Chicken Run (Nintendo Game Boy Color, 2000)

Life can be hard when you're going to be made into a pie. Just ask the chickens of Tweedy Farm, who've long suffered at the hands of their cruel masters and are now going to be thanked for their troubles by being chopped up into little bits and spread into a flaky, buttery crust. Fine for those who like chicken pie, one would suppose, but not for the chickens. They're all doomed unless a small team of chickens can orchestrate the most bold and daring escape in chicken history, leading their brothers and sisters out of the farm and into the glory of freedom.

Thus comes Chicken Run, a puzzler based on the 2000 movie by Nick Park (famous for his Wallace and Gromit shorts) and Peter Lord. You take control of Rocky, who gains some advice from his fine-feathered friends, but must take on the brunt of the arduous task himself. The main task of this Lemmings-like puzzler is to lead the other chickens, who happen to be a rather dim lot, out of various dangerous situations that they find themselves in, and on to freedom. The game is broken up into over 20 levels on the farm and in the pie factory. In these levels the chickens wander, waiting for Rocky to rescue them. Our hero does this by collecting grain sacks and using the chicken-feed to create a trail for the other chickens to follow all the way to the exit.

But of course, the owners of Tweedy farm aren't going to let their future pie-fillers just waltz out of their prison. So Rocky not only has to deal with setting up the trails, but he must also contend with a number of different tricks and traps set to stop him and his companions from making it out alive. Nasty dogs, searchlights, and dangerous machinery will all impede his progress, and you'll have to use your mental prowess and stealth abilities to make it around these obstacles.

Chicken Run uses a password feature so that you can progress at your own pace and is playable only on the Game Boy Color.