Steve McCrea's
Chickie Egg aka DOSEGG -- 1994
(original site unavailable - archived by The Internet Archive Wayback Machine with download link archived at StairwayToHell.com)

Graphics by Steve McCrea and Mark Rendle. Copyright Criterion Software Limited 1994.

Jozsef 'Joco' Laszlo's
Chuckie Eggs the remake for PC -- 2007 (direct link)

This is a free, open source remake of Chuckie Egg written in assembler and Borland Pascal 7.0, complete with level editor. The author references the Hungarian/English commented code as illustrations of VGA programming, especially the MODEX video modes (double-buffered page flipping). The game runs on PCs as old as a 486 through to Window XP, though page flipping might not be perfect or too fast in the latter, so the use of DOSBox is recommended.

The game itself is loosely based on the the SPECTRUM 48K release with the same keys, though the graphics are more colourful and the screen layout is significantly different - with the status bar moved to the bottom of the screen. The first three levels are reasonably close to the usual layouts, but the rest of the sixteen screens are more original including ropes to compliment the ladders. Harry's jumping is much less responsive than one would hope and, unforgiveably, the mother duck is missing!

John Blythe's
Chuckie Egg '99 version alpha 0.30 -- 1999
(site unavailable - download archived at Drobe Launchpad's www.stairwaytohell.com 2002 archive)

Further Adventures of Farmer Giles! Story so far... Farmer Giles had his prize winning hens stolen by his rival, Farmer Hopkirk. Giles sets out to retrieve as many of his eggs as possible and teach Hopkirk a lesson he'll never forget! This is a great remake with colourful graphics and nice gameplay. A worthy prequel to John's later Chuckie Egg remake.

Mike Elson's
Chuckie Egg for Windows (nee DirectX Chuckie Egg) -- 2000
(original sites unavailable - Chuckie Egg for Windows and DirectX Chuckie Egg are both archived by The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

UPDATE: The Chuckie Egg for Windows website is currently offline. Whilst we eagerly await it's return, we have mirrored the complete Windows installer and source code from the latest version, 1.1. Executable and source for 1.04 also available.



Based on the BBC 32K release, this is the oldest and most featureful remake. The physics of Hen House Harry's movements are almost, but not quite, identical to the original release. This unofficial port includes the Variable Extended Jump option from the popular upgrade of the BBC 32K original, CHUKEE from BIT TWIDDLERS, and also features user-definable graphics. The source code and a Level Eggitor are available for download, the latter allowing users to design their own customised levels - other example levels available include the set of eight custom levels that were originally supplied with CHUKEE. If you do not already have it installed, the Level Eggitor will require the Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 32-bit run-time engine. Hitm4n of Retro Remakes is one of those who has made use of the Level Eggitor, in order to create Hitman Egg, a set of six new levels bundled with custom graphics. Kevin Adams has also customised the graphics to produce Cash Dash.

Mike Elson reveals that the essential tool for creating this Borland C++ 4.52 remake was the now-defunct commercial BBC micro emulator pcBBC, which was used to generate screenshots from the original game to get the look right. "To work out the jump patterns I ran the emulator in 'slow motion' mode and took a screenshot after each re-draw... many of the moves that were possible in the original are recreated faithfully, but there were always things like bouncing off platforms, which I never got right. I got the samples by playing Chuckie on a real BBC with wires running from its internal speaker to the sound card of a PC, and recording sections of gameplay to edit down into raw sounds."

Geoff and June Moore's
GJ Chucky Egg -- 2000

This remake contains 36 levels with password access, and is available as a downloadable shareware demo. It has all the expected Chuckie Egg objects with a few additions like extra lives, killer plants, fire and spikes. The website includes the option to play online (requires Clickteam's Vitalize! Active X plugin).

Matthew Green's
EggBasket -- 2001

Simple game with 6 levels loosely based on Chuckie Egg.

