Chicken of the Farm

[mitch3a]

Project that Link_7777 and I have been working for the last few months. Features 23 levels and a final boss. Be prepared for the frustration of frog physics and the always-irritating-on-nes birds (amongst other enemies)!

ChickenOfTheFarm-intro.gif (442.46 KiB) Viewed 22691 times

ChickenOfTheFarm-gameplay2.gif (382.92 KiB) Viewed 22691 times

ChickenOfTheFarm-ice.gif (515.45 KiB) Viewed 22691 times

ChickenOfTheFarm-boss.gif (472.09 KiB) Viewed 22691 times

I'm really pumped how this reminds me of early nes games. Frustrating, unique, short but tough and catchy music. Given the amount of time we had, couldn't have hoped for anything better. This is our first original game and the majority of credit goes to Link. Thanks to those who helped us test and those here who helped debug a couple of tough issues. Enjoy!

[M_Tee]

I like what I played so far. Made it up to the screen shown in your first screen shot. Will play more later. I dig the palette cycles of the title screen, reminds me of Niji no Silkroad.

[FrankenGraphics]

Haha, i got to that level too before i gave up (didn't have the appropriate amount of time). Will give it another go later. Pretty fun!

[Gilbert]

Hehe pretty clever name for the game.
And you even have a literal chicken as a boss!

[FrankenGraphics]

I didn't get the reference. Is it a saying, a play on words, both?

[koitsu]

I didn't get the reference. Is it a saying, a play on words, both?

The game's name is 田鸡 (simplified Chinese) / 田雞 (traditional Chinese) (Pinyin: tiánjī), which means frog -- particularly a kind of edible frog, the east asian bullfrog (also called 虎皮蛙 ("frog with tiger skin") in mainland China).

田 by itself means field (think: farm), while 鸡 / 雞 by itself means chicken. (So yes, the word for that particular species of frog, literally translated, is "field chicken".)

There are other words for frog, like 蛙 or 蛤, but it's besides the point.

[nocash]

Makes me wonder if the authors have been both aware of those different meanings, or if they had endless discussions about the storyline...
Why do we have a chicken in the game??? How can you ask, but tell me how you came with that frog idea!!!
; )

[Gilbert]

Having a frog as the player and that it's boldly written as "chicken of the farm" in English meant they should know the double meanings.
Unless for the former they're actually referring to the boss in the title(not aware that the player character was what it really described), OR, the latter English title was actually what Google Translate gave by parsing the Chinese name.
OR they put "frog" in Google Translate to get the Chinese name and then use Google Translate again to get that English title.

I don't know whether the literal chicken boss (being fought on a field even) was intentional though.

[tepples]

The pun at least is in the same vein as some of my own game titles.

• Concentration Room: Play Concentration (turn over two cards game) while quarantined so you can concentrate (focus your thoughts) and reduce the concentration (amount per unit volume) of a mild neurotoxin in your CSF. Credit to Shiru for half of this one.
• Thwaite: Half of a place name in Burnett's The Secret Garden, where the other half of the name is what you have to stop. Choice of The Secret Garden is an artifact from a discarded theme paralleling the DOS games Ganja Farmer and Crop Command. The word also means a clearing in the forest where a village like the one depicted in the game might be situated.
• Zap Ruder: Named in memory of an amateur cinematographer who produced a well-known firsthand film of the assassination of President Kennedy. Like his Bell & Howell 8 mm camera, a light gun operates by receiving light.

Some of my test ROMs have punny names as well.

• Eighty: Tests the NES Four Score; fourscore is also an archaic term for eighty known best from President Lincoln's Gettysburg address.
• Holy Mapperel: Tests multiple NES mappers using the same PRG ROM. Derives from "holy mackerel", a minced oath hypothesized to be connected to the Catholic habit of eating fish on Fridays, as well as half of the name of Holy Diver and half of exclamations by Batman's partner Dick "Robin" Grayson. Holy Diver is the only Famicom game to use a particular Irem board, and a Batman game is the only North American NES game to use a particular Sunsoft board. Paul at INL commissioned the test while developing support for these two boards.
• Telling LYs: The value of LY (the current vertical position that the Game Boy PPU is rendering) when a button is pressed is "telling" as to whether you're on hardware or a typical emulator. Also a name in "Johny Johny".

[gauauu]

Finally got around to trying this. The jump/bounce physicals are wonderfully annoying. (I mean that in a good way. Trying to deal with the hops while you move is fun and interesting in a frustrating way). I like it.

Is it possible to get the high-up flies in the early levels?

[mitch3a]

Thanks!

All flies are gettable, although they are incredibly challenging. Some might say way too challenging... but they're only there for the obsessive completists so I'm ok with it

[rainwarrior]

I didn't realize it was a chinese ideograph joke, but I read it as a variation of the idiom "Chicken of the Sea", though I suppose Chicken of the Marsh would have made more sense for a frog, hah.

[gauauu]

Thanks!

All flies are gettable, although they are incredibly challenging. Some might say way too challenging... but they're only there for the obsessive completists so I'm ok with it

There must be some other way of manipulating the physics that I couldn't figure out. Is there some way to jump higher? (or is that a secret?)

[mitch3a]

It's not exactly a secret, but i'll put the answer in a pastebin so folks who want to get it on their own won't have it spoiled (although I warn to not overthink it): https://pastebin.com/g46WeNWB

[gauauu]

It's not exactly a secret, but i'll put the answer in a pastebin so folks who want to get it on their own won't have it spoiled (although I warn to not overthink it): https://pastebin.com/g46WeNWB

Cool, thanks. I still wan't able to get the highest ones, but I understand the idea.