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Fun for adults and children alike, Hens, Chickens and Cats (HCC) is a casual, child-friendly puzzle game with cute graphics and good level variety without being so difficult that it becomes frustrating to play.
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[tr]
[th][h2]For[/h2][/th]
[th][h2]Against[/h2][/th]
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[tr]
[td]• Pretty graphics
• Good amount of levels with nice variety
• Achievements
• Level select allows easy replaying of levels
• Good balance between difficulty and fun[/td]
[td]• No replayability
• No mouse pointer in menu [/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
[quote][u]Achievements:[/u] Yes. Difficulty to 100%: Easy. May require retrying some levels.
[u]Game Length:[/u] 1 – 2 hours. Low replayability.[/quote]
[h1]Graphics:[/h1]
HCC is a really cute game. Colours are vibrant and appealing – very childish in their nature and style, really, but that makes the game feel quite cheerful, and I liked it. Everything is rather cartoon-like with low-detail designs, but overall, it was nice to look at.
[h1]Audio:[/h1]
[b]Music:[/b]
This was quite relaxing but not particularly interesting – it’s seldom ever something these games focus on, and ends up just being background noise. And that’s fine.
[b]Environmental:[/b]
There were very few environmental sounds aside from the chicks chirping, the hen making a noise when it moves (that sounded more like a wet slipper on a tile floor than a hen), and splashing sounds when someone falls into water, for example. The sounds are basic but they’re fine – this is a puzzle game; they don’t need to be anything more than functional.
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
[b]Mouse Support:[/b]
HCC doesn’t show you a mouse pointer in the game (although mouse controls do work – just the cursor is invisible) so you’re better using the arrow keys to navigate. In-game this is fine, but I think being unable to operate the menus with a mouse is a bad for a PC release.
[b]In-Game Mechanics:[/b]
Movement in-game relies on arrow-keys and you cannot alter the path of the hen you play as until it has stopped moving, which will be when it’s moved as far as it can before hitting an obstacle. The puzzle part of the game is using these obstacles to redirect your hen in the correct way to pick up its chicks and make it to the level exit without dying, or losing any chicks.
In the earlier levels this is a simple case of navigation around a peril-free map, but soon it gets harder as other animals are added. There are cats, who will kill both you and your chicks, or pigs, who will run over you and your chicks but who you can also use as a movable wall to bounce off, and dogs who will fight cats and remove them from the game, and who don’t harm you (or your chicks, as far as I could tell).
Using the various skills of these animals you have to avoid danger and traverse across the maps saving all the chicks to complete the levels.
One thing I did like, though, is that you can just head straight for the level exit without collecting any chicks and the game would move you on to the next level. This is great when a particular map is boring or annoying you and you want to move on, coming back to it later through the level selection.
Some maps have trapdoors or elevators as well to add a tougher challenge, so you’ll have to avoid some animals, use others, and be mindful of falling through trapdoors, or getting another animal to stand on a pressure plate to operate the elevator for you.
All animals, unless trapped, will move the same direction you do, so the safety of your chicks and your hen rely on you carefully foreseeing where each move will put you, and the other animals on the screen. I really couldn’t be more simple but it was a fun challenge to play through each level.
[b]Level Select:[/b]
I love that there’s a level select (that looks like an in-game level itself, and you move your hen across blocks to land on the number of the level you want to play in order to load it) as it lets you go back for missed chicks. The HUD tells you how many things you’ve collected in total from any given level so if you skip through any, or miss something in them, it’s easy to go back and pick up those last achievements.
[h1]Conclusion:[/h1]
The game ran perfectly well without any bugs. The puzzles were hard enough that you had to think about them, without ever being so hard that they were annoying. HCC is completely child-friendly if you’d planned on buying this for a minor, it looks beautiful, and the mechanics are flawless. There is not a lot else to say, really. I enjoyed this game a lot and having bought it on sale, found it to be great value for money. I highly recommend this if you’re considering it as a short, light-hearted puzzle game where the achievements are easy to 100% (particularly with the help of a guide if you are struggling with the three collectibles, though they aren’t hard). This is all-round a simple game, but everything it does, it does well, and leaves a good impression. Well worth a buy.
