Cluckwork

Jonathan Dale

About this game

Wind the key, and the whole henhouse comes to life.

Cluckwork is a clockwork-themed arcade platformer — a loving nod to the ladder-climbing classics, built entirely from scratch. You are the Poultry Keeper, a little wind-up automaton with one job: gather every golden egg from the gantries before the clock runs down, while a flock of clockwork birds does its best to stop you.

HOW TO PLAY
• Run and climb the gear-rack ladders to reach every egg.
• Clear all the eggs on a level to move up to the next poultry house.
• Scatter a handful of seed to stop a hungry hen in its tracks.
• Ride the lifts, duck into a top-ladder refuge, and always mind the clock.

MIND THE FLOCK
• Chickens patrol the gantries — quick, and relentless.
• Roosters stand too tall to jump; once one has pecked some seed, it'll spit it straight back at you.
• The caged goose is set loose on a timer — and then it comes hunting.

SEVEN LOOKS
Pick a theme in Options, or from the pause menu mid-level, and the whole henhouse is rebuilt around you:
• Gearworks — the original brass, copper and verdigris.
• Moonlit Coop — pewter birds by moonlight, eggs glowing like lanterns.
• Hayloft Morning — painted wood and dusty sunbeams.
• Porcelain Frost — willow-pattern hens on Delft tiles under snow.
• Blueprint — the inventor's drawings, come to life.
• Tin Toy — lithographed tin, straight out of the toy box.
• Spectrum '83 — bright colours on black, the way the classics looked.
Eggs stay gold, grain stays green and danger stays red in every one.

BUILD YOUR OWN
• A full level editor: paint platforms, ladders, lifts, eggs and birds.
• Generate a level at Novice, Adept or Master difficulty — and watch a player of that skill try it.
• Share any level as a code; friends paste it in and play.

CONTROLS
Drag on the lower left of the screen to run and climb, and tap the lower right to jump. Or play with a keyboard (arrow keys and space) or a game controller.

FEATURES
• Eight hand-tuned levels that loop and escalate — faster and meaner each time around.
• Every sprite, in every theme, drawn in code.
• A local high-score table, plus Google Play Games leaderboards.
• No ads. No in-app purchases. Just you, the eggs, and the birds.

What’s new

Seven looks for the henhouse. Pick one in Options, or from the pause menu mid-level: Moonlit Coop, Hayloft Morning, Porcelain Frost, Blueprint, Tin Toy and Spectrum '83 join the original Gearworks. Also: bigger title-screen buttons on phones, so a tap goes where you aim it.