated 73 confirmed COVID-19 cases at the PSU campus.

Dashboard numbers reveal the aggregate quantity of test samples gathered, tests conducted and cases reported, cumulatively, since the start of the pandemic. COVID-19 case counts are based on positive test results collected by SHAC—or positive results reported to SHAC by individuals or the Multnomah County Health Department—according to the website.

“During June, SHAC had no cases reported,” Bajorek stated. “[At] the end of July, we had two.

For the first half of August, we’ve had a flurry of testing and 10 reported cases.”

However, there are discrepancies between the numbers Bajorek provided and what is on PSU’s COVID Dashboard website.

PSU is not alone in the recent uptick in COVID -19 cases. The state of Oregon experienced its largest single-day increase in confirmed cases on Thursday, Aug. 12, which beat out the most recent record, from just two days prior on Aug. 10, according to data from the Oregon Health Authority (OHA).

On Friday, Aug. 13, the state reported a total of 2,935 deaths and 1,785 new confirmed cases, which brings the total to 238,463 COVID-19 cases in the state.

The OHA’s “Weekly Outbreak Report – August 11, 2021” found that there were “53 active COVID-19 outbreaks in senior living communities and congregate living settings, with three or more confirmed cases and one or more COVID-19 related deaths.”

Oregon has also once again set another record in the number of patients that have been hospitalized due to COVID-19. Aug. 12 was the third consecutive day where Oregon surpassed its own hospitalization records, according to OHA data, and reporting has indicated that ICU beds

and hospitals writ large are at capacity in many counties, and near capacity in the rest.

According to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Delta variant, along with unvaccinated people, are directly responsible for the current surge in cases across the country—and, by extension, Oregon.

Without vaccinations, non-pharmaceutical interventions like social distancing, testing and mask wearing are the only other choices for safely subduing the spread, according to CDC recommendations.

Testing, therefore, remains a critical aspect to identifying potential cases and assists in suppressing the spread of the virus. However, a few polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests that were conducted by PSU were sent for further analysis, though Bajorek did not state where they were sent.

“Nearly 90% of the [COVID-19] cases in Oregon are the Delta variant, [and] rapid testing doesn’t allow subtyping,” Bajorek stated.

“The few PCR tests that we have sent off from SHAC have not been diagnosed as Delta variant.”

The recent uptick in cases may cast doubt on PSU’s plans for in-person fall reopening, which has been dubbed “Open for Fall, Open for All.” The “Return to Campus Checklist” was created to help departments and faculty prepare for the return to in-person learning. For students, there is the “A New Way Forward for Students” webpage, which is the most up-to-date resource for students who are attending fall classes.

However, the one aspect to in-person reopening that is the most uncertain is the fate of COVID-19 precautions for the new Summer

PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 17, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

Bridge Scholars Program, created for incoming Freshmen students.

An excerpt from the webpage states that the “Summer Bridge Program is a FREE two-course program held four weeks from August 23 to September 17. Students earn up to seven credits for free for completion of this program. Courses will take place Mondays through Thursdays, with on-campus activities on Fridays.”

Despite being only weeks away, PSU’s policy for the program, with regard to COVID-19 precautions, is not yet certain.

“Precautions are still being reassessed as the University plans for the Bridge Program,” Bajorek stated. “We are heavily endorsing vaccination and providing [COVID-19] vaccines to students.”

“Several campus stations provide free masks, [and] occupants of university buildings are required to wear masks unless they are in a private office,” Bajorek stated. “Campus wide air filtration has been upgraded to MERV13. SHAC continues to test students and staff for [COVID-19] infections.”

Another aspect of returning to in-person classes which seems to fly in the face of what other states or organizations are doing is the vaccination policy for PSU. The webpage for student vaccination information states that it is a “requirement” to get a vaccination in order to return to in-person learning.

However, the policy is not actually mandatory, as there is no way to verify if a student or faculty member is telling the truth.

“Oregon schools have access to the state immunization database and can verify [COVID-19] vaccinations, [and] PSU is currently relying on the honor system,” Bajorek stated. As the policy stands, the only re-

quirement is to answer a pollstyle questionnaire asking about vaccination status, with zero verification after the fact.

Whether PSU will be checking the state immunization database is unclear at this time. Bajorek made no mention of such a policy requirement for the health department or PSU, nor is there data regarding students or faculty who may have received a vaccination out-of-state or country, according to the website.

