BREAKING Chicken spotted on the highway shoulder. Motive unknownURGENT Prototype built over a weekend. Slept 4 hours. No regretsUPDATE Hitbox reduced by 12%. The chicken says thanksEXCLUSIVE Eagle added to the game. Slow players are getting nervousNUMBER OF THE DAY 4,812 game overs in the playtest. Everyone is fine: the chicken is digitalBREAKING Chicken spotted on the highway shoulder. Motive unknownURGENT Prototype built over a weekend. Slept 4 hours. No regretsUPDATE Hitbox reduced by 12%. The chicken says thanksEXCLUSIVE Eagle added to the game. Slow players are getting nervousNUMBER OF THE DAY 4,812 game overs in the playtest. Everyone is fine: the chicken is digital
CLUCK.DEV
a one-chicken news agency
devlog channel · issue #14
hot off the wire · devlog · genre: crossy-like
THE CHICKEN MUST CROSS THE ROAD. WE'RE FINDING OUT WHY
This is the devlog of CROSSING — an indie arcade game in the spirit
of Crossy Road, where a chicken hops across highways, rails and rivers while we hop
across bugs, deadlines and our own decisions. The chronicle below is exactly how we
kept it in the channel: wires, briefs and numbers.
caution: gameplay
fig. 1 — the scene of events. the chicken (bottom right) lines up its first hop
February 12
CLUCK.DEV
post #1 · desk: the idea
pinned
Why would a chicken cross the road? We decided to test instead of answering
The classic question of philosophy has no answer, so we are turning it into a game.
The genre formula has been known since Frogger and polished to a shine by Crossy Road:
one hop — one point, one mistake — one restart. An endless procedural
highway, a game over in two seconds, a new run in one.
Why it works: the loop is so short your brain has no time to hold a grudge.
You are already pressing "again" while the chicken is still mid-tumble.
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March 1
CLUCK.DEV
post #2 · desk: prototype
A weekend prototype: a grid, a hop and the first game over
The whole world is a grid. The chicken lives in cells, cars live in lanes,
and all movement is a lerp from cell to cell in 0.12 seconds.
No physics: the hop is an animation, a collision is a comparison of two numbers.
The main lesson of the weekend: the camera matters more than the chicken.
It rolls forward on its own and gently nudges the player — stand still for more than
five seconds and the edge of the screen catches up with you. Without it, the game
turned into a waiting simulator.
fig. 2 — the entire game: cells, a lane with a car and one hop up
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March 19
CLUCK.DEV
post #3 · desk: bugs
breaking
The chicken kept losing to thin air. Culprit found: it was us
Testers complained: "the car is still far away and my run is already over".
We checked — the car's hitbox was 30% wider than the car itself.
Technically fair, in practice — plain rude.
The rule we came up with and taped to the wall:
the enemy hitbox is smaller than the sprite, the player hitbox is smaller
than the enemy's. The player should sometimes get away with a hop they
shouldn't have. They will file it under their own skill, not our trickery —
and that is the right kind of accounting.
⚖️ 156🐔 78😅 63
👁 5.2K11:20
April 7
CLUCK.DEV
post #4 · desk: art
Pixels vs voxels: we cast our heroine like a movie role
Crossy Road is built from voxels, and the temptation to copy that was strong.
But voxels demand a 3D pipeline, and there are two of us — one of whom is
a programmer who draws. Pixel art forgives everything:
14×14 pixels, eight colors, one hour of work — and the chicken already
has a personality.
fig. 3 — Clara, 14×14 px. comb — 2 pixels, charisma — off the scale
A side effect: skins became cheap to produce. A duck is a repainted chicken.
A penguin is a duck in a tuxedo. The skin roadmap wrote itself.
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May 26
CLUCK.DEV
post #5 · desk: sound
We recorded a real chicken. The chicken had no idea
Stock "clucks" sounded like plastic. So we drove out to a grandmother's farm,
set a recorder by the coop and came back with 40 minutes of material,
of which six seconds turned out usable. Enough: a hop, a startle,
a triumph, and that exact sound for when everything goes sideways.
The hop sound is a "cluck" trimmed to 90 milliseconds and pitched up three
semitones. Playtesters called it "pleasant for some reason". Filed under achievements.
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June 30
CLUCK.DEV
post #6 · desk: playtest
field report
Closed playtest results: 4,812 game overs, zero regrets
One week, 120 players, honest metrics. Average session — 9 minutes,
average run — 23 hops, the record — 214. But the main thing is
what ends the chicken's run:
truck41%
train27%
river (splash)19%
eagle9%
screen edge4%
fig. 4 — causes of game over, n = 4,812. the eagle tries hard, but the truck is unbeatable
Takeaway of the week: players do not read tutorials, but they read traffic
perfectly. The tutorial moved from text into the first safe lane — now everyone
completes it without ever noticing.
📊 168😱 152🐔 73
👁 7.4K12:00
July 14 — today
CLUCK.DEV
post #7 · desk: release
urgent
Release date is set. The chicken hits the road this fall
CROSSING launches in September: mobile platforms, free to play, monetization —
skins only, bought with honestly earned coins. No timers, no energy meters,
no "watch an ad for an extra run". The chicken restarts with dignity.
Coming up in the channel: a week of optimizing for older phones, the penguin
casting call, and a report from the first build that did not fall over. Stay on the line.
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👁 9.1K09:30
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