My favorite party game to play with friends and family is Ultimate Chicken Horse, a free-for-all competitive sandbox platformer by Clever Endeavor Games where players construct an obstacle course that they must overcome themselves. One receives points if they complete the course, if and only if at least one other player failed to do so. While the platforming mechanics of the Nintendo Switch version of the game are similar to that of Mario games—familiar and comforting—the key aesthetic of the game is the challenge derived from other players’ competitive natures, as well as the expression of oneself while constructing the obstacle course (typically sadistically trap-fueled).
Mechanically, maps have intrinsic traps, and players add to the course each round. Players are limited in what items (resources) they can place, selecting from a scarce, shared pool. As players’ scores increase, the pool becomes more deadly, adding traps to try and kill other players. This creates a dynamic where a player wants to construct the most difficult course they think they can complete, but that others can’t, to gain points.
When players select which items to place, it’s a race to select the “best” items before other players can get them. While placing, everyone can place within an allotted time-period, allowing for sabotage or last-second adjustments to one’s strategies.
These dynamics contribute towards the game’s aesthetics as being a challenging platformer, but also an extremely competitive environment that can lead to a course quickly becoming cluttered, confusing, and downright silly. The input from players’ platforming abilities, confidence in sabotaging others, and nondeterministic item choices results in vastly different courses each game, where evil laughter and screaming is bound to be heard.
