A well-crafted mystery is something that I’m often drawn to, and when it comes to gaming, we’re often spoiled for choice. From quirky lawyer-driven affairs to gritty, hard-boiled detective dramas, some of the most iconic games in the past decade have put us in the shoes of protagonists seeking the truth by any means necessary. Chicken Police: Into The HIVE! from developers The Wild Gentlemen is no different in that regard, but at first glance, its mixture of gritty noir tropes and lifelike anthro characters intrigued me immediately. My interest has only deepened after giving the new Steam Next Fest demo a try.
Feathery Flatfoots – Does Chicken Police Ruffle Our Feathers?
The demo covers a small, curated portion of the game and sees us following the adventures of Sonny and Marty, a buddy cop duo who are the best of the best at the Clawville Police Department. Sonny and Marty are both roosters; in fact, everyone in Chicken Police is an animal of some kind. From hummingbirds to cats, from foxes to cockroaches, they’re all fauna-faced humanoids, and this is immediately a large part of the charm. If this were a thriller with a human cast, it would still have character thanks to its heavy noir theming, but somehow, a gritty detective story is much more interesting from the get-go if your cast is members of the animal kingdom.
While Chicken Police: Into The HIVE! is a follow-up to 2020’s Chicken Police: Paint It RED!, the demo makes it easy to catch up and pick up the pieces since it seems this game will have a largely self-contained story. Sonny and Marty are off to The Hive, a walled-off section of the city where its insectoid denizens reside. Here, they must learn to adapt to a culture with different rules and attitudes to solve a gruesome murder. Chicken Police makes the world of Clawville easy enough to understand without dumping a bunch of info onto the player; it feeds you bits and pieces as you go, giving you just enough to stay informed and engaged.
But beyond worldbuilding, what really makes Chicken Police so enjoyable is its wry sense of humor and the witty banter between the characters. Sonny and Marty are both so fun to listen to, as Sonny’s more mature and hardened jabs go toe to toe with Marty’s cocky and hot-headed approach. They’re an engaging, likable duo, and seeing them butt heads with others just adds to the amusement. It also helps that all the characters have unique and expressive voice talent behind them, each with their distinctive performances. It helps lend some further personality to the cast, as while the animal heads are charming, they can only express so much emotion with their faces and hand gestures, so the voiceovers bring them to life.
That’s not to downplay the visuals at work here, as the cinematic backdrops and trope-laden costumes further enhance the vibe of a noir mystery. By default, the aesthetics are presented in monochrome, like so many great noir films, but a color mode is also available. It took away from the mood, but having the option present is still nice. If there’s one thing I would say about the visuals, it is that the animalistic features may be too detailed in some instances. While it is a strong visual choice and gives Chicken Police its identity, I do not doubt that certain people might find it uncanny or frightening. The only issue I had personally was with a tarantula bartender (whose name was literally Bart Ender, by the way, which is frankly clucking hilarious), but this isn’t going to be a game for those with extreme arachnophobia or entomophobia.
In terms of gameplay, Chicken Police feels like any good detective point-and-click adventure. You gather clues by questioning people, examining your surroundings, and using items in appropriate moments. There’s nothing too complex to solve just yet, but I feel like Chicken Police has a lot of tricks up its sleeve for later. The demo has unused icons and mechanics, so I’m looking forward to seeing what sort of puzzling scenarios the full game will throw Sonny and Marty into. One line of questioning led to me having to play a minigame, and it seems like this sort of occurrence will also be pretty commonplace in the main game.
What excites me is the more open-ended prospects the demo teases you with, and indeed, the Steam page claims that you’ll be able to solve problems in various ways, with different consequences based on which route you go. I’m not sure how deep this will go in the full version, but I would love to see if these alternate routes could lead you to different culprits, genuinely offering a fresh experience each time you play.
So far, Chicken Police: Into The HIVE! offers an experience laden with charm, atmospheric locales, and witty characters. The demo is a promising first impression for this noir mystery, far from fowl.
Chicken Police: Into The HIVE! is in development for Steam.
