Stricken Chicken was my second Ludum dare and my two partners first. We did pretty well and we managed to make something which, despite all the bugs, is original and cool. Or at least that’s how I feel about it.

#39 Humor(Jam) 4.00 #273 Fun(Jam) 3.47 #632 Overall(Jam) 3.20 #700 Theme(Jam) 3.47 #791 Graphics(Jam) 2.87 #2073 Coolness 26%

What Went Well

We managed to work non-stop for the first 24 hours. Sitting in my basement programming, creating art, and having a good laugh every time we came up with a new game concept was a cool experience. We were all productive, each doing important jobs, and still enjoying ourselves. We were never particularly stressed, and whenever someone got something done, we would gather around and check out what they had accomplished.

As for the actual game, we made something silly and fun at the same time. I was impressed at how naturally my teammates were able to combine humor and  gameplay elements into one. The levels weren’t very repetitive, which I thought would actually be an issue while developing the game, but it turned out that since we had a lot of enemy types to work with, and only a total of seven levels, we managed to come up with new and interesting ways to deal with an enemy each level.

What We Could Improve

Unfortunately after the first day of development, my teammates had to go home. Which left the rest of the development up to me. Fortunatley we got all the programming done and the first four levels, so they weren’t missing too much. So the second day I was pretty busy with other commitments, but was able to make two more levels. All that was left was the boss battle, which I made after school the last day of development. And then i realised… HOLY CRAP, WE STILL DON’T HAVE A MAIN MENU OR A GAME OVER SCREEN! Fortunately we still had 4 hours of development left, so our artist came over and we quickly whipped up some screens. So now you know why the menu screens and stuff are so ugly and have horrible grammar. don’t blame the artist, its our timing. It’s too bad because that’s probably why the graphics score did so poorly, but he really did a good job.

Any one who has played stricken chicken will right away notice the resolution issues. Fortunately going full screen fixes those. Also, hitboxes are horrible! the game is still very playable however, the only time you’ll ever notice it is when you’re one level above a mama chicken and she’ll still manage to hit you. And finally the last level (“boss battle”) is somewhat unfair, the secret is to disregard every other enemy and just shoot the crap out of the boss, it’s actually quite easy if you do that.

In The End

despite the occasional hitbox glitch or whatever, we made a decent game, and the results make me feel good about myself as a game developer. They’re not the best but it shows that even at 15 I have a pretty decent grasp at what makes a good game and a bad one. I’m sure with more polish, and a bit more thought into this game, this could be a really great game (possibly). Maybe next time I’ll try at do a bit more reviews of other games to bump up the coolness, I was just busy with school, and I’ll be sure to remember to manage time even more effectively.

Thanks for reading and for playing Stricken Chicken!

Play Stricken Chicken Here On Newgrounds!