Hectic Acres

Hectic Acres is a small farm in a big hurry. The farmhand is a round yellow chick in big red boots and a straw hat, and every animal on the place wants something right now: the cow needs milking, the sheep needs shearing, the goats are trotting down the lane with the bull ambling along behind them, and the piglet has run off from its mud bath. Between chores a little tractor tows a patchwork quilt across the farm, and the next job is waiting underneath it.

Every chore is one word and one look. MILK! is tapping left, right, left, right to fill the pail, and the same side twice gets you a flick of the tail. SHEAR! is rubbing the clippers over a sheep that keeps shuffling along the board. GATE! is slamming the gate after the last goat and before the bull. LASSO! is drawing a loop round a calf while it stops to sniff a flower, SNEAK! is holding to tiptoe up to a broody hen and letting go the moment she turns round, and TRACK! is tracing the piglet's hoofprints, not the hen's. A little hand shows the move each time: tap, hold, drag, swipe, rub, circle, trace or mash. Get it wrong and it is slapstick: leftover wool that floats the sheep away like a cloud, or a bull that walks off in your hat.

A run is endless: the chores keep coming until all three eggs have hatched, one for every chore that goes wrong. Each new day is a little faster than the last, up to about twice the starting pace, with a GIDDY UP! sign every five days. Every tenth day is the BIG HARVEST: mash to pull up a giant turnip while it tugs back and a crow hops on top, and the farm runs in to help as it comes up. Win it for a BLUE RIBBON!, a new title, from Chick and Egg Collector up to Ruler of the Roost, and a lost egg back. The FARM REPORT counts your days, your best day is your high score and is saved in your browser, and the CHORES button lets you practise any chore you have already met.