Whimsical, Fun Little Farmyard Game
There is always a place on my Switch for those fun little five-minute-at-a-time games, and Bouncy Chicken is one such game. Bouncy Chicken is a game so simple it doesn’t even have or need a tutorial! You have a chicken to direct around a farmyard to pick up corn cornels in as few attempts as possible. You have a limited number of attempts to fire your chicken per level, and there are obstacles in your way that can either help or hinder. Some obstacles are hard, some let you bounce even more. There are 90 levels of simple puzzles that get progressively harder (or more, fun depending on your point of view), and then you are done.
The graphics and smoothness of the game are very good, for what it is at least. It was always clear to see the field. What could have helped is the arrow suggesting your line of aim, it should have extended out further to make aiming just a little easier. I appreciate you don’t want the aiming to be too easy, but it’s just a tad too short as it is.
What is fun is the audio sounds the chicken makes when hitting objects. Cute little squeaks whenever the chicken hits a barrier are fun, but it’s even more so when hitting the springy barriers that fire the chicken off in the opposite direction. All of this is accompanied by a jaunty little chill-out, child-like soundtrack.
For £4.49, there isn’t much more to expect from this game. It is what it is. You aim your chicken and fire. Sometimes I found myself trying to line up shots like a snooker/pool player, taking an age to make sure my line is correct as this is my last attempt at this level; otherwise, I’ll have to do it again. Other times, I found myself just randomly firing off shots toward the obstacles to see what would happen.
But something very strange and unexpected happened. I actually started laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of the fun I was having. This was because I completed some of the levels simply by firing at the springy rebound barriers that could make the chicken bounce so much that it was like a ball was stuck in the rebound features of a pinball machine. Then, when the physics of the game released the chicken, it would scoot around the level bouncing off other objects or more springy rebounds, picking up the corn without me trying at all! I could actually complete some of the most complex levels by randomly firing at the spring barriers in one shot!
Unfortunately, a lot of the early levels didn’t have the white, springy rebound barriers, just walls. There didn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to the layout of these levels, so I couldn’t apply any particular tactic to playing the game and working out the angles. Additionally, for most of the first 30 levels, I had enough attempts to simply fire at the nearest corn with a clear line of sight to complete them.
It’s only when the levels needed you to think of angles that it got interesting, but it only actually got fun when the springboard barriers appeared. It’s a shame the early levels didn’t have more springboard barriers and fewer attempts.
A lot of games have tried to bottle up that addictive simplicity seen in Angry Birds gameplay. Bouncy Chicken isn’t in that hemisphere of greatness. It is close to the formula but just isn’t quite there. There isn’t enough variety in the types of barriers or planning of the first 30 levels or so. However, as things get more complex and the barriers springy, I found I kept laughing more at how I managed to complete ridiculously hard levels with random shots in one go!
Developer: Yeta
Publisher: EastAsiaSoft
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Release date: 5th July 2024
