The PC has been home to quite a number of high-profile indie games with social messages. Papers, Please showed how difficult some decisions could be in a dystopian country. This War of Mine displayed some of the hardships a civilian would face in an active warzone, and Cart Life opened people to the struggle of eking out a living in the modern world. They're all fun and important experiences, but they also view things with a serious lens. Fat Chicken is going for a different angle, as it uses a less bleak tone to shine the light on a very topical subject: food.

The plot is rather simple once you get past the topic of discussion. You are the newest employee of the Fat Chicken Meat Company, a factory farm system that values profit above all else. To maintain the profits, you've been hired as a traveling manager of sorts, and you must go from farm to farm to make sure the chickens, cows and pigs get as fat as possible to produce the most meat. Early on, you'll meet up with a representative of an advocacy group that's trying to shut down the company due to its unethical practices. It then becomes a battle of ideologies as you try to do your job no matter the process.

Fat Chicken does a very good job of avoiding the easy way out in terms of talking about food practices. There is an obvious slant against big food corporations. The HR representative views customers as a means of profit, and reading about the underhanded tactics and dispelling things like Salmonella certainly doesn't give anyone a reason to be fans. At the same time, the advocacy group seems to revel too much in the calamities that come about, so they aren't made out to be saints, either. The game isn't very heavy-handed about asking for better conditions for animals, and you aren't bombarded with horrible images or blurbs about these atrocities. The game's message is easier to digest for those who haven't chosen a side yet.

One of the contributing factors to the less-than-dark take on the subject is the presentation. The world, while devoid of much beyond small ripples in the water, is awash in bright colors. From the deserts to the green farmlands, everything is cartoon-like and colorful. The same goes for the towers and buildings, which are also bright and angular. The animals and people are done in soft cube form, making them look like they came out of a Minecraft clone, though with lots more detail. Their movements are bouncy, and they sway back and forth often enough to lessen the impact of seeing them get slaughtered. Speaking of deaths, it's handled tastefully enough, as gore is absent. Animals that make it to the slaughterhouse don't spurt blood or guts, and those that die on the field simply sink into the ground without leaving behind a skeleton. Even those that explode do so in small bits, and there's no hint of red in sight.

The audio also plays a big part in lightening the theme. While the game has no voices for any of the characters, there are plenty of sound effects, including those of animals clucking or mooing. They're all rather neutral, as their deaths are accompanied by popping sounds instead of prolonged cries of death or suffering. The score is a medley of instrumental upbeat country and American folk music that gives the game a casual vibe with no hints of somewhat-bleak undertones. If the soundtrack were used in another game, it would seem fitting for more light and casual fare, demonstrating how well it controls the game's overall mood.

At first glance, Fat Chicken is laid out like any number of tower defense titles. Each stage has a path where the animals travel from their pen to the slaughterhouse. Later stages often feature multiple pens and pathways, with the animals coming out at different intervals. Instead of letting you place your towers anywhere you want, you're restricted to specific pads, forcing you to plan tower placement for maximum effectiveness. Towers can be upgraded but only one level higher than default, and there is a speed toggle to let you slow things down or speed things up, depending on your play style. Finally, completing levels gives you stars, which can let you permanently upgrade various items between stages.

There are quite a number of changes made to the basic formula, with the most obvious revolving around the theme. Unlike other tower defense titles that ask you to destroy the invading line of enemies, this one encourages you to help the chickens, cows and pigs make it to the end of the line. The towers, in this case, are crafted to help you ensure those animals make it to the slaughterhouse; corn towers shoot kernels to feed them, and water towers shoot water to make sure they don't get thirsty. Since the game is about fattening up livestock, you have hormone towers to make them grow faster. There are also antibiotics towers that fire pills to cure sick animals or those that have been pumped with too much growth hormone. All of this is used to ensure the animals are at their largest before the end, where their weight is what determines your star level.

Some of the upgrades also buy into the theme with both humorous and horrifying results. Security guards can be used to protect your towers from protesters, who can shut them down for long periods of time. Hired hands can use their electric prods to speed the livestock along a small area. Animals that die on their way to the slaughterhouse can be dragged in, so you can salvage some meat. Others that explode can also be salvaged for meat if you have a meatlet collector on your team. You can also hire heroes for a stage; they have special abilities, like an increased chance of animals giving birth in the field or increased immunity to poisons, but they also have drawbacks, like an increase in protesters or a slowdown in animal weight gain ability.

Though most of the items are strictly food-related, there are a few that conform to what some may expect in a video game. Aside from the protesters, you have UFOs in a few stages that come out to abduct some of your livestock. You can counteract with anti-aircraft guns, but doing so when they already have the animals results in the meat going to waste due to the impact from the fall. You can also employ temporary power-ups, like corn bombs to immediately fatten up animals in the targeted area, cloning to give yourself an extra animal, or give yourself a big boost in meat or cash in case it's a difficult level.

Theme aside, most of the stuff fits into the mold of a tower defense title. What players may not expect is the extra bit of strategy in the form of the terrain. Chickens, for example, feed themselves in shallow cornfields. Mud helps pigs eat, and grasslands make sure cows eat on their own. Passing by bodies of water of any size also ensures that the animals drink. Knowing what kind of land the animals pass through helps you plan tower placement to prevent overfeeding or wasting resources.

That change is rather small but very helpful in a game that doesn't show much mercy to players. The early half of the game is rather difficult, with most players only able to get a single star through sheer luck and a small amount of planning. It takes much more luck and planning to get two stars, while getting the three-star ranking on a level can prove to be brutal due to some extra requirements, such as making sure not to lose over a certain number of animals or making sure only a few towers are used. With the extra stars serving as more upgrades for towers and livestock, the feedback loop is rather well done, and the ability to go back and get those high ranks is rather tempting, even if there are no online leaderboards to share your accomplishments.

As for flaws, there really aren't too many to point out. The default camera works well if you want to see things from a cinematic perspective, but it hides so many useable platforms and information on the animals and other objects that you'll never really use it when playing the game. Also, while the tutorial segments are helpful enough, the later ones give you some poor strategies. You should check out the first tutorial, but if you've had any experience with a tower defense title, you'd be better served by skipping the rest of tutorials.

Whether it raises awareness on food preparation or even changes your opinions, Fat Chicken remains a solid tower defense title. The change in purpose and limited tower placement forces you to be more strategic, especially if you're aiming for a three-star rating. The difficulty is just right, and so is the length, which is long enough to give the game value without overstaying its welcome. Fat Chicken is definitely a game worth checking out, even if you're a casual fan of the genre.

Score: 8.0/10