Chicken Police: Paint It Red!

Lore & Background

Chicken Police is set in an alternate world populated by anthropomorphic animals, generally depicted as humans with animal heads. Players control Sonny Featherland, a rooster-headed cop who was once a celebrated hero but has become an alcoholic and is estranged from his former partner, Marty MacChicken. After being approached by a distraught woman, Sonny reunites with Marty to solve one last case before retirement. The game is styled after 1940s film noir, with most of the game in stylistic monochrome and colors used sparingly for emphasis. Gameplay involves looking for clues, interviewing suspects, and performing interrogations. During interrogations, a minigame determines success: after being informed of personality quirks, players attempt to find a line of questioning that exploits the suspect's personality. Poorly-chosen lines can close off dialogue options and reduce how much of the story's background players learn, but this does not put the game in an unwinnable state.

Reader's Guide

The premise of Chicken Police was inspired by a YouTube video in which two chickens appear to break up a fight between rabbits. To create the characters, The Wild Gentlemen started with human models and used Adobe Photoshop to change the heads to animals. Initially using stock photography for animal heads, the developers later took their own photographs at wildlife parks and zoos for greater realism. Some details were hand-drawn, and accessories such as Bubo the owl's glasses were made from scratch. The resulting images were broken into textures and animated in Unity. Both classic adventure games and films noir influenced the game, with the relationship between the two cops influenced by buddy cop films. The team often worked remotely and were spread across multiple countries. The game was released on multiple platforms starting November 5, 2020, with ports to iOS, Android, macOS, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, and next-gen consoles following in subsequent years. A sequel, Chicken Police: Into the HIVE!, was announced in June 2023 and released on November 7, 2024 for Windows, published by Joystick Ventures, with later releases planned for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.

Did You Know?

• The premise was inspired by a YouTube video of two chickens breaking up a fight between rabbits.
• The developers took their own photographs at wildlife parks and zoos to create more realistic animal heads.
• The game has a small speedrunning community; the fastest verified Any% (Skips) time as of February 2026 is 12:49 on PC.
• A sequel, Chicken Police: Into the HIVE!, was released on November 7, 2024.