Chicken! review --- Press your luck to gather chickens, but don't let the foxes catch you! (2024)

I enjoy a tough, technical board game as much as the next person, but sometimes I’d rather dive into a game a bit less taxing on my brain after a long day of work, and Chicken! fits that bill perfectly. Chicken! is a fun, fast-paced, press-your-luck game suitable for 2 to 8 players of all ages, which takes mere minutes to learn and less than 15 minutes to play and is highly transportable, thanks to coming in a cylindrical container rather than a traditional box and the smart decision to design the game board out of cloth.

Essentially, your goal in Chicken! is to gain 25 points – or chickens – via dice rolls while avoiding foxes. Gameplay takes place around a small cloth game board, which has spaces ranging from number 1 through 25, and features a chicken coop in the middle to house any dice which are not currently in play. Players must first choose their player token from a selection of 8 unique characters and place it on the starting point on the game board, marked by arrows. Players will then grab the 4 white starting dice. In total, there are 12 dice which can be in play at any given time, including 4 white, 4 yellow, and 4 red. The 4 white dice are your beginner dice and may contain a fox, a chicken, an egg, or be blank. The yellow dice mimic the same items as the white dice, but the red dice feature higher risk/higher reward, with more foxes on them but also the possibility to gain two chickens at once.

Play begins with a player rolling the four white dice. Any chickens they obtain must be put off to the right, while any foxes obtained get put to the left. Any blank dice or eggs obtained remain in the middle. For each egg rolled you may then pull one of the yellow dice and add it to your pile as a chicken. You can now choose to retain the middle dice as is and end your turn or take a chance and re-roll the middle dice for a chance at more chickens. If at any time you obtain three foxes, then your turn is over, you gain no points and must return all non-white dice to the chicken coop. Once your turn is complete you tally your chickens and move your token the corresponding number of spaces on the board. You then pass all dice to the next player. Play continues like this, with the number of dice increasing each turn, until a player chickens out and chooses to lose one point and return all non-white dice to the chicken coop. That player can then proceed with their turn and only roll the white dice. Once a player obtains 25 or more points then they are declared the winner and the game is over.

As you can tell from above, Chicken! is extremely easy-to-learn and quick to play. Once players become accustomed to the game’s flow, you will find yourself blowing through full games in as little as ten minutes. This means Chicken! is great for parties, to pass the time, or as a palate cleanser between more complicated games. Chicken! is quite fun despite its simple nature, and remains fun throughout multiple rounds, especially when played against competitive friends and family members who relish heckling and putting pressure on each other to not chicken out.

The only real downfall of Chicken! is its lack of depth, but then again, that is also its prime selling point. It falls directly in an area where I enjoyed playing Chicken! enough that I do wish there were some extra challenges that could crop up during play to keep playthroughs fresh, but I still enjoyed the game enough to repeatedly play as-is. Plus, Chicken! also scores points for housing everything needed to play inside one small and lightweight tube, and the fact that the game can be set up and begin being played within a minute or two. The pros definitely outweigh the cons.

Unless otherwise stated, the product in this article was provided for review purposes.

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