John Blythe's
Chuckie Egg: The Next Batch -- 2003
(old site now unavailable - archived at The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

This remake updates Chuckie Egg to take more advantage of the capabilities of modern machines. Not an exact clone, being supplied with all-new graphics, levels and features, this is a popular Blitz Basic interpretation of the classic original. There is also a promise of themed add-on packs with more new graphics and levels being available in the near future.

Christopher Duffen's
Chuckie Egg The New Batch -- 2004

This DirectX 8.1 remake was created with the Destroyer 2 framework by a student of Stuart Slater, lecturer at the School of Computing and IT, a part of the University of Wolverhampton.

Allan Park's
Herbie The Hedgehog -- 2004

As submitted to the Retro Remakes Competition 2004, this platformer is a rough adaption of Chuckie Egg based on hedgehogs which came 57th out of 73 entries, with an overall score of 43.75% - final review here.

Edo Broekman's
EggStatic -- 2005 (commercial release, free demo available with 8 levels & 8 training levels)

A great, new OpenGL / DirectX 8 release that requires a 32MB 3D videocard. This modern remake builds on the BBC 32K release and was designed to add many new features without taking anything away from the original gameplay. Amongst the new features, there are bonus levels, a new two player co-operative mode (full version only), up to 75 minutes of a techno soundtrack, a demo record facility, a save function between rounds and new level features including magic eggs, slippery ice floors and trampolines for Harry to cope with. Longevity has been addressed, in order to make the full release worthy of the asking price, with the inclusion of an in-game level editor and a "moddable" engine so that custom campaigns, levels and graphics can be added.

This remake is certainly not an identical clone to the original but the bright, colourful high resolution graphics have been drawn in a large pixel, blocky-style to retain the authentic look of the original, whilst making it appealing to the modern player's eye. Small touches like Harry's materialisation when he begins a level, the dust he kicks up as he runs, the display of the points value as eggs & seed are collected and how his feet stop moving mid-jump if the direction key is released, all make nice eye-candy without interfering with the gameplay too much - though it is a bit disconcerting to see Harry climb behind the ladders, instead of in front. The sound effects are quite different from the original, with Harry padding along the levels rather more quietly than the original and the Cassowaries (previously known as hens) making an incongruous squawking sound if Harry touches them. Thankfully, the sound options allow the volume to be adjusted and the removal of the techno soundtrack which can grate after a while, if you're not a fan of the genre. There are 125 levels in the full version (with the promise of 50-60 more coming soon, in a campaign to be provided with the next version upgrade), though none are direct copies of the level layouts in the original. Possibly the biggest change for players used to the original releases will be the new control system which combines the Up and Jump keys. Whilst this may well make things easier for new players, it is quite disconcerting for the CE Professional. The final thing worthy of note is that this is the first remake to include the features that, according to his 80snostalgia.com interview, Nigel Alderton had hoped to include in the original Spectrum release but was forced to drop, citing time pressures, including missing ladders and platforms to disrupt a player's patterns later in the game and the popularly mis-remembered second hawk (a duck in the original), that has a different speed and acceleration to the first.

Rob Edwards'
Chuckie Egg Remake -- 2006 (WIP thread)

This is a great version of Chuckie Egg for Easter '06. Based on the SPECTRUM 48K release, this remake comes with pixel perfect in-game graphics, faithful to the original. All of the graphics, sounds and level designs are fully customisable - the package ships with a gorgeous set of re-worked graphics and six new level designs, alongside the originals. New features over and above the Spectrum version include a built-in level editor which isn't fixed to a dozen eggs & five hens and also support for lifts which travel down, as well as up. This last, unique, feature allows cunning level designs which add a whole new dimension to CE - a great addition.

ssjx's
Chuckie Egg Returns -- 2008

Available as a Windows executable or playable as a Java applet through the website. The source code for the Java applet update is not provided, but the FreeBASIC v0.18 source of the initial native Windows version is available for download. It plays quite slowly, the collision detection isn't great and the graphics aren't very polished. Plenty of extra neat little features have been built into the display, though, including a complete map of the level - only part of the level is viewable on the screen. There is a Chuckie Egg Returns (0.3) discussion forum topic at the FreeBASIC Games Directory.

