Announcing the Shellebration Update!

Wow, Ultimate Chicken Horse is turning seven years old and we’re celebrating with a FREE content update for you! Play as the new character Turtle in the Shellebration Update on March 7, 2023 on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch! Let’s get this party started.

The Shellebration Update adds:

• 1 new character: Turtle

• 1 alternative skin: Armadillo

• 1 new level: Metro

• 3 new community-designed outfits: Helmet, Pirate Costume, and Ninja Gear

• 1 new music track

• Lots of improvements and bug fixes!

Unlock the new content for free by playing levels with a “?” symbol and collecting mystery boxes during the game.

New Character: Turtle

Meet Turtle, the newest animal on the Ultimate Chicken Horse roster, voiced by our previous community manager, Syd!

Always ready to dive head-first into the next adventure, this plucky reptile never backs down from a challenge. Turtle’s no slowpoke when it comes to winning and won’t hesitate to slide straight into first place!

Alternative Skin: Armadillo

Look out, Turtle’s alternative skin just rolled in - it’s Armadillo! Don’t be intimidated by the tough exterior - Armadillo is a huge softie with a big heart.

New Outfits

Turtle and Armadillo share a wonderful wardrobe designed by our very own Ultimate Chicken Horse community! We asked what outfits our community would want to see in the game, and transformed our favourite ideas into these fashionable ‘fits!

• Helmet: It’s like a shell for your head!

• Pirate Costume: Yer lookin’ as sharp as a cutlass, me hearty!

• Ninja Gear: Only worn by true warriors of the night. (It glows in the dark.)

New Level: Metro

Don’t miss your train! Navigate the underground metro by sprinting across the roofs of train cars as they thunder by. Place building blocks and traps to fill the gaps between the station platforms, or risk falling into the deadly electrified rails! Make it to the opposite platform without being flattened to win!

The Metro level features several historic train stations straight from our studio’s home: Montreal, Canada.

Ultimate Chicken Horse’s 7th Anniversary

Come shellebrate this special time of year with us and Turtle! We’d love to see and feature your anniversary-themed custom levels and fanart for our Shellebration Update. Here are some inspirational ideas: birthday cakes, presents, parties, the UCH animals, and other celebration-y things!

Please share your creations in the Ultimate Chicken Horse Discord or via the contact@clevendeav.com email.

Behind-The-Scenes Stuff

Our second project has been keeping us busy, but we haven’t forgotten about our dear Ultimate Chicken Horse community. It’s been over a year since our last update (Hippo) so we wanted to make something extra special for our 7th anniversary. We hope you enjoy!

Our team has grown in the meantime - we now have tech wizard/genius JS on the case. He’s already saved us from a lot of server trouble and is actively working on making the servers even better. We also brought on Tia as our new marketing and community manager just in time for Turtle’s update!

Thank you!

Thank you so much for playing Ultimate Chicken Horse and supporting us over the years. Happy 7th anniversary!

- Your turtley awesome friends at Clever Endeavour

New Server, Who Dis?

Howdy stranger!

It’s me, Syd the Community Manager, writing my second blog post! If you want to know more about me, peep the previous blog post for an introduction.

Now, I don’t mean to alarm you, but it’s quite literally my favourite month of the year. Why? Because it’s Halloween and I love spooky things, pumpkins (both in lattes and on porches), costumes and of course, candy! However, I will say, the energy over at Clever Endeavour studio isn’t very haunted, it’s quite the opposite. Here's a summary of some not-scary things I’ll be catching you up on:

• Goodbye Gamesparks, hello Xbox!

• Did someone say Steamdeck verified!?

• Trivia Night, babyyyy!

• Mentorships + Charities we’ve been donating to 

• Vibes were had with Vibe Avenue 

• Things we’re looking forward to…

Gute Nacht, Gamesparks!

For those who still don’t know, Gamesparks (our old server) is kaput, so we’ve had to move over to a new one, Braincloud. You may be asking a few questions about this like:

What the heck is a server?

In simple terms, It’s what allows you to play UCH with folks who have different devices than you and live in different locations than yourself.

Is this an update?

Sadly, it is not. It is a patch, which like the name suggests, is fixing holes that may exist in our beautiful game.

So, what does changing the server actually mean then?

It means a lot of things, most quite good! It means the game’s online element isn’t stopping, which means the game has been future-proofed as much as possible. It also means…XBOX CROSSPLAY which I know has been something that’s been asked for for a very long time from our players. Our new server allows you to do this! Wooooooo! Lastly, we added a few small things for our community (updated credits, a “tournament” preset, and a bunch of other tiny little bug fixes that we could fit in).

Thanks, Syd.

No problem.

Full Steam Ahead!

