''Chicktionary'' is a

word game Word games are spoken, board, card or video games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties. Word games are generally used as a source of entertainment, but can additionally serve an educational purpose. Young ...

available on the

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

Internet

search Searching may refer to: Music * "Searchin', Searchin", a 1957 song originally performed by The Coasters * Searching (China Black song), "Searching" (China Black song), a 1991 song by China Black * Searchin' (CeCe Peniston song), "Searchin" (C ...

page. ''Chicktionary'' was developed by Blockdot, a

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

based developer of

game A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...

s and

branded entertainment Branded content (also known as branded entertainment) is a type of entertainment product made or otherwise funded by an advertiser. They are designed to build awareness for a particular brand by presenting content that reflects its values and image ...

applications. The game was originally developed as "Fowl Words" but later changed after it was concluded that the play on words "

fowl Fowl are birds belonging to one of two biological orders, namely the gamefowl or landfowl ( Galliformes) and the waterfowl ( Anseriformes). Anatomical and molecular similarities suggest these two groups are close evolutionary relatives; toget ...

" would be confused with "foul" and alienate potential players. The game is a variation on the game of

Anagrams An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word ''anagram'' itself can be rearranged into the phrase "nag a ram"; which ...

. It features an egg rack, replete with three-letter, four-letter, five-letter, six-letter and seven-letter sequences of

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

s. Seven

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

s appear at the bottom, each bearing a letter. When the player clicks on a hen, its letter is dropped into a box. Clicking on three or more hens in sequence can create a word. If it is a valid word, a sequence of eggs of the appropriate length will be filled up with the word. The

goal A goal or objective is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan, and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. A goal is roughly similar to ...

is to fill the quotas of 11 three-letter words, 10 four-letter words, 10 five-letter words, 3 six-letter words and 1 seven letter-word. Players get 20 points for finishing a round by filling up all the sequences of eggs. There are two modes of game time and infinitude. The timed version allows players to form words within two minutes per round and there is no limit in the other mode. Points are redeemable for real prizes—20,000 points in ''Chicktionary'' could be redeemed for a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium.

Fox News The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...

reported that the popularity of this search engine vis-à-vis

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

and

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

increased due to the introduction of this game. Microsoft's share of the search market increased by 13.2% in June 2007. A problem that has arisen with this game is the creation of

bot Bot or BOT may refer to: Sciences Computing and technology * Chatbot, a computer program that converses in natural language * Internet bot, a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet **Spambot, an internet bot ...

s to play and win these games and gain prizes for human bot programmers. Microsoft, however, says it detects and catches bots and nullifies their points and winnings. ''Chicktionary'' was released on the iPhone in November 2008. It was released on Android phones in August 2009. The play for redeemable points program was terminated in 2012.e 2007. A new version of game, ''Chicktionary Coop'', was released in November 2012. It was originally created by Dan Ferguson https://danferguson.com and Mike Bielinski. Both Dan and Mike were two of the original founders of Blockdot.

References

{{Reflist 2008 video games Android (operating system) games IOS games Microsoft games Video games developed in the United States Word games