Mark Lomas'
Native Chuckie Egg for Windows -- 2009

This tiny (19kb) binary is Mark's Windows port of Michael Foot's accurate version of Chuckie Egg for RISC OS. Following his DHTML and SDL conversions, this final version was designed from the start to be the first 100% native port of the BBC Micro release of Chuckie Egg to Windows, whilst trying to remain as close to the size of the original BBC binary as possible. Whilst the sound doesn't quite capture the original exactly, there's really not a lot to complain about here. It doesn't have any of the GUI niceties of Mike Webb's long-standing, popular release, but that wasn't the intention here. What you get is pure Chuckie Egg in a window. What more could you want? GPL source code and a write-up of what it took to produce this executable? It's all here, along with a series of interesting articles.

Adrian Moye's
Chuckie Egg 3D -- 1998 (unfinished)

A partial implementation in C - source available for download - of a 3D version of Chuckie Egg. According to the author, it would require a lot of work to complete, although it has some useful code snippits for reference.

Ian Price's
Div Chuckie Egg -- AWOL

Announced in the Div Arena Forums on 22 Feb 2002, this remake version includes two modes, Original and Enhanced. The Original mode is an exact replica of the AMSTRAD version, which the author feels is the best of the CE releases. The Enhanced mode is the same game, but with updated graphics etc. The author has claimed it looks tasty and plays pretty good too but, unfortunately, only screenshots are available because a hard drive crash has resulted in the loss of the original 8 level demo which was released to div-arena.com a couple of years ago. If anyone can provide a copy of this, get in touch and we'll get it back online where it belongs.

Martin Buscombe's
Cluckie Egg: The Retro Days -- TBC

A project to create a 3D version of Chuckie Egg. As of 19 March 2003, only screenshots are available.

Adam Cook's
Chuckie Egg 3D -- 2004 (playable beta)

Another new project to create a 3D version of Chuckie Egg. A playable beta is available from a side on view much like the original. In later releases, the author hopes to add a 3rd person view and try out various things to make it a bit different.

Mark Lomas'
Native SDL Chuckie Egg -- 2009

This SDL port is Mark's follow-up to his online DHTML Chuckie Egg project. He has ported Michael Foot's faithful version of Chuckie Egg for RISC OS to ANSI C, filling in the gaps for non-Acorn platforms to create an incredibly accurate, modern source port based on the cross-platform SDL graphics library. Whilst we had problems with the sound on our 64-bit version of Debian Testing, that could be a local issue. Like the Windows port Mark moved on to after this, there are no GUI niceties here like those found in Mike Webb's long-standing, popular release - this is Chuckie Egg, in it's purest form. Best of all, not only is the GPL source code available for download, but Mark has spent an incredible amount of time documenting the development of the project, along with other interesting articles.

If you're interested in creating a faithful port of the original BBC release to a modern platform, start with the source code and documentation available here.

Michael Foot's
Chuckie Egg for RISC OS -- 2001

This port runs full-screen on all versions of RISC OS from 3.xx to 4.xx and requires the 32 bit system modules. The 32-bit source code, reverse engineered from the BBC 32K release and converted to RISC OS, is available for download. This makes this version the first fully accurate remake on a completely different platform, with an identical physics engine.

The latest update, courtesy of Alan Buckley, adds support for RISC OS 5.xx and the higher resolution screen modes on the Iyonix as well as adding the option to use outline fonts for the text. This new 1.04 version will still run on older Acorn hardware as well but requires RISC OS 3.6 or above.

Mark Lomas'
DHTML Chuckie Egg -- 2009

Mark's goal when porting the original BBC Micro release to modern web browsers was to try and make it as close to perfectly faithful as possible, and the effort really shows. Whilst the behaviour of the hens is noticably different due to the nigh-on-impossibility of trying to replicate the random number generation of the original BBC Micro code, anyone who complains about the physics could only be described as being churlish. Mark admits it's only about 99% accurate, but you'll be hard-pushed to tell during play. Depending on your browser and system, you may experience audio lag but there is an audio diagnostics page to help you troubleshoot. This dynamic web version even includes an online Level Editor which stores your own custom levels as text in an unlimited cookie. Finally, in a true show of altruism, Mark has provided the GPL source code and also spent a significant amount of time and effort documenting the development of his online port, with particular emphasis on the algorithms devised to mimic the original, in a series of interesting articles. An awesome achievement overall, and one to be applauded.