This one is a little less complicated: Valve has given us the good ‘ol Verified/green check mark for Steamdeck! Have fun playing our game on Steamdeck (which you may have already been doing), but uh…VERIFIED this time.

Winner Winner Ultimate Chicken Dinner

One of my favourite things about being a Community Manager is forcing my love of trivia upon my community! Recently, our Discord players embarked on the noble quest of Ultimate Chicken Trivia; which was essentially 25 questions about UCH and Clever Endeavour, ranging in difficulty. The top 3 scores were awarded fancy Discord roles, too. Funny enough, despite me worrying it may be too easy, NO ONE got a perfect score, not even our co-founder Rich. Here are some of the questions (and answers, since I’m feeling nice):

The Code Least Travelled

During the summer, our co-founder Rich participated as a mentor in an accelerator program for game developers run by Code Coven. They're an organization that creates and runs programs for developers coming from underrepresented groups in the industry. Rich acted as a team mentor for Team Gramps, a diverse group spread across the globe, who came together to make a mobile game demo called A Week at Belisamas Lake. The game explores the connection between a grandmother and grandchild who work on fishing objects out of a lake in a post-climate change (in the positive sense, i.e. we didn't destroy the planet) society.

Rich’s mentoring included checking in on development as well as being a sounding board for ideas and problems. Overall, Rich had an amazing experience meeting these talented developers, "it's always so inspiring to see what people can do in such a short period—these people didn't know each other and had never worked together before, and managed to make a super compelling demo while working together for only 8 weeks. Crazy!" You can check out the Code Coven website if you're interested in applying for one of their programs.

Charitable Donations

In the past few months we’ve donated to two local causes that are dear to our company’s heart; The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal, which is intended to be a healing space for Indigenous women to rebuild their lives, as well as Women Aware, which provides free services to those who have experienced conjugal violence. Please check out the attached links to look further into these incredible causes.

Just Straight Vibin’

Recently, our team had the pleasure of catching up with the musical geniuses behind the Ultimate Chicken Horse Soundtrack: Vibe Avenue. Their (relatively) new studio blew us away, and look, they even gave us a chance to play their cool instruments. Thanks for having us, VA!

Things We’re Excited About…

Aside from Halloween itself, we’re also super excited about the upcoming Halloween Level Feature event that we’re hosting. We’re currently asking folks to submit their spooky creations! The creativity and challenges that come out of our level events are one of the things our team looks most forward to seeing. So, please, make our October and check out this Steam post for more details on how to submit!

Lastly, we had the pleasure of catching up with our friends over at Weird Ghosts! Weird Ghosts helps support game studios of underrepresented makers through grants, “catalytic investments”, and community. Their day-to-day, as a small team (just two people! That’s one less than we started with when making our game), involves working with the co-op Gamma Space to provide mentorship in areas like studio development, storytelling, documentation, and project management. So far, they’ve assisted 11 studios since 2020!

When I poked co-founder Eileen about what they were most excited about regarding their work so far, she mentioned how she’s currently very proud of this blog, which focuses on funding barriers in Canada. The blog in question gives you a strong sense of what Weird Ghosts stands for–not only does it strip apart Canada’s current funding issues, but it also shows how WG actively challenges these issues when seeking studios to support. “We’re really interested in making our resources accessible”, Eileen shared with me, before noting that the next step for the company will be sharing its values and pitching information. We can’t wait to see what comes next from Weird Ghosts and the studios they’re supporting.

And with that, may your spooky season be ghastly!

- The Clever Endeavour Team

Introducing Syd, Tiktok, and UCH Lore!?

Heyoooooo~

This may come as quite a surprise to you, but it’s the summer right! Let me tell you, here, where our little team is located, it means things are getting warm! It’s hot, it’s sunny, and things are moving over here at Clever Endeavour. We’ve got lots of exciting updates to bring your way. Here’s a quick summary:

• A new community manager appears: Syd! 

• We’re on Tiktok!

• Big ‘ol Summer sales!

• New initiative: Barnyard bMonday

• UCH Summer Feature Levels on LevelNET

• Charity donations

• Things we’re looking forward to

New Community Manager Alert: Say Hello to Syd 

Howdy! It’s me, Syd (they/them), writing my first blog post!

Here’s the scoop on me:

When I’m not community managing the Ultimate Chicken Horse community I’m over at Casa Rara Studio working on our new game Mini Maker: Make A Thing. When I’m not doing either of those, I’m squeezing in time for my Master’s in Creative Writing, because for some reason I love video games AND poetry the same amount. I also clearly love to suffer, because I have so much on my plate!

Some fun facts about me include:

• I have a hairless cat named Ursula

• I have to have three different “kinds” of drinks every morning (i.e: sparkling water, matcha, kombucha, tea, etc). They all have to have different textures and ~purposes~.