According to a recent CNN report, an estimated 99.999% of Americans that are fully vaccinated have not experienced a breakthrough case of COVID-19, while an AP News report in late July found that nearly all COVID-19 cases and deaths occur among those who are unvaccinated.

Moreover, according to experts, the likelihood that a variant capable of immunity from the current vaccines is “almost certain,” while the Delta variant has been shown to be more transmissible than Ebola and the 1918 pandemic flu strain.

Other than vaccinations, mask mandates are also an aspect to PSU’s COVID-19 response. “As of 8/12/21 masks [are required] in all university buildings, unless in a private office,” Bajorek stated. The state of Oregon has also issued an indoor mask mandate, as of Aug. 13.

Considering the fluidity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the response to it, there may be changes to policies in the weeks or months ahead.

“Many teams of concerned faculty and staff have been evaluating models for teaching in a worsening [COVID-19] environment,” Bajorek stated. “My goal is to keep up with [COVID-19] testing and let patients know their results as quickly as possible. Additionally, I aim to hear out those vaccine hesitant patients to see if there is room for reconsideration.”

Resources, no matter how inconsistent or changing, will always be available to students on campus or off.

“Rapid testing is free at SHAC [and] vaccination with the Moderna vaccine is free as well,” Bajorek stated. “Our nursing team will field questions from students’ [and] residents’ life and faculty.”

If a student or faculty member is experiencing symptoms resembling COVID -19, or has any questions, comments or concerns, “Please call SHAC [at] 503-725-2800,” Bajorek stated. “We will want to know the specifics of your case. We know everyone has unique risk factors and concerns. We’re here to listen and happy to help.”

NEWS

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ATHLETES ONE MONTH LATER MAKING MONEY OFF OF NAME, IMAGE AND LIKENESS

KELSEY STEWART

ERIC SHELBY It has been roughly a month since the NCAA announced the groundbreaking decision that student athletes can now make money off of their NIL (name, image and likeness) and not lose their eligibility in the process. Despite some controversy, many teams and players have taken opportunities to make a dollar on July 1. Here are a few teams and players that have put their NIL in effect.

The University of Central Florida women’s basketball team made history by becoming the first college team to have a sponsor in the NIL era. College H.U.N.K.S is a moving company that has agreed to sponsor the whole women’s basketball team—and all the student athletes have to do is represent and promote their brand. The student athletes will be given an upfront payment of $500 each for promoting College H.U.N.K.S. on social media.

The deals that schools make with companies can also be a huge factor in attempting to recruit new players. This opportunity can rival other large women’s basketball programs like Stanford and South Carolina. Back in 2017, a football kicker from the University of Central Florida, the same university that became the first school to have an NIL sponsor, had a conflict with the NCAA that made him choose between making money off of his YouTube channel or keeping his NCAA football scholarship. He chose the channel over the scholarship.

Built Brands, founded in 2018, is a Utah-based company that makes protein snacks. The Brigham Young University football team in Provo, Utah has been the most recent team to have their 123 athletes given an opportunity to get paid by promoting Build Brands. Players on scholarships can earn up to $1,000 while walk-on players, the 36 players who aren’t on scholarship, can be paid up to $3,000 to $6,000 a semester—the equivalent of tuition at BYU. Walk-ons must make two appearances at company events and promote them on social media, but all BYU football athletes must wear the company logo on their practice helmets.

A peculiar rule when using your NIL is that you cannot represent your school’s logo when sponsoring a product.

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SPORTS

For example, Clemson University Quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei partnered with soda brand Dr. Pepper, and is set to be in their newest college football-themed commercials during the fall season.

Instead of representing the iconic orange and purple colors and logo of Clemson, he’ll be wearing reddish-brown, familiar to the Dr. Pepper brand he is representing.

University of Michigan basketball player Hunter Dickinson says this rule is restrictive, along with other NIL rules. The University of North Carolina (UNC), along with other schools, are starting to change rules banning use of university logos on athletes while advertising—unlike Michigan. Players at UNC can make money when someone buys a jersey with their name on it or wears their uniform with sponsorship deals, though the athletes would be paid by third parties because UNC cannot pay their players outright.

Overtime, a sports network with an extensive social media presence, plans to take advantage of NIL in a more modern way. Overtime wants to be a content partner with their student athletes, like the role of a social media influencer with a creator studio. The athletes will start off with a standard talent fee—based on the athlete’s following and social media presence—and then how much the company is expected to make. Potentially, the student athletes could make more money off of merchandise and longer-term relationships.