Andy Paxo's
Chuckie -- 2004

Not an exact port, this remake has colourful graphics and is played over the web - a browser with a Macromedia Flash plugin is required.

GamesForge's
Chuckie Egg -- 2006

Played over the web - a browser with a Macromedia Flash plugin is required - this remake has cracking sound effects and music. The graphics are cute and use animation very nicely, though the game itself is a bit slow to play. Well worth a quick blast in full-screen mode.

Neil Crutchlow's
Chuckie Egg -- 2006

This port of the BBC 32K release captures the spirit of the original very well and is played over the web - a browser with a Macromedia Flash plugin is required. Although it looks and feels great, it's not entirely accurate - the collision detection and physics engine are markedly different allowing Harry to jump up through platforms in a way that isn't possible in the original. The hens' movements, like virtually all CE ports, are also different to the original, though this is probably to be expected. There's no option to redefine the keys, so use the cursor keys to control Hen House Harry, and press Space to jump. There's also no high score table and the Hold and Abort keys have not been implemented - so your CE experience will be in one sitting! Small niggles aside, this is a very good choice for a quick CE blast especially for gamers who aren't on their own PC - as it doesn't require any local installation. Update: A recent update has seen the addition of a new section where you can now register to compare your score/level achievements with other users on a high score table, see how far you got prevously and level skip to get back there.

Paul Steven's
Chuckie Egg for Shockwave -- 2001?

With slight variants on the traditional level layouts, this remake takes its graphics and sounds from the BBC 32K release and is played over the web - a browser with a Macromedia Shockwave plugin is required.

FatSeagal's
Chocolate Factory, now Chuckie Egg 2 (a.k.a Choccy Egg) (defunct forum topic) -- 2008

A rare remake of Chuckie Egg 2. The bubbles have been omitted, just to get the game out the door, and the scoring system has been modified because the original system 'bugged' the author - there are no lives anymore, you just lose 100 points every time Harry is killed. If the score drops below zero, the game is over - the object is to complete just one egg and get it to dispatch with the highest score possible - where you'll receive a medal position 'rating'. The graphics are a mix of the originals, with some updated ones here and there. The game plays pretty well, though it feels like it could have benefited from a bit of spit and polish, before the final release. Definitely worth a play! Visit homepage to play online Java applet.

FatSeagal's
Chuckie Egg 2 - Redux (a.k.a Choccy Egg) (WIP forum topic) -- 2009

Even rarer, a remake of a remake. Based on FatSeagal's first Chuckie Egg 2 remake but with improved graphics from the author, including new backgrounds, a little ditty & some general sound effects, as well as slight changes to the gameplay. This redux version also sees the return of the bubbles and lifts which were omitted from the last version. Visit homepage to play online Java applet.

Alastair Booker's
Java Chuckie Egg -- TBC
(original site unavailable - archived by The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

Not yet complete, but a playable demo, based on the SPECTRUM 48K release, is available. The author would like feedback and responses to confirm that developing it would be worthwhile.

Rich Sewell's
Java Chuckie Egg -- 2003

Mostly complete, this applet is based on the SPECTRUM 48K release. The Java code is entirely original, as opposed to a Spectrum emulation of the original game. According to a forum post on the site, the author has recently uploaded the source code.

Bryan Mcphail's
J2ME Chuckie Egg -- 2004

With the downloads currently disabled due to Elite Systems' recent J2ME licensed release, this site describes the development of an unofficial mobile version based on the BBC 32K version of Chuckie Egg. Having been given an exclusive preview, we can confirm that this game plays very closely to the original. The only flaws are the obvious ones relating to the variations in J2ME handsets - on devices with a smaller screen size than the Motorola V500 it was developed for, the screen can be cropped and modern handsets with more powerful processors run the game faster than required. On a Motorola V500 or equivalent device, though, this could have provided those Chuckie Egg fans who preferred the BBC 32K release a worthy alternative to the officially licensed port.