• I can play the banjo 

A pleasure to meet you, and a pleasure to be joining such a wonderful team and community. Can’t wait to get to know you all and bring some of my weird little self to the community. Come chat with me on our Discord to get to know me better!

Tiktokkin’ Time

For those of you who are as hooked on this platform as I am, or for those of you who love a good meme, follow our UCH TikTok for bizarrities. Or, check it out to get some wholesome content, like this TikTok on our community member and mod Terry:

Summer Sails Sales

It’s the summertime, which means fun, right? Or, it should, in my belief. Well, let us help you out! Throughout the summer we’ve organized a bunch of 50% off sales for Ultimate Chicken Horse–so keep an eye on our Twitter and on your system of choice to see when we’re on sale. If you already have the game…consider convincing a friend to join in on your obsession by flashing them this absolutely irresistible price!

UCH Lore??? 

If you’ve been on socials, you may have noticed this odd Monday occurrence as of the past few weeks: Barnyard bMonday. It includes a horribly photoshopped UCH animal alongside a very accurate and real piece of information about said animal. The folks on the UCH discord have asked whether it is the true lore of the game, to which I would like to reply the following:

Ultimate Chicken Horse is a fictional video game, whereas the facts I have been posting and inventing on the spot are 100% true and scientifically accurate and thoroughly tested. Be assured, that the money you spend on our game goes directly to the pursuit of this knowledge and of course, the betterment of animal kind. Here is the photo of the top scientists in our field working away at Barnyard bMonday:

If you have any suggestions for upcoming studies, feel free to message us on our Discord, Twitter, or by carrier pigeon.

Summer Feature Levels to Quench Your Thirst

If you’ve gotten this far and are still reading, here is where I admit to you that I loathe summer, the very concept of sweating disturbs me. However, I do like video games. That’s why the idea of interacting with summer from the safety of my computer sounds positively divine. With this in mind, please enjoy these wonderful community-made Summer-themed Levels! 

A massive thank you to everyone who submitted a level, and to the levels council who helped choose which levels should be featured for this!

Charitable Donations

It’s been a while since our last blog post, so let me quickly catch you up to speed with all the different causes we’ve been supporting.

1. For Pride Month, we donated to a campaign run by game devs across the world to raise money for akt–a UK charity that supports lgbtq+ youth ages 16-25 by helping them find safe homes, employment, education and training.

2. We donated to Stop the Red Sea Spill, a UN campaign to remove a FSO Safer from Yemen's Red Sea coast to prevent further disparity or damage to surrounding reefs and sea life.

3. We updated and donated to several causes in support of Ukraine. Check out further information here if you’re looking for some guidance to help Ukrainians who are still in need of our support. 

4. We ran a giveaway of this awesome Queer Games Bundle for our discord community. We figured the best way to support LGBTQ+ Devs was to put the money straight in their hands and to share their work!

Things We’re Looking Forward To…

If there are two things that are beloved to us at Clever Endeavour it is tea and cats. You can imagine how the game Pekoe has affected us once it landed on our radar. In this adorable cat-filled, tea cafe simulator you’re learning new techniques and tea-making styles, building relationships with townsfolk, and purchasing tea supplies and tools at other teahouses. 

Aside from the adorable appearance, in these chaotic times, it’s been illuminating how important and necessary games are to keep us afloat. Pekoe’s focus on self-care and pursuing what makes one happy is a necessary breath of fresh air. Check out the trailer here:

Wishlist Pekoe here!

What else? Well, Community Manager Syd was extremely pumped to attend the online Disco MTL Summit last week. Disco MTL is a Game Discoverability Summit where one gets to attend talks and roundtables all centered around games, gaming communities, marketing, you name it! It was jam-packed with some incredible guests, including our pals at KO_OP Marcela Huerta and Jacob Blommestein, the hilarious and bright Victoria Tran of Innersloth, the exceptional Chris Zukowski, and the talented Philomena Schwab of Stray Fawn Studio. Extremely, extremely exciting! Aside from the huge chunk of knowledge dispersed throughout the week, Syd’s favourite part was attending a cocktail party and realizing these were the cups everyone was drinking from.

A few of us here at the studio are taking little vacations, so that’s pretty fun. It’s important to mix up hard work with some play, brains aren’t meant to always be working. So I hope you get a moment this summer to play a game or two (or two hundred) of UCH and relax–you’ve earned it.

Sorry, no donkey updates in UCH, but one of our co-founders Rich did go on vacation and spotted this cute little guy Morocco, near Moulay Idriss.

Hope you have a splendid Summer!

- The Clever Endeavour Team