Chickens is a level-based puzzle-game that gives players a chance to solve problems in a new way. It presents bizarre problems that require bizarre solutions.

The chickens must negotiate their way through a series of complicated spaghetti junctions of pipes (which are controlled by the player) in order to reach the end of the game. Not only do they have to deal with the threat of the evil ducks who are out to get the chickens, but the layout of the pipes also poses a puzzle. The game is divided up into levels, which are subsets of the pipe system. Each level consists of a series of pipes with obstacles, a certain number of chickens at the start, a target (number of chickens that have to reach the exit), and a time limit. The player must solve a problem by sending the target number of chickens to the end of the level within the time limit in order to be allowed access to the next level.

A chicken will die if it encounters a duck and attempts to fight it (and so will the duck it's fighting), or come across a bomb or a dead end. However, they can reproduce by laying eggs, and sending the eggs to the incubators to hatch. To make things difficult, the chickens' eggs come in four different colours (green, red, blue and yellow), and must be guided through the same system of pipes to the correct incubator for that colour in order to hatch. Any egg of the wrong colour trying to enter will be destroyed, along with one egg in the incubator waiting to hatch. The ducks can lay eggs too, and if enough ducks' eggs try to enter the incubator, it will be taken over and become a ducks' eggs incubator. Of course, it can be re-taken by the chickens by sending enough chickens' eggs to the incubator to destroy any remaining ducks' eggs.

Chickens spawn from the entrances on the left (that look like taps), and must reach exit on right. Ducks are placed in the level by the level designer. Additionally, there are ducks' eggs taps at the top that can maintain a constant and steady stream of ducks' eggs (ducks are Mean Green Egg-laying Machines). These are a nuisance, but can sometimes come in handy.

The junctions consist of ordinary pipes, interchanges, command blocks (eg. "Lay Egg"), and other obstacles. The main control the player has over the game is the ability to switch the paths of some of the pipe interchanges by moving the cursor over the interchange and pressing a button, so that the player can guide everything to where they want it to go. The player can also release eggs that are being delayed.

Some of the interchanges have a red pipe running underneath them. If at least one object is passing through this red pipe, the state of the junction changes to it's changed state and does not revert to it's unchanged state until the red pipe is empty again. This makes it possible to construct things like logic-gates out of pipes 'powered' by a stream of ducks' eggs (usually supplied from the ducks' eggs taps). These can be combined to create computational logic circuits such as AND/OR/NOT gates, adding-machines, flip-flops, stack-based calculators, and even a fully fledged Turing-complete machine (although the last two have yet to be implemented), so it should be possible to build a virtual computer that runs entirely off duck's eggs.

There are also a few obstacles (pick-ups) within the level, including bombs, radioactive chicken-feed (which will sterilise any chickens or ducks that eat it), and superhero-costumes (leather jacket and sunglasses) that turn your fowl into SUPERCHICKEN or SUPERDUCK who can then win all fights.

The game comes with an integrated construction-set (level-editor) so you can create and play your own levels, and share them with others.

Note that this is more of an on-going pet-project than a finished game, so it may still be a bit rough and unpolished in places. But you can download it now for free, and enjoy what there is.

Happy egg-laying...

The small thumbnails link to a larger image or soundclip.

Screenshots

Audioshots

Downloading

Chickens 0.3.0.2 for Windows
The windows version is for Windows 95 / 98 / ME / NT 4.0 / 2000 / XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10. For older versions of Windows such as 3.1, the DOS version should be used instead.

Chickens 0.3.0.2 for DOS
To use this from a pure-DOS environment, a mouse-driver must be installed to be able to use the mouse. Likewise, a sound-driver must be used for the audio.
This can also be run from within DOSBox on non-DOS platforms.
Hint: If there is too much flickering, try making the following change to the INI file: In the '[DISPLAY]' section, set 'renderingtype' to '2'.

Chickens 0.2.0.2 for MacOS X(experimental) Broken!
This is an experimental build. Currently, there are issues with the mouse leaving glitches on the screen. Moving the mouse off the screen-edge might clear them.
In the meantime, you can download the DOS version and run it using DOSBox.

Chickens 0.3.0.0 for Linux (x86 32-bit binary) (experimental) Old version!
Requires GLIBC 2.7 or above.
Hint: If the app fails to start, try making the following changes to the INI file: In the '[AUDIO]' section, set 'enablesoundeffects' to '0' and 'enablemusic' to '0' (note that the game will be played in silence).
Hint: If the app still fails to start, run from the command-line to view the error-message in the console.

Note: If you don't know which version to download, you probably want the Windows version.

Installation

Un-zip the zip-file you downloaded into an empty directory of your choice using a Zip program such as WinZip. The levels (files ending in .pmg) and the data-files (files ending in .dat) should be in their own directories (most UnZip-programs make sure that directories are preserved, so you don't have to worry about this) - if not, create a directory called "levels" and move the .pmg files (files ending in .pmg) there and create a directory called "datfiles" and move the .dat files (files ending in .dat) there. If there's a previous version of Chickens installed, un-install it before you install this one (making sure not to accidentally delete any levels you may have made in the construction set).

Documentation

In the ZIP file, there's a readme.txt file that explains what to do with Chickens. In the 'docs/txt' folder, there is detailed documentation on Chickens (chickens.txt). Also to be found is a FAQ (faq.txt).

Andrei Ellman

Concept, Game-design, Programming, Level-design, Sound effects, Project-management, User-interface, Storyline, Documentation, Game-testing, Additional graphics, DOS port, Windows port

Dennis Busch:

Graphics, Animations, Game-testing

Johan Halmén:

Music, Game-testing, MacOS X port

Martijn van Iersel:

Level-design, Game-testing, Feedback

Nils Fagerburg:

Level-design, Game-testing

'Stryker':

Level-design

Michael Faerber:

Game-testing, Linux port

Frank Drebin:

Linux port

Otto Halmén:

MacOS X port

Powered by:

Allegro, AEGUI, PMASK

Links

• Chickens on itch.io - Chickens's home on itch.io.
• Chickens on allegro.cc - Chickens on allegro.cc.