Students from the University of Évora's
J2ME MIDP2.0 Chuckie Egg -- 2004
(original site is unavailable - it is archived by The Internet Archive Wayback Machine and the original software archives, hosted elsewhere, may also still be available: source tar-ball, graphics tar-ball, Nuno Morgadinho's university wiki (Portuguese) and freshmeat.net: Project details for Chuckie Egg J2ME)

A GPL'd J2ME implementation, this version uses MIDP 2.0. Originally written using the J2ME Wireless Toolkit and the Nokia Series 60 SDK simulator, without a compatible phone, it is fairly playable in software. The project was developed by a group of students as a school assignment but none of them have the time to continue working on the project so it has been orphaned. Patch contributions and further maintenance offers welcomed by chuckie-egg-j2me@lockstep.org (Tiago Fernandes, Cláudio Fernandes, Tiago Bilou and Nuno Morgadinho). If the original contact addresses do not work, Nuno Morgadinho has new contact details listed on his homepage. Most recently, 22 Nov. 2006, Tiago posted some further information on how to compile the code under Mac OS X.

There are no binaries available but the code itself compiles and we've tested it on a Nokia N70, where it fit the screen without modification. The first few times the game was started, it appeared to start the level well and looked good but, unfortunately, quickly locked up. However, after a few days with only occasional testing the game seemed to settle down and began to work reliably. On the whole, this application should work with any J2ME MIDP 2.0 compatible device but it might require some Java knowledge to create a working version for a particular setup - mainly to tweak the codebase to ensure the game works reliably with the specific hardware characteristics of that device.

A good proportion of the game itself is complete. Jumping on to higher platforms outlines some collision detection problems, making it very hard to retrieve the seed at the top of the platform stairway on level 1. Instead of leaping up the stepped platforms, Harry seems to jump through them and falls to the long platform below. On level 2 the number of hens is down to one and they're completely gone by level 3 which also exposes the lack of lifts which are customarily used to move around this and later levels. The levels themselves are fairly accurate to the original layouts but only the first four are implemented. After the completion of level 4, the game continues to loop round to this same level which, as there are no hens at all, means that the only danger to be concerned about are the gaps in the bottom platform - particularly across the shaft which normally holds the lift. The final glaring omission is the Mother Duck which is nowhere to be seen. That all said, with the GPL'd source code available, all of these issues could be resolved by a sufficiently talented Java programmer and it is also fairly simple to recompile the application with new graphics based on the original ports or any other theme. Note, however, that the language of the text within the game itself and the commented source code is Portuguese, not English - unlike the project's website. This is also the only version of CE available for many phones - for example, neither Bryan Mcphail's currently unavailable version or Elite System's official port worked as satisfactorily on the same Nokia N70's screen.

Samir Ribic's
Tezxas running Chuckie Egg -- 1999

Tezxas is a Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator for this pair of graphic calculators which claims compatibility with almost all games originally written for the ZX Spectrum. Though not a perfect emulator, it is supposed to run most games at a playable speed - slightly faster when using the greater capabilities of the TI-92 Plus - and has a surprisingly nice display, though the number of visible pixels is reduced, due to the calculators' screen limitations. A number of games are available for download and have been modified to ensure their best performance under Tezxas, including the SPECTRUM 48K release of Chuckie Egg.

Chris Bailey's
Chuckie Egg DX -- 2001

The V0.33 beta release of this remake is supplied with The Chuckie Egg Professional's Resource Kit and can be played using the GameBoy Color driver within MESS (no BIOSes required). As a designated beta release, this remake does have a few rough edges - no in-game music, no pause function or high score table and occasionally, as in level 4, a hen will get stuck in one of the gaps. Based loosely on the BBC 32K release, this is overall a great release - although the sound effects are minimal, the graphics are superb - taking full advantage of the platform. Rather than attempting to squash the whole level on to the GBC's minimal screen display, this port scrolls around the level as Harry moves, which works surprisingly well - the only loss is the status bar at the top, which only becomes visible when Harry reaches the top of the level, or completes the screen. Most importantly, however, it captures the original gameplay brilliantly.

