Chicken Farm (Arcade)

What comes first? egg or chicken? I think chicken is the answer. Because egg can't hatch by itself, right? Whatever your answer is, i make review about egg management in presumably one of branch of McDonald's farm in Lai Game's Chicken Farm (1999). 

Here's the chief of hens, give instruction to player on how to play the game: 1) Good egg goes to frying pan 2) Chicken egg goes to nest 3) Rotten egg goes to thrash bucket. There's no backstory or anything like that. The hen just tells you how to play after said "Want to win ticket? Play chicken farm!". Yes, it's one of "ticket collecting as many as you can" dexterous game. I aware most its peer tend to be way too simple and not fun. Especially not fun. But please stick longer to me as i have spend 1 credit already. Ain't turning back now.

 

Here's the stage and i have to say it's very unusual for egg sorting section of ordinary farm. For instance, the egg check is performed by using X-ray electrode instead of light bulb! That's way too expensive and dangerous. I mean what if the egg becomes radiated or -worse- mutated into egg monster and wreaks havoc nearby residential area. Also are you sure about those tightly arranged sorting outputs, McDonald? I don't think these pass Health and Safety work standard. At least, there's no stove below the frying pan. The player assume control of the slide in the middle section by using three buttons. Left button will slide the egg to the frying pan. Middle button will slide the egg to trash bucket. Right button will slide the egg to chicken nest. The game ends within limited time.

 

Also there's sun in background supervise your work. No, seriously. It's alive.

If you are doing it wrong, it will shake its head and says "Wrong choice", while frowning. I have mixed feeling of uneasiness and hilarity regarding the sentient sun there. Mostly hilarity. Actually, that's common in cartoonish art, right?

Each of the right procedure will increase the egg tally on top-right corner by one. It all goes well and fun until the sun commands "Hurry up now!" to the egg drops, the x-ray scanner or the player. The egg will drops faster and the X-ray scanner emits the ray more intense that the egg will explodes in a wink if it lets alone. Everyone most likely complains about arcade game difficulty that goes unfair suddenly. And i believe this is the example of it. Using "slow and sure" method is no longer valid at this point. So you have to rely on 33% chance on every quick decision to increase the tally. It happens quite often that the egg only comes in 2 type instead of 3. So the success chance there becomes 50%.

 

Then the game switch into roulette kind. The highlight moves between the eggs very fast until you hit a button. Whatever the result, you got extra ticket. So there's no lose situation.

 

The number of ticket you get (if you play it in real machine, that is), depends on how many egg that you have sort correctly and the result of bonus roulette. If i'm not mistaken, for every 4 well-placed eggs you will get 1 ticket. I think the limit of egg counter is 25 or so. No wonder the supervisor Mr. Sun speeds thing up significantly if the tally reaches 20. So you can only get 5 tickets at most. In my previous playthrough i constantly manage to sort well 24 egg but the game only acknowledge me with 5 tickets. What a shoddy business here. 

 

I try once again to see if i can manage to score 24 or maybe higher. As you can see the egg is cooked finely in frying without stove beneath it. Could this be the legendary auto-frying pan that can cook anything without stove or any fire source? I want it so i can cook to my heart content in my boarding house room. Just imagine! You don't have to worry about gas explosion or wildfire. You can cook safely. To quote SNK's slogan: The future is now!  

The slide control feels clunky but that's quite what you expect from simple egg sorting mechanism on this still bit conventional farm. Also it's quite accurate, i feel like i can reach score 24. By the way the sun keep smile widely like that...

 

...until you make mistake. The despicable supervisor. It seems i'm stuck with score 21, again. I'm as disappointed as the supervisor solar there.

 

But i got jackpot! How miraculous! I never hit jackpot before. This kind of miracle also happen when i'm forced to be Marksman class in Mobile Legend (which is the most grating role) and not only we win the match but also i'm MVP on it. Miracle does happen, reader. (:

 

Wow! I got whooping 26 tickets. Even though i play it in emulator, i still can call that win thus everyone here happy. Before i finish the writing i like to show you the interesting "wrong procedure" cases.  

Chicken egg goes to thrash bucket

That youngling most likely dead by drowned in murky goop. Requiescat in pace, young one.

Rotten egg goes to frying pan

 

As if, the sun said "Nuh-uh! Not gonna eat that". Why not? I bet Slimer will dig that with no problem.

Chicken egg goes to frying pan

 

I don't see the problem. Everyone loves hot chick, right? You may think that i'm psychopath toward young chicken. Perhaps that's true but i don't think it's genuine chick. I mean it already has cockscomb. Or perhaps (much) premature generation? Nah. Must be result of mutation genetic experiment.

 

That's Chicken Farm (1999). Even though it's ticket-earning game, i very fond of it because it has lots of charm especially in simple-yet-great gameplay. The music in egg-sorting stage is pretty good and suitable to farm's atmosphere. The voice acting is catchy and cartoonish. I can't easily forget about Sun speech of "Wrong choice" and "Yee-haw!". The control is stiff and sometime need repeated input to work but overall quite good and accurate. The graphic is rough cartoon with tolerable quality. This game probably good to be mini-game in other game or become Flash or Unity game.

To summarize it: i can recommend you to play Chicken Farm (1999) with simplistic fun gameplay. But you have to endure nigh-impossible difficulty in later part. By the way, I have important agenda: searching every department store for that revolutionary auto-frying pan.