Chicken Chain

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  Making a big chicken chain!

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  Jump down into the action!

Inspiration

We were inspired by the massively multiplayer casual mobile games in the ".io" genre. These include games like Snake.io, Slither.io, and the like. Because Horizon allows you to create 32-user multiplayer games with ease, we thought this would be a good concept for a casual challenge that encourages users to stick around and invite others to join for that viral hook.

In addition to this, we took some inspiration from the Mario Kart series, with pickups and the ability to mess up other players with offensive and defensive items.

We adopted the top-down camera perspective of io games for the optimal mobile experience. This allows the player to easily navigate the game without having to mess around with the camera. We find that having to look around and navigate in multiple axes in mobile games with touch controls isn't the optimal experience.

What it does

In chicken chain you scramble around a pastoral farmland looking for escaped chickens. When you bump into a chicken, it follows closely behind. Each successive chicken you collect follows in a line--a Chicken Chain, if you will. When you deliver the chickens to one of the coops on the playfield, you earn points. The longer the chain, the more points you get.

Other players can steal your chickens by bumping into them and adding your chickens to their chain. You can also find pickups on the field which can be used to give yourself a boost or sabotage other players. If, through one of these items, you are knocked out of the game, you restart in the lobby with your points reset.

Zombies also shamble across the landscape, providing an additional element of chaos. Although they pose no danger to the chickens, a single touch from a zombie is all it takes to knock out a player. Luckily, one of the pickups is a blaster--this repeatedly fires a projectile over a short period of time which can destroy both zombies and players alike.

As your chicken chain grows, you move slower. This makes you more vulnerable to zombies and other players stealing your chickens. Keep this in mind when formingh your Chicken Chain strategy!

How we built it

We built it using the Desktop editor and Typescript. With Flarb handling the game design and programming, and MousePack contributing to the design and creating the visual assets.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was coming up with a concept. We knew that we wanted to use NPCs somehow--but at the time there were only 5 NPCs available. Luckily we struck upon this idea which works well with the chicken NPC.

Some of the design challenges included how to tune the game for multiple players--to create a fun balance between chaos and a coherent rule set.

On the technical side, coming up with a blaster that's attached to the player but aims flat in the running direction was kind of tricky. Building the navigation logic so the chickens follow the player in a straight line while being able to be stolen by others and follow them took a bit of work.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're really proud of the great looking assets we produced, as well as creating a fun, casual game that players can easily jump in and out of. We feel the best Horizon Worlds have that pick up and play design and we really struck upon that with this concept.

What we learned

Every member of the team was totally new to the Horizon Worlds platform. Our ability to get this up and running from 0 is something we're quite pleased with and plan on using the knowledge acquired to upcoming Worlds.

We learned to keep it simple. Originally we had lots of complicated ideas, but once we settled on the gameplay hook, all design decisions came naturally in service to that core mechanic. This created a simple but extremely fun experience that is ideal for mobile.

What's next for Chicken Chain

Next we plan on adding more player progression, quests, and items--including in app purchases--to Chicken Chain. The idea has infinite possibilities, including new maps and community events as well.

Built With

• horizon
• typescript