James Grimwood's
Chuckie Egg for GBA -- 2003

This release is based on the original SPECTRUM 48K, with some level modifications to fit the GBA's screen. Full GPL'd source and precompiled ROM image available for download.

Neil Crutchlow's
Chuckie Egg GP2X remake -- 2006

This remake is based on the original BBC 32K release and a .GPE executable is available for download. We haven't got a GP2X here at Bagshot Row but GP2X retro fans say that apart from a slight interruption in the sound and the lack of a high score table, this looks pretty faithful to the original. Rated 6 out of 10 at the time of writing, there are also more feedback comments at the gp2x File Archive.

ssjx's
Chuckie Egg for Cybiko -- 2008

This remake is a work in progress with missing features and only 2 levels available in v0.1 for a hand-held computer that was launched in May 2000 and designed for teenagers, featuring its own two-way radio text messaging system. Apparently, Space quits the game not escape as the title screen says. Source is included and the author welcomes all constructive feedback. There is a Chuckie Egg for Cybiko discussion forum topic at PlanetCybiko.net.

Richard Rose, rosera aka agilemonkey's
Chuckie Egg SDL Port for PSP -- Feb 2010 (forum discussion topic)

Requires custom firmware 5.xx. A one-player PSP conversion of Mark Lomas' hugely faithful source port of the BBC 32K Chuckie Egg release (although screenshot is of the ELECTRON release!) for Sony's hand-held console, apparently created while Richard was watching rugby!

Enterprise 128 Chuckie Egg -- 19??

The Enterprise 128 computer was home to many unofficial Spectrum ports due to the hardware similarities between the two machines. There's no clues as to when or who converted Chuckie Egg, but the result is very similar to the original Spectrum release - the Enterprise is based around the same Z80 processor so, as would be expected, this is one of the few close conversions of the Spectrum release. In many ways it is identical, but there remain a few differences - the second set of keys are slightly different as the Enterprise 128 version supports a native joystick. Harry starts with six lives, instead of four and, most strikingly, the status bars of information at the top are all in blue, rather than mostly red with just the non-active players' scores in blue as in Nigel's Spectrum release. There is no little tune at the start of the game, or when Harry dies and the animated rectangles between levels are mainly red and blue, instead of many colours. This is almost certainly because the Enterprise's video mode has different attribution of colours to the Spectrum, and the missing music is based on a BEEP subroutine in the Spectrum ROM - which hasn't been simulated in this Enterprise port. There is also a pause just before the start of each life, which requires a key press to begin or continue the game, allowing you to take a little breather. The graphics are pretty much identical to the Spectrum release, even going so far as to suffer from the infamous Spectrum colour clashes when Harry or the birds climb or walk through ladders, eggs or seed. The sprites are also open to the same argument as the Spectrum - that they do not move as quickly or as fluidly as the BBC 32K version.

GroovyBee's
Harry's Hen House -- April 2009 (WIP)

Announced in Easter 2009, Harry's Hen House is a tribute to Chuckie Egg for the Atari 7800. Work is still in progress, but it's looking very good already. The background graphics have been converted to 160A mode (3 colours) though more levels are needed. Both the controls and Harry's jumping still need a bit of work and the latest posted version also needs a DLI to change the score/lives colours too. Looks well worth keeping an eye on, though.

FELL's
Manic Miner 2000 -- 2000
(download link broken - archived at Dr. Andrew Broad's Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy page)

Actually a Manic Miner clone, this is worth mentioning because it contains a screen called The Hen-House for Miner Willy to navigate, based on level 1 of Chuckie Egg. Worth checking out, if only to see how Willy stacks up against our own Hen House Harry on this tribute screen! (Note: .z80 snapshot may not work with MESS)