We know kids sometimes need to learn hard lessons, like persevering when luck doesn’t go your way, or when you try your best and still lose, but in this case, we noticed some sore turns that just didn’t seem fun. There were quite a few times when our Keymaster kids ran away from the table balling their eyes out because of a busted roll or a lost game. Chicken! is about fun at all ages, so of course we turned to our most important product testers: the Keymaster kids. In development, we think about where the most fun moments of the game are occurring and try to focus the design around them. Symbols drawn courtesy of a much better illustrator than me-Kyle. Our rough first version of Scott's dice based on the rules. Lots of chicken noises were made while we played, laughs were had, and the next thing we know we bet the farm on Chicken! and development began. This creates hilarious moments of overcommitting to risky rolls and goading one another into “Chickening out” (a player can choose to lose a point to roll less risky dice). Where Chicken! stands out is the unique ability to pass riskier rolls off to the next player. The core of Chicken! thrives on classic press-your-luck dice rolling: score points (roll chickens), increase risk (hatch eggs), and don’t bust (avoid foxes). Scott shared a one-page rule sheet of this game he called Chicken! “One page?!” we said, “One page! Who is this man?” We quickly threw together a Tabletop Simulator mod of the game and from the first roll, we couldn’t stop clucking about Chicken! He let us know Martian Dice was not available, but he had another ace up his sleeve-or should we say–egg in his basket. We weren’t sure if the rights for that game were available at the time, so Keymaster Jen reached out to Scott. It’s easy to teach to new players, but still holds strategic weight and doesn’t skimp on the fun. It’s a clever and straightforward press-your-luck dice game that feels like a standalone mini-game in one of Scott’s bigger titles. ![]() This title caught our eye in the past because it was so easy to pick up and play with friends-you can try it right now online on Board Game Arena. Scott may be known as the maker of the Tiny Epic series or Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea, but to his family, he’s the guy that made Martian Dice. With a tiny epic BANG, we were hooked, and now there’s a joke around Keymaster that Kyle buys every Almes game-sometimes without even knowing it. Scott’s games feel like several fun mini-games across one big arc with quirky mechanics like poker-driven worker placement or dice-fighting goblins. Scott had a way of creating fun and exciting moments by interpreting familiar systems in a new light. Tiny Epic Western and Quest were our first forays into the world of Scott Almes’ mind. ![]() We were in that “buy-and-play-everything-you-can” phase, and the Tiny Epic Series was blowing up Kickstarter after Kickstarter. The story of Chicken! starts several years ago at one of our weekly game nights. What better time than when we have a new game right around the corner. Think of these posts similar to a “behind-the-scenes,” or director’s notes on the process that goes into hatching up the fun. Here at Keymaster, we like to do a deep dive into our games from time to time. It is finally over.Chicken! is live and clucking over on Kickstarter! Grab those egg baskets and check it out. It is over, brave, chicken-fuelled knight. ![]() Gone are the days when you would have to frantically wipe your greasy, stubby, grease-laden, greasy hands down your cargo shorts during the loading screen, gone are the days of trying and failing to quickscope because your thumb is too lubricated with animal fat, over are all the times you have handed someone a controller after dying (because your sticky pad-bashing fingers are like butter-covered eels thrashing in a bathtub) only for it to slide straight out of their hands like a bar of soap and stick to your carpet like a sticky, hot boiled sweet clinging to the roof of your mouth.Ī thing of the past it will be, to dab your greasy meat-fist from the bucket of chicken to the X button, bucket to the button, bucket to the button, rectangular eyes never once blinking or turning away from the screen, button to chicken, chicken to button, grease, grease, grease, grease, until you find yourself jamming away at the X once more like a frustrated pirate punching a hole through a map, only now it won’t quite respond, having been jammed slightly into the innards of the Xbox controller itself at a crucial junction as you, hot wing in hand, chicken slobber down chin, crash and burn out of the game once more. No longer will you have to choose between a serious game of PUBG and that giant bucket of grease in front of you, thanks to the new grease controller.
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