Classic 1980s game Chuckie Egg makes a return

5 hours ago

David Gregory-KumarWest Midlands science, environment and rural affairs correspondent, in Lichfield

News image — The classic 1980s video game Chuckie Egg is now available on smartphones and tablets

BBC An iPad is propped up on a black desk with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum keyboard in front of it. The handle from a pair of glasses is visible on the right hand side of the photo. — The classic 1980s video game Chuckie Egg is now available on smartphones and tablets

Four decades after I last played it, Chuckie Egg is back, and I am controlling bright-yellow, big-hatted protagonist Hen-House Harry as he collects eggs, seed and avoids angry birds.

Better still, I do not have to wait for what always felt like an age for the game to load into my BBC Model B from cassette tape.

Today I can just fire up a smartphone or tablet and there Harry is thanks to Staffordshire software publisher Elite.

I went to Lichfield to talk to the firm's co-founder Steve Wilcox about why they have brought Chuckie Egg back after so long and to hear from the man who wrote the game when he was just 16 years old, Nigel Alderton.

Alderton is very much giving me a Chuckie Egg masterclass - leaping from lift to ledge, to egg, to pile of seed.

"I'm rusty at best," he tells me with a chuckle. "[It is] difficult getting the fingers going."

After Chuckie Egg, Nigel wrote more games that were published by Elite as part of the huge Midlands computer games industry that sprung up in the 1980s.

These included hits like Ghosts 'n Goblins and Commando.

A man wearing a black shirt is looking at the camera and smiling. He has grey hair and is standing indoors. — Nigel Alderton wrote the game at the age of 16

Elite would sell hundreds of thousands of copies of their games made for the Sinclair Spectrum, the BBC Micro, the Commodore 64 and many more.

But why bring back Chuckie Egg? According to Wilcox it is a way to test the waters and to see if the people who once played the game could be tempted to buy it again to play on their phones.

"We're addressing the forty somethings and fifty somethings, mostly men and that's our starting point.

"It's those people, and if we are lucky enough to spread the net to a new audience then that would be fabulous."

A hand can be seen holding a card with the words "chuckie egg" and a £4.95 price sticker stuck on it. There is a cartoon image of a black boot about to stamp on a chicken on the card. — Back in the 1980s, a number of computers used cassettes to (very slowly) load up games

The game has been given a 3D glow-up, but you can also chose to play it just as it was on the Spectrum or BBC Model B.

To me it looks and sounds perfect, but what does Nigel think?

"It's great but it's weird seeing it again," he said.

"It's identical, it looks exactly the same, the colours are the same and the noises are the same. It's pixel perfect."

A man wearing a white and blue striped shirt can be seen leaning on his hand. He is looking off to his left as the photograph is taken. He has grey hair. — Steve Wilcox said Elite was targeting those who played the game in the 1980s

And while other returning retro games often end up saddled with stuff like loot boxes or pay-to-play or even pay-to-win mechanics not so Chuckie Egg.

You buy it and that's it, said Steve.

"[The audience] have all sorts of aggravations in their life, the absolute last thing they want is a bloody advert halfway through playing the game!"

For me it has been a massive nostalgia blast and a fun thing to share with my daughter who enjoyed it even if she is not a fan of the soundtrack, complaining it sounds like "a lot of farts".

And the new Chuckie Egg does comes with one very modern idea, an online leader board.

Alderton has made it on there, although he is currently fifth.

Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.