Current Version: 0.3.0.0

Project Status: Beta Release

Highest Popularity: #6 during November 2006

Links: Web Site

Category: Puzzle

Developers: Andrei Ellman

Number of Players: 1

Ports: DOS, Linux, Windows

Source Code: Not Available

Author's Description: Navigate your chickens through a spaghetti junction of glass pipes. You must get a certain number of chickens to the end of the level to complete it. The pipes are also inhabited by the evil ducks who are out to get the chickens. However, the chickens can reproduce by laying eggs in four colours, and sending the right colour egg to the right colour incubator to hatch. The ducks can lay eggs too, and while there are ducks' eggs in the incubators, any chickens' egg trying to enter will be destroyed.

The junctions consist of interchanges, command blocks, 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. The player can also release eggs that are being delayed.

Some interchanges have red paths underneath. Whenever there is at least one object in the red pipe-section, the interchange changes to it's changed state, and reverts to it's normal state once the red path is clear. This has the interesting property of acting like a transistor that uses chickens, ducks or eggs as it's 'power' instead of electricity. It is even possible to build computational logic circuits, or even mini-computers out of glass pipes that run off ducks' eggs.

The game comes with an integrated level-editor (known as the "Construction set") so the player can design, save, play, and share their levels.

Happy egg-laying...

Downloads

What's New:

0.3.0.0
• Sound effects
• Music (the music changes tempo as the game changes tempo and when you're running out of time, the instruments de-tune)
• Enhanced gameplay
- Many new tiles, tile-types and obstacles, enhanced existing tiles and level-paramaters. The 'Easy' group now contains levels that explain all the tile-types.
- Increased various limits - notably the sprite-pool (maximum number of sprites before the taps dry up), which can be specified on a per-level basis.
• Completely redesigned front-end (hopefully, this should be more intuitive).
• Lots of new levels
• Improved construction-set (Level-editor)
- Limited Undo/Redo functionality (does not work with cut and paste).
- It's now possible to re-colour a length of pipe by flood-filling it.
- The carried object is now translucent - meaning it's easier to tell that it's not part of the level.
- The coordinates of the level-square under the cursor are displayed, as well as the level-size and selected-area size.
• Enhanced graphics
- Lots of new animations.
- A background with shadows is drawn.
• Added a 'group-finished' screen (that shows up whenever a group is complete).
• In-game GUI (This helps visualise the available commands without having to remember that they exist)
• Can scroll when a dialog is up (It is possible to scroll a level when a dialog is displayed (eg. the PAUSE dialog). This works in the level-editor as well as the game)
• Runs better on newer Windowses (On Windows Vista / 7, the colours are now no longer messed up, and a few more changes were made to make it run better on these versions of Windows)
• Numerous other bugfixes and enhancements.

0.2.0.2
* 11 new levels.
* Game: Pressing 'H' during the game brings up a dialog with the level-text and some other pieces of information about the level.
* Game: When playing levels larger than a screen, pressing the keys on the numeric keypad now scrolls the screen in the direction of the number-key relative to the position of the '5' key.
* CSET: Pressing the left mousebutton on the 'type' button (or pressing 5 on the numeric keypad) now cycles the tile-type of the thing currently being carried by the mouse. The old behaviour (bringing up the tile-types menu) is now carried out by pressing the right mousebutton on the 'type'-button.
* Added the ability to save an image of the entire level. Press CTRL-K from either the Game or the Construction-set. The image is saved as chlvimxx.pcx in the directory Chickens was launched from.
* Bugfix: CSET: Add-Borders now deletes exit-tiles if a border was added on the right.
* Bugfix: CSET: If dead-ends are at the edge of a cropped area, the dead-ends at the edge would get deleted.
* And many minor changes...


0.2.0.1
Many new changes. Improved level editor and an overhaul of the graphics.

• 9Already brilliant. New, interesting, with new features, original: this game have a lot of callities. The graphics are the bad part of it... all other are excellent :) !
  maritim
• 8Interesting game with potential. I agree, with better graphics this could become an eye opening experience. The level editor is excellent ;)
  William Sams
• 8The gameplay of this game has many interesting aspects, and it can be a lot of fun to explore all the possibilities. Sometimes it is a puzzle, sometimes it is a management game. The graphics could use some improvement.
  amarillion

Andrei Ellman
My origins are as follows: I was assembled from spare parts found at the local graveyard by my parents in an overzealous attempt to create a prototype for my sister. Until recently, I was a programmer at Digi-Guys in Ealing, London working as a tools/support programmer on a hybrid game/film project. I am also a keen hobyist programmer. In fact, I once quit my job in the computer games industry so I'd have the time to write my own game - go figure. Before that, I had previously had two full-time programming jobs in the computer games industry. One at Criterion and one at Runecraft. (View Profile)