Ceyair Wright, a football player for University of Southern California, will host a new Overtime show called Dual Threat about Wright’s last moments in high school preparing to star in the 2021 movie Space Jam: A New Legacy.

The star point guard for the University of Connecticut Huskies, Paige Bueckers, is projected to make an easy $1 million dollars per year by trademarking the nickname “Paige Buckets.” She filed a trademark application on July 13—and the potential trademarked name will be on shirts, footwear, caps and athletic apparel. Bueckers has a massive following on Instagram with nearly 1 million followers, and can use that following to her advantage.

This was only the first month of the NIL rule that the NCAA allowed. Things can and will change. All schools may potentially let students represent them when sponsoring a product.

NIL could be beneficial to student athletes like Paige Bueckers because women in sports don’t always get the recognition they deserve. Companies sponsoring whole schools is a clever rule that Central Florida and Brigham Young took advantage of that allows all student athletes in that program an opportunity to get paid, while potentially paying off tuition for walk-on players. It should be interesting to see where this goes as this new rule continues to go into effect and give opportunities to players that deserve it.

PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 17, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

CHICORY: A COLORFUL TALE BLOOMS WITH KINDNESS AND EMOTION

THE VIBRANT ADVENTURE GAME IS AN INTERACTIVE COLORING BOOK PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 17, 2021 • psuvanguard.com

BÉLA KURZENHAUSER On first glance, Chicory: A Colorful Tale looks almost indistinguishable from many current indie gaming releases. With its bubbly art style, cute animal characters and an overworld that looks like it could be ripped straight out of a Gameboyera Zelda game, it might be easy to shrug the game off as yet another hackneyed attempt at capitalizing on Nintendo nostalgia of the 1990s.

However, Chicory is easily one of the most unique games of the last few years due to its blend of artistic direction and gameplay.

In Chicory, the newest game from Wandersong developer Greg Lobanov, you play as Burger, the loyal janitor to Chicory. The titular rabbit is a wielder—a trained artist who uses a tool known as “the brush” that is passed down from generation to generation and used to color the world (think Avatar: the Last Airbender for Picasso fans). One day, the world of Picnic is robbed of all its color.

Burger stumbles upon the brush and becomes the new wielder, despite not having any formal artistic training. As part of this new role, she must restore color to Picnic and defeat the evil corruption that’s spreading throughout the world.

Picnic is quite literally a blank canvas—the world is entirely black-and-white with shadows and textures distinguished with dithering rather than using actual grays—and you can color anywhere on the screen with the brush. Some objects you can fill in by just tapping them, and the cartoonish, thick-lined artwork by artists Alexis Dean-Jones and Madeline Berger makes the Pacific Northwest-inspired landscape of Chicory’s overworld feel like an interactive coloring book. Your brush is controlled by either a mouse cursor or a control stick, depending on the setup you’re using. However, despite being primarily marketed for the PS4 and PS5, the best way to play Chicory is on a computer with a keyboard & mouse. It runs smoothly with great performance in all areas except where water is present, but the tradeoff is more than worth it for the precise mouse control while painting.

One of Chicory’s interesting artistic design choices is the restrained color palette. While the game could have allowed you to use a wide variety of colors, your brush is limited to four colors at any given time, which cycle depending on the area, though there is one NPC who will give you permanent colors to use. In the murky Gulp Swamp, your colors switch between washed-out greens and grays, while up on Dessert Mountain, you’re given a palette of light blues and purples to match the snowy theme of the mountain’s peak. This allows each area of the overworld to feel distinctly different regardless of how you color the map, and also meshes well with Chicory’s theme of artistic imperfection. The colors in each area rarely match up with how the area should look, with the unique palette allowing your own color work to feel like an abstraction rather than a realistic depiction of the landscape.

While the main campaign can be beaten in a manner of just six or seven hours, you’ll likely spend much more time dwelling in the world of Picnic, which is segmented into equally-sized screens across a large grid. Taking time to color in screens and absorb the fulgent landscape of your own creation acts as a nice breather in-between Chicory’s ten rapid-fire story chapters. Outside of some swift sidequests, Chicory refuses to bog down the player with excessive gameplay or meandering design. You rarely have to tread through areas more than once, and each story chapter takes place in a completely different zone of the overworld. The result is a plot with practically zero filler, and the variety of side activities—whether that’s delivering mail to dwellers throughout Picnic, solving the mystery of stolen resort furniture or simply coloring in one of the game’s hundreds of different

screens—helps break up the pacing.

