Chicken! is a push-your-luck dice rolling party game for up to 8 players. You need to decide if you want to keep rolling dice or chicken out and begin from a safer spot with less dice. Chicken! is published by a favorite publisher of mine, Keymaster Games, who have published other wonderful games like PARKS and Campy Creatures. In short, Chicken! is a quick playing dice chucking game that is a race till the end.
What’s in the Box?
- 4 White dice
- 4 Yellow dice
- 4 Orange dice
- 8 Player tokens
- 1 Cloth board
How’s it Play?
Player take turns rolling dice trying to get to 25 points to win the game. Players can only roll the dice a maximum of 2 times each turn. When rolling the dice, you will at times be rolling all the dice left from the previous player. You have a choice to continue rolling all the dice passed, or you can chicken out and put all the yellow and orange dice back into the coop on the board and only roll the 4 white dice.
It’s important to know that you might want to chicken out when you have a lot of dice, because if 3 foxes are rolled, you gain no points that turn. However, when you chicken out, you move back one space, so it’s not advisable to chicken out every single turn.
Normally, players roll the dice and any chickens rolled are placed to the side, which count as points during your turn. Foxes are also kept to the side after rolling and if 3 or more are rolled, your turn ends immediately and you gain no points. An egg adds a new die to the available dice pool to roll. After rolling one time, you have a choice to keep rolling, risking rolling more chickens (or foxes!), or stop and take the points you currently have from chickens rolled.
When a player gets 3 or more chickens on their turn, all the yellow and orange dice are immediately placed back onto the board in the coop, and the next player starts their turn with the 4 white dice. Players continue taking turns, deciding if they want to push their luck each time and possibly scoring points or risk getting no points at all. When a player gets 25 points, the game ends immediately, and that player wins.
The Verdict
At first I was thinking this was going to be an uneventful game, and one that other games I have played have done better. I was wrong! After really getting into the game and playing it, there are some fun aspects that Chicken! offers that aren’t present in other, similar games.
First, you only get 2 rolls instead of rolling over and over again till you choose to either stop or you bust. This is great because if you can roll infinitely, luck can kick in and a player can just keep rolling to gain more and more points. Chicken! limits this by only letting you roll twice, and you get what you get, good or bad.
Additionally, there is a build up of dice as players continue their turns. Some players choose to roll all the dice they are given and might score a lot of points, but other times with the same amount of dice they might bust. This kind of push-your-luck aspect adds fun to the game. Dice can grow until a player busts or a player chickens out, which can also be a strategic move in the game.
Plus, the dice change as they ramp up. You always have the white dice, but you will gain the yellow and then orange dice. The orange dice have a higher probability of rolling foxes compared to the other dice, but also have a double chicken on one of the sides, by which you gain even more chickens. The white dice has the most eggs on it, letting you gain more dice, and the yellow is good for rolling chickens. Still, when it all comes down to it, your roll determines if you win or lose in this game. Decisions to go for it or not can change things up, but whoever has the hot hand for the night is most likely to win the game.
I think the components are very well done. I’m not a huge fan of the cloth board, but it makes it so you can box up the game in the cool cylinder, which is not normally used in games. The player tokens are wooden, and if you’ve always wanted to play as the poop head emoji, this game grants you that privilege.
Overall, Chicken! impressed me more than what I was expecting, but really, when it comes down to it, it’s a dice-rolling, push-yourluck game that determines who is a chicken and who is not.
Images Courtesy of Keymaster Games
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