You look around. In front of you, Chickens. Ready to meet the cold steel of your Utensils. Just like always.
But behind you? A planet, in need of your protection? A meteor storm you’ve just valiantly navigated? A Space Burger facility? (Please, let it be a Space Burger facility…)
Oh no. Behind you, you see only more Chickens. An endless wall of poultry. Blotting out the stars themselves, so numerous are they. A chill runs down your spine, as the sounds of their squawking grow only louder…
This time, the Henpire is after you.
So at it’s core, this mission idea is just a timed mission - you have to complete the mission as quickly as possible. The basic premise would be best adapted with “Classic” missions, though pretty much anything other than maybe Squawk Block could feasibly be used as a template.
The premise, of course, is simple - you’re being chased by an enormous horde of chickens. You need to escape by clearing all the waves in front of you.
The only fundamental change to the gameplay begins with having a timer that counts backwards from a certain value, balanced roughly with the length of the mission. This timer may-or-may-not be visible to the player, depending on what would provide the best game experience.
When the cluck strikes zero, the chicken horde is nigh. Every few seconds after this, a chicken will spawn in from the edges of the screen - these would just be generic-type chickens, perhaps with a special vest colour for easy distinguishing. A warning of some sort when this timer has hit would probably be needed.
The longer you remain “in the horde”, the faster these Chickens spawn. There would have to be a maximum “lower-limit”, of course, but generally if you hang around in the horde too long the Chickens should be spawning faster than you can get rid of them. Spending too long here should be a death sentence - you’ll just get absolutely overwhelmed by throngs and throngs of chickens. Ambient clucking should gradually increase in intensity. You’re not meant to last long here.
The horde chickens should behave by flying around the screen somewhat randomly (think “Look in all Directions”), and they can approach from any side.
Clearing the wave “proper” will stop the spawning, but you’ll still need to clear away the remaining horde-chickens to progress. Between each wave, you’ll give a quick burst of the warp drive, putting some time between yourself and the chickens. But this should be a small gap (perhaps about ten seconds), and ideally you’ll have to make good use of your starting time as well as these bonuses in order to keep ahead. The values should be balanced so that once the chickens reach you, you’re going to have a very hard time breaking free from them going forward.
Higher difficulties could play with shorter timers - both for the starting time, the mid-wave bonuses, and even the rate at which chicken-spawning intensifies.
Thoughts?