Despite how much optional content is littered throughout the overworld, it’s clearly communicated to the player that they shouldn’t feel the need to complete everything there is. It helps that the game’s collectibles are littered in as small, optional objectives for the many puzzles required for completion. Most screens contain a puzzle, and each puzzle has a solution that allows you to venture further out into the world, but most puzzles have an additional secondary solution that’ll reward you with a collectible, whether that’s a new piece of clothing (Chicory’s primary collectible and method of customization) or a piece of litter, which can be exchanged for various types of decor. There’s a lot of intrinsically rewarding things to do as well—outside of coloring in screens, scattered throughout the overworld are benches, chairs and dwellings where you can sit to simply enjoy the view and indulge in the masterful penwork—and your masterful coloring—for a little while.

With its simple but creatively freeing mechanics, in the wrong hands Chicory could have ended up just being Scribblenauts for coloring book aficionados, but the game has a wonderful narrative to back up its relaxing gameplay. It’s a bit hard to not compare Chicory with 2018’s Celeste—both were inspired by old-school Nintendo games, were developed by teams from Vancouver, BC and have a killer soundtrack composed by Lena Raine—but that comparison is a wholly positive one, and, just like Celeste, Chicory is able to blend the themes of its narrative with its mechanics in a manner that’s impossible not to appreciate.

As Burger, you must get rid of a strange and dark corruption that’s spread across the world of Picnic, with thick roots of a massive, evil tree stretching throughout the entire overworld. It doesn’t take long to realize that this corruption is the manifestation of fears of an artist—the strive to be perfect, the negative emotions of self-doubt and frustration come to life. Each chapter has some kind of dungeon where you complete various puzzles, leading up to a boss fight against an expression of these negative emotions, each of which feel extremely distinct and unique in their mechanics. Although Chicory doesn’t feel very original in its puzzle or world design, there’s nothing else quite like it’s boss fights, which feel like a delightfully psychedelic mix of osu! and Undertale.

The creative elements of the game feel a bit rugged at times, with your brush locked to three different sizes and splotchy strokes preventing you from painting your impressionist masterpiece across the landscape; however, these limitations align perfectly with the story’s theme of being an imperfect artist.

In your first hour or two, it’s easy to get frustrated by the inability to focus on little details, making the artistic process feel lackadaisical and arduous. After enough time, though, you’ll approach every screen with a joyful and reckless brush and bucket, leaving no stone unturned in your quest to restore color to the black-and-white world of Picnic.

At the end of each chapter, you also obtain a new ability that allows you to explore previously inaccessible areas of the world, such as being able to jump or swim through your paint a la Splatoon. Due to the unique form of these traversal mechanics, it becomes more efficient to bathe the world in color rather than to waste time attempting to be precise.

The ability to freely paint at almost any time—including during cutscenes—makes decorating the world with color a complete joy.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a testament to the power of creativity and artistic expression, and every inch of its world is full of beauty—painted or not. Its simple mechanics are a delight to play with and its quaint and quiet world is a pleasure to explore. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the world of Chicory is a sweeping, poetic novel the likes of which its genre has never seen before.

CHICORY IN THE BANQUET RAINFOREST. CHICORY: A COLORFUL TALE/FINJI

ARTS & CULTURE

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ALL THINGS FALL ACROSS

1. An orange squash popular for carving 5. The U.S. President typically does this to a turkey every Thanksgiving 6. What you need to get before fall term at PSU 9. This consumerist holiday happens the day after Thanksgiving 10. This fall fruit is featured in the myth of Persephone 11. First-year students starting college this fall 13. You may have got lost in one of these as a kid 14. The tradition of watching leaves change color

DOWN

1. Everyone’s favorite Starbucks latte spice 2. Autumn is the season for this American sport 3. Ten days dedicated to getting hammered with beer 4. Also known as “Dia de los Muertos” 5. A nut from the U.S. South, very popular in pies 7. You can make “chips” out of this leafy autumn vegetable 8. Famous jazz standard named after fall foliage 12. The spookiest, scariest holiday of them all 13. A drink made from apples that can be kidfriendly... or not

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CROSSWORD

PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 17, 2021 • psuvanguard.com