After being chased around Antescher in Ant Attack yesterday, we barely get time for a breather as we load up the next game in the Your Sinclair Top 100 and discover that No.13 also involves us being the prey for something else – this time chickens! We’ve stumbled into the giant chicken coop that is Chuckie Egg from the publishing house A’n’F Software.
Chuckie Egg first appeared on the ZX Spectrum back in 1984, programmed by the then sixteen year old, Nigel Alderton. It was quickly ported over to numerous other machines, starting with the BBC Micro and Dragon, and thanks to this it is highly recognised – by many gamers – due to the BBC Micro appearing in many schools up and down the UK during the early 1980’s.
Taking on the role of Hen-House Harry your goal is to collect twelve eggs scattered throughout the eight levels before the timer runs out. You can also collect the scattered chicken feed for extra points, however this will remove the advantage of slowing down the chickens. Once you complete the initial eight levels these then repeat, but the duck is released from the cage in the top left and it isn’t fussed one bit by the positioning of the platforms. Then once you’ve completed these eight levels again, the chickens return with the duck.
Chuckie Egg is a game that everyone of a certain age will recognise in an instant and will possibly have played. Due to numerous “Wet Breaks” (when it rained nothing to do with a weak bladder) at school, this was a staple part of my gaming along with Thrust, Rocket Raid and Daredevil Denis and loading it up here brings back numerous waves of gaming nostalgia. Though the graphics are really showing their age now, the gameplay hasn’t lost anything at all in thirty-two years it’s sat upon this spinning globe, I can’t even imagine what the half-life of this game must be!
Returning to the classic by A’n’F Software is a total treat, Chuckie Egg is an excellent game and quite frankly needs to be enjoyed often.
