Crossy Road is an arcade video game released on 20 November 2014. It was developed and published by Hipster Whale, with the name and concept of the game playing on the age old joke "Why did the chicken cross the road?" The game has been described as "endless Frogger."
Gameplay
The objective of Crossy Road is to cross an endless highway or series of roads and avoid obstacles as far as possible without dying. The player plays as a chosen character and must tap to go forward or swipe the screen in the appropriate direction to move the character horizontally. The game consists of an endless series of obstacles in a set path, such as rivers, cars and trains. The player must time movements correctly in order to pass these obstacles without dying. For example, in the instance of a river, the player must cross the river using floating logs, without landing in the water. If the player takes too much time crossing an obstacle, or goes idle, a bald eagle will snatch the character, resulting in the game's end. Every forward movement will earn one point, with every fifty points sounded out by a sound effect. Furthermore, there are coins scattered across the environment that can be used to make new characters playable. The current iOS version of Crossy Road contains 272 characters, including the default, Chicken. Of those, 204 characters are unlockable through coins and 46 are "secret characters". Another 12 characters are only unlocked with green “tokens” similar to coins except that they can only be gained by watching ads or getting in the top ten leaderboard for daily challenges. There are three characters, the Piggy Bank, Bashy Beaver, and the Slippy Penguin, that can only be unlocked with cash or 10,000 coins. Future updates may invalidate this number, as new characters are added often. In addition, the Android version includes Android Robot, based on the operating system's Android logo. Other characters include Doge, Archie, Dark Lord, and #thedress, a female character wearing the dress of the same name. Various popular culture references and games are also included, such as Forget-Me-Not and "Emo Goose" voiced by Phil Lester. The player is able to collect coins; an in-game currency, characterised by its squarish shape and red C in its middle. These are obtained in-game by collection during gameplay, watching advertisements, completing tasks, collecting a free gift given every few real-time hours, and using legal currency to buy them in various amounts. Coins are counted the top right corner of the screen. One hundred coins can be used for a chance at a new character from a lottery machine. If the player owns the Piggy Bank mascot, red coins worth five coins each are added to the game, and coins received from free gifts or watching ads are doubled. founders and game developers Matt Hall and Andy Sum at Game Developers Conference.
Development
Initially the developers planned to spend only six weeks developing the game, but afterwards realized the game's potential and dedicated another six weeks to completing it. The game's free-to-play model was based on the one for Dota 2. According to developer Matt Hall, Crossy Road drew inspiration from Frogger, Temple Run, Subway Surfers, Disco Zoo, Flappy Bird, Skylanders, Tiny Wings and Fez. The game's art style was created by Ben Weatherall.
Reception
The game was a finalist for the Game of the Year Award 2014 for the Australian Game Developer Awards. It received generally positive reviews with Metacritic giving the game a score of 88, TouchArcade giving the game 5/5 stars, BigBoomBoom.com giving the game 5/5 stars, Gamezebo Gaming giving the game 4.5/5 stars, and Apple N' Apps giving the game a 4/5 overall score. Polygon dubbed the game "brilliant" and compared it as an updated take on Frogger, while TIME called the game a mix of Frogger and Flappy Bird. At the 2015 Apple WWDC developer's conference Crossy Road was one of the winners of the 2015 Apple Design Awards. Three months after its initial release, the game earned over $10 million and had over 50 million downloads. Flat Eric, best known for his appearances in Levi’s commercials in 1999, as well as the music video for Flat Beat is an unlockable character. He has been called the best character in the game.
Spin-offs
''Disney Crossy Road''
In 2016, Hipster Whale and Disney Interactive Studios launched a spin-off video game called Disney Crossy Road on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 devices. It features Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, as well as some characters from numerous Disney franchises such as Zootopia, Big Hero 6, The Lion King, Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Moana, Pixar's Toy Story and Inside Out. In the game, there are 588 characters, with secret characters like Mortimer from the Mickey & Friends franchise and Lenny from the first Toy Story movie. Disney Crossy Road was shut down on iOS, Google, and Amazon on March 12, 2020.
