The Abduction of Bacon at Dawn, the Chronicles of a Brave Rooster is all kinds of crazy.
Price: $2.99 / £2.29
Version: 1.0.1
Size: 92.5 MB
Developer: Batovi Games
Firstly, that title. Secondly, the game takes the whole alien abduction premise and runs with it. Aliens are currently invading earth and eating all our pigs, because, bacon. Furthermore, our hopes of survival all comes down to a brave Rooster, because, well, roosters are apparently the only ones awake at dawn and this is when the aliens insist on stealing the pigs.
Earth is having its bacon stocks depleted by invaing aliens, explains the opening animated sequence
As the game description goes: “Will we run out of pigs? Can we survive without bacon? Is this the end of human race?”
In the game, the player takes the part of the rooster. The rooster has ample support from the earth’s scientific community, and it’s these scientists that create new weapons, tools for defence against the various traps and minions the aliens have thrown down to combat the saving of the pigs. It’s actually a very smart approach. Most platformers, particularly on iOS, struggle to maintain interest, changing the world around the player, rather than the way the player plays. Bacon at Dawn (as we’ll be shortening, and calling it from now on) flips this on its head.
There are various challenges to achieve to fully complete each level
The levels remain mostly the same, but as you progress through the goals of destroying all the bad guys, saving the five pigs spread around each level, finishing the level in a certain amount of time, and trying to complete the level without dying, you’re furnished with new weapons that can range from throwing simple feathers, to baby chicks, and even corn cobs.
There’s a solid platform sensibility, but with a real dedication to design
The whole game is encapsulated within a very silly sense of humor that will appeal to the very silly, as well as the very dedicated (and large) fan base that bacon beholds. The gameplay itself does eventually suffer from a lack of variety, mostly because the levels do start to all feel a bit samey. However, it has much more staying power than your average platformer. Some have questioned its longevity – don’t expect the 40 or 50 levels of similar games, but the lead up to the final boss and the amount of challenges that you can go back to makes it a wildly entertaining game and a masterclass in platform design.
Fight off the alien spaceships and save the pigs before they fly off!
Bacon at Dawn is a well written, well-designed, and incredibly fun platformer, which, like its salty-inspiration, deserves a dedicated following.