Alfred Chicken

Alfred Chicken is one of those wonderfully strange platformers that could only really come from the colorful mascot-game era of the early 1990s. Developed by Twilight and published by Mindscape, the game was released for the NES in 1993 in Europe and reached North America in February 1994. You play as Alfred, a red chicken who has to stop the evil Meka-Chickens and rescue kidnapped eggs and his girlfriend, Floella.

The basic idea is simple, but Alfred has an unusual way of dealing with enemies. He cannot fly, yet he can jump and perform a powerful downward dive attack with his beak. This move can defeat enemies and also activate springs, allowing Alfred to bounce much higher and reach platforms that would otherwise be impossible to access. Missing the target, however, can leave him temporarily stuck in the ground, so timing your dives becomes an important part of the game.

Exploration is just as important as combat. Each level contains balloons that Alfred needs to find and peck in order to progress. The stages are filled with strange objects, hidden areas, switches, enemies, and other surprises. Secret rooms and power-ups add some extra incentive to explore instead of simply rushing toward the exit.

The NES version is notably shorter than some of the other versions of Alfred Chicken, containing five levels. It is essentially a reduced adaptation of the Game Boy version, with the same basic mechanics but simplified presentation and fewer stages.

Alfred Chicken is not a particularly complex platformer, but its unusual protagonist and quirky mechanics give it plenty of personality. The dive-bomb attack makes movement feel different from a standard jump-and-stomp platformer, while the colorful level design gives the game a playful atmosphere. For NES fans looking beyond the usual Nintendo mascots, Alfred Chicken is a fun little curiosity from the system's later years.