Hi Reddit,
My name is Piotr Rochala, author of an indie game called Amazing Chicken Adventures available now on Nintendo Switch. Ask me anything!
You can find me on Twitter: [https://twitter.com/RochalaPiotr](https://twitter.com/RochalaPiotr)
Nintendo Switch eShop: [https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/amazing-chicken-adventures-switch/](https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/amazing-chicken-adventures-switch/)
Chicken YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@amazingchickenadventures](https://www.youtube.com/@amazingchickenadventures)
Chicken Website: [http://amazingchickenadventures.com/](http://amazingchickenadventures.com/)
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I quit my day job in May 2022 to focus on pursuing my greatest dream – releasing a console video game. I volunteer as a firefighter here in Victoria and I believe that experience has taught me the resilience needed to pull this off.
Amazing Chicken Adventures is a souls-like, 3D puzzle platformer game, where you have to replay each level 100 times, to solve physics-based egg-rolling puzzles. The impossible objective of each level or “adventure” is to roll 3 eggs into a “Chicken-Tech” Floating Bucket.
In this game, the Main Menu->Restart button will be your best friend.
Each level is hand-made and designed as an unfolding obstacle course. Eggs fall off the edges all the time, they break if they fall from heights or on hard surfaces. It’s fun mayhem, with couch co-op available, where you can play as a Duck!
The Chicken uses Ursus-tracktor-inspired Chicken Tech and there is a backpack too. In each Adventure, you have collectibles that assist with puzzle solving and unblocking the path back on the ground. The game has a simple linear progression and features a quirky low-poly 3D world with 20 portals hiding 20 adventures, across the Farmland, Jungle, Desert, and Arctic low-poly biomes.
It’s a puzzle game where you have to figure things out, including some gameplay mechanics. The game pays tribute to retro games I played as a kid in the 90s, back when I couldn’t even speak English and when everything had to be an experiment.
The game is inspired by Eastern European flora and my childhood in post-communist, rural Poland and a dream I had back then – to travel the big, wild world. It feels pretty special to release the first Polish-Australian game made in the Kulin Nation country, Victoria, Australia.
My game teaches resilience and has a secret, climate action ending. Ecology is something I am very passionate about and I hope it will be a recurring theme in all my future games.
Amazing Chicken Adventures comes with a versus co-op hockey level too, and it offers 6+ hours of gameplay. It is cute, but brutally hard. It is an arcade game where the journey itself is the narrative.The game has also released on Xbox and Steam back in September. I am planning to release it on PlayStation next.
I am also about to release a patch across all platforms, to address a few bugs and fix visual issues I wasn’t happy with in the initial release.
I am a solo indie developer and publisher. I did all design, 3D art, animation, sound editing, programming, and publishing. I am not a composer, so I decided to feature Public Domain classical music in my game, sourced from [musopen.org](https://musopen.org/) \- a charity with a mission to set classical music free of all copyright for all humanity to enjoy.
When COVID hit back in 2020, we also got put into a pretty serious lockdown here in Melbourne, Australia. With all this free time at hand, I picked up an art tool called Blender. I kept learning every night until I got good enough to make low-poly 3D art. Then I picked up Unity game engine and applied my 16 years of software engineering experience to explore what indie game development is actually about. (Turns out it’s all super hard!)
Because of this project, I got to keep my sanity over the lockdown and bond with my 3 beautiful children. All of them helped me out with playtesting and concept validation. While the game is hard I know that a 7-year-old can finish it 🙂 The game features cooperative co-op in all adventure levels and one versus co-op level. I decided to add co-op because my 7-yo twin sons wanted to play together!
While the game’s target audience is primary-school-aged kids, I believe everyone will find the hectic gameplay enjoyable, especially in the co-op mode. The game is rated E for everyone.
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I launched my Alpha on Steam in 2021 and used that as a launchpad to apply to become an official Nintendo developer, ID@Xbox developer, and Sony PlayStation developer. To my own disbelief, all 3 companies accepted me and onboarded me as a video games publisher. I am very grateful for that.
I wanted to prove to myself that a childhood dream can be reachable, as long as I apply daily effort to pursue it. Now that I paved my own path, I hope to work with others in the future.
Since the otherwise uneventful release, my new indie dev life allowed me to meet fellow passionate game makers and take the Chicken on a trip to Adelaide Comic Con and even run my own Indie Pod and PAX Australia [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LVMo\_-M8gg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LVMo_-M8gg) !
My game is modular and I would love to evolve and improve it with time (visual enhancements in the patch coming up!) but for now, I just need a break. This project took over 2 years of my life and if it wasn’t for the support of my partner and friends, I’d never get here. It feels great to finally tell at least a part of my story.
Feel free to ask me anything!
Thanks so much!
Piotr Rochala
by PiotrRochalaDev
28 Comments
What came first… the chicken or the egg?
Thanks for the AMA!
Was it scary to switch from a day job to working on a game full time? How long would your funds have lasted you when you took the plunge?
Well done on achieving your dream! The game looks amazing! Love the sound effects. The folding level design is very interesting. How did you come up with it? And did it bring any interesting obstacles when creating?
Don’t really have a question, just wanted to give you props for following your dreams. Loved your story and will check this out!
Congratulations! Wishing you lots of “cLuck” making lots of “buck buck bucks”! 🐔😂 Looks super cute!
Where is the trailer? That should be the top thing you share. You’re here to promote, so promote!
Link to trailer:
https://youtu.be/quscb6sLHbM
How challenging is the application process to get onto a console storefront? Is one platform more straightforward than the others?
Congratulations on developing a game with 3 kids! How much more of a challenge was it to develop a game while also being a father?
How do you find developing on the switch? Also how do you get started?
Great story, good for you!
What compiler does the Switch use?
Wspaniała historia, gratuluję releasu!
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Wow, thank you so much for all questions, these are amazing, and it feels great to finally share my story.
I will be here for a while, with a few breaks in between, but I’ll get back to every comment.
Grateful to be here!
What makes a 3D arcade egg-rolling puzzle platformer a souls-like?
What was the hardest part of the dev process making your game? If you could change anything you did, or tell yourself at the beginning of the project some advice, what would you do?
Also, super awesome that you’re following your dream! It brings joy to see people following their dreams and being successful. 😄
I am kinda interested in buying this now… Any ideas to release dlc m8?
I will be purchasing this game to support you and your passion. I love the art style and the “unfolding” of the level.
I really hope this is the start of many wonderful projects, having this in a portfolio would look amazing.
Please keep up the amazing work.
You should check MatDickie out. He’s like, the best solo game developer in the entire world.
Hi Piotr can you DM me your email? I have a friend who runs a video game showcase and I know they would love to pitch your game to the showcase team
How is your day?
Congrats man!!
How much development input did you really have? I’m starting to believe it was created by your kids and you’re just taking the credit 😉
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I’ll definitely add this to the wishlist, my wife loves puzzle games
Congrats! My question is how hard is it to make graphics and do sound design along with programming and what was a day like for you mid development?
If anyone has tried the Joycon legstrap, how tight does it go? Would it fit snugly around an elbow?
Hey. Cool game! Added to wishlist!
I have two questions:
How hard is the game? Some physics based games or puzzle games get super hard fast, so you end up looking for a guide online or quitting at times 🙁
How long does it take to complete the game? 2 hours, 5 hours, what’s the amount of content?
I really love the idea of the game, how it looks, gameplay looks fun. Art is dope too 🙂 Good job mate!