Chicken (video game)

Chicken is a video game for the Atari 8-bit family written by Mike Potter and published by Synapse Software in 1982.[1] The game is similar to the Atari arcade game Avalanche, replacing the buckets and boulders with a hen trying to catch her eggs.

Chicken!
Publisher(s)Synapse Software
Programmer(s)Mike Potter[1]
Platform(s)Atari 8-bit
Release1982
Genre(s)Action
Mode(s)1 to 4 player

History

Mike Potter joined Synapse in 1981 after writing the game Protector and initially distributing it through another company, Crystalware. When he questioned his royalties, they released the game back to him. He rereleased a version through Synapse with a number of bug fixes.[2]

Chicken was his first game written entirely at Synapse, and the first whose idea was given to him by Synapse's founder, Ihor Wolosenko. Wolosenko's primary inspiration was arcade games, and many of Synapse's releases from this era are adaptations of contemporary games for the Atari platform. Wolosenko had also come up with the idea for Slime and assigned it to a new programmer, but Potter had to take over development of that game as well, once development on Chicken was complete.[3]

Gameplay
Scene near the opening of Chicken

Chicken is conceptually a port of the 1978 arcade game Avalanche, but with a number of twists. The player is in control of a chicken that can move horizontally back and forth along the bottom of the playfield, pushing a basket. At the top, a fox drops the chicken's eggs over a series of moving blocks. The eggs fall through gaps between the blocks, which randomize their final drop point.

If an egg reaches the ground, it cracks open and hatches into a chick. These form barriers to motion for the player, but the chicken can jump over them by pressing the fire button. If a player steps on a chick, a farmer appears and kicks you off the screen. The action increases in pace until it becomes extremely fast-paced.[4]

The game can be played with a joystick, but is best played with a paddle controller. Up to four players can be in a single game, but they take turns using the single controller.[4]

Reception

Creative Computing called the game "silly, but fun" and noted that the players often broke out laughing. They also noted its pace, saying "Ever hear the term 'twitch game?' This game may be its namesake."[4]

See also
  • Eggomania, an Atari 2600 game with similar gameplay and theme released the following year

References
  1. Hague, James. "The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers".
  2. Hague, James (17 January 2000). "Mike Potter's Story". The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers.
  3. Dewitt 1983.
  4. Anderson, John (1983). "Not Just Fun in Games". In Small, David; Small, Sandy; Blank, George (eds.). The Creative Atari. Creative Computing.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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