I'd like to give some feedback on the gameplay and the fun aspect of Cluck Yegger. It's not meant to be objective. It’s just how it feels to me. I'd like to add that I generally don’t really like action, tactical or strategy games. At least unless there is a clear path to deduce a solution, the gameplay is very rewarding or the story drags me into. So from time to time I play and beat games from these genres (e.g. Lemmings, Wing Commander, Tomb Raider). So feel free to simply discard my opinion/impression as comments from someone who was never target group of the game, since it's supposed to be a small game only to be beaten by more hardcore ( ;) ) players.
I have to say that to me Cluck Yegger isn't fun. It's supposed to be a minigame and therefore it's ok if the story is rather simple. I also like the graphics and humor. But when it comes to the gameplay I got frustrated already in night 3. I try to explain why. The main reason is that I don't see a clear path how to create a strategy (and getting better and better at it) to get through the nights with an increasing number of foes. That is caused by too many variables I’m simply not sure about how they really work:
I don’t know how fast the foes are. They aren’t animated - so I can’t get a hint from the observed movement. I wasn’t able to track them (using night vision) disappearing and appearing from one room to the next to get an idea (cameras often displaying distortions don't help here). I guess they move after a certain percentage of an hour (turn based). But I don’t know how long a turn is. And if some foes needs e.g. two turns to move and others only one turn.
I don’t know what the camera lights do to the foes exactly. I think Chuck said they stun the foes. But it’s unclear how long (turns?) they are stunned. And if they are only stunned or are scared a bit so that they run away. And if so if they run to the exit or into a random direction. Or if that depends on the foes. It’s also unclear how long I have to turn a light on to cause that effect. For a complete "turn" or is just a blink enough. I don’t know if the battery power is calculated turn based or linear. Do I save power if I only turn on light/night vision for an instant or not (since its turn based). It's also unclear to me how much power a certain feature needs absolute and relative to each other. Would be helpful to know that feature x needs y percentage of battery power in an hour. What are the shields for? Can I block the entrance to the ship? Or do I have to use it if something tries to breach the cockpit window? I had the feeling that two times Chuck was surprised by something that didn’t came from a corridor. But I’m not really sure about that. I can't really see something on the cameras with light & night vision off. I'm sure you're not supposed to see much. But at least foes at a certain position (while not at a different position). But to me it seems I never see foes using that mode making it totally useless. Or is probably just the brightness/gamma setting of my display too low?
I guess if I play the night again and again sooner or later I would find out about the mentioned variables. Due to too many unclear aspects it’s somewhat frustrating to me so far. And apart from even more foes the next night I don’t see any reward. No extras (one shot laser pistol, ship system coming online because of the repairs) I could use the next night if I survive this one and no cool cutscene or conversation. So I simply gave up for now. If someone can answer the mentioned questions I will hopefully able to create a strategy and try it again. My suggestion would be to make the aspects more clear (maybe more detailed instructions, maybe some Cluck comments, maybe a graphical hint about when a turn ends). Apart from the gamplay aspects I also noticed a few very minor technical issues:
the scroll bar / done button in the instructions screen is not cut out correctly (corners are black - not transparent)
the scroll speed using the mousewheel is much to slow at my system at the instructions screen
at the instructions screen scrolling using the arrow and/or page up/down keys would be nice
ESC closes the game without warning