Chicken

Chicken's starting melee weapon is unique to her character. She has the ability to throw weapons, which deals more damage as she levels up. Chicken is also the only character that can stay alive after reaching zero HP.

Features[]

Chicken begins with the Chicken Sword equipped and no ammo.

When Chicken's health reaches zero, she loses 2 max HP and runs around headless for 5 seconds. This locks the camera on her head's current position, but it will pan very slowly if her body nears the edge of the screen. Getting health in any way will allow her head to grow back, but the max HP will still be lowered by 2 if health is replenished by a Mini Medkit pickup or the Bloodlust mutation.

Walking over a stationary Medkit will recover 1 lost max HP. Choosing the Last Wish mutation will replenish all of Chicken's lost max HP.

Medkits have a 50% chance to spawn instead of Radiation Canisters when your character is under 50% health. When it comes to this spawn mechanic, Chicken's max HP is always treated as 8 (or 12 with the Rhino Skin mutation). So for Chicken, "under 50%" is always under 4 HP (or under 6 HP with Rhino Skin).

A headless Chicken can teleport through portals, and her timer will reset when the next area is loaded. You can also revive yourself by choosing the Rhino Skin or Last Wish mutations while Chicken is headless inside a portal.

Special[]

Chicken can throw her primary weapon, which deals damage to a single target on contact. The amount of damage depends on Chicken's radiation level and increases as she levels up. On level 1, a thrown weapon will deal 24 damage. Each level up increases that by 2, reaching 42 damage on level 10 (Level Ultra).

Thrown weapons travel fast and very far, and they can also bounce off walls. They can slightly bounce off enemies, which can cause a single thrown weapon to rarely damage multiple enemies. Killing an enemy with a thrown weapon makes the killed enemy's body fly further, which means bodies also deal more damage on impact. Each weapon has the same hitbox when thrown.

If you had two weapons and throw one, the secondary weapon becomes your primary. If you only had one weapon, throwing it leaves Chicken empty-handed and the thrown weapon has to be picked up again. This ability doesn't have a cooldown, which means you can throw both of your weapons almost instantly.

Cursed Weapons can't be thrown.

Throne Butt[]

With Throne Butt, thrown weapons pierce through targets, dealing damage per hit animation. The weapon travels fast and going through targets doesn't affect its speed, so an enemy will take damage multiple times only if it's large enough.

Ultra Mutations[]

	Harder to Kill Each enemy killed by Chicken adds 1 second to the time she can survive while headless. The timer won't go above 5 seconds.
	Determination Thrown weapons teleport to your secondary weapon slot after being thrown. Weapons thrown inside a portal are not affected.

Gameplay[]

Chicken's abilities let you play very recklessly, running straight into combat and relying on medkit drops when headless and then trying to get a stationary Medkit on the next level to recover your lost max HP. Throwing your weapon deals a lot of damage, especially if you throw both at once, and it doesn't use any ammo. This can save your life when headless, by quickly one-shotting high health enemies that are out of your weapon's range and creating a potential medkit drop. It's a good way to deal some extra damage to a single enemy, but shouldn't be used when surrounded unless you have Chicken's second Ultra Mutation. Throw weapons with no ammo. Throw weapons with slow reload, after firing them. Discard weapons you don't want to use for long periods of time. Relocate a weapon that you might use later. Chicken can also take more weapons with her to the next area by simply throwing dropped weapons inside the portal.

Useful mutations:

Rhino Skin - Increases your max HP, improving your survivability, especially if it your HP was reduced from Chicken losing her head. You can also revive yourself by choosing Rhino Skin while Chicken is headless inside a portal.
Last Wish - Will replenish all of Chicken's lost max HP. You can also revive yourself by choosing Last Wish while Chicken is headless inside a portal.
Blood Lust - Chicken's passive allows you a few short moments after you reach zero health to do as much damage as possible. If Blood Lust manages to activate in this time, you'll be revived, making this mutation a must-have in terms of survivability. Best when combined with Stress for maximum DPS and chances of reviving when "dead".
Rabbit Paw - Increases the chances of medkit drops, which could allow you to revive if Blood Lust doesn't activate.
Plutonium Hunger - Reduces the distance you have to walk to grab a medkit. Makes it easier to grab medkits from off screen.
Scarier Face - Less enemy HP means less damage you have to deal to get a potential health pickup when headless. Also increases the number of enemies that you can one-shot with thrown weapons.
Stress - Chicken is the only character that can survive with 0 health. This lets her reach the full 100% fire rate increase when headless.
Sharp Teeth - Receiving the final blow can kill a bunch of enemies along with Chicken, effectively creating a chance for a medkit drop as soon as you need one. The damage of Sharp Teeth is based off of how much HP you lost. This means if you have 2 HP left and die (lose your head) to an explosion that did 10 damage, all enemies on the screen will take 5 damage, not 25.
Gamma Guts - Allows you to deal contact damage by walking over any enemy when headless.
Long Arms - Gives you a huge advantage over the playing field, allowing you to deflect bullets and attack enemies with Chicken's Sword from further away and even through walls.
Impact Wrists - Useful for melee in particular, giving you a chance to kill enemies from further away with flying corpses. Throwing weapons makes the killed enemy's body fly further, which means bodies also deal more damage on impact. Impact Wrists enhances that effect.
Throne Butt - Adds AOE damage to Chicken's active ability, which can one-shot a row of enemies, creating potential medkit drops.
Euphoria - Makes it easier to reflect projectiles with melee weapons and thrown weapons if you also have Throne Butt.
Extra Feet - Allows you to run towards and pick up your thrown weapons and distant medkits faster.

Unlock Method

Chicken is unlocked by reaching the Jungle secret area.

Trivia[]

Before mutating, Chicken was just a regular chicken.
It might seem that Chicken had martial arts training before, but she learned everything from movies.
The movies Chicken watches on her TV are:
Chicken loves her sword.
Having 1 max health as Chicken and charged Strong Spirit will limit Strong Spirit to save you from death only once. It can't be recharged afterwards, unless you recover your lost max health. Taking Crown of Death in this situation reduces your max health to 0; Chicken spawns without her head, bleeds out, and dies.
Chicken was added to Nuclear Throne in update #7.
Prior to update #50, losing Chicken's head wouldn't lower her max health. It was changed from 1 max HP loss to 2 in update #90.
Prior to update #76, Chicken used Slow Motion as her special ability. She could slow down time in a small radius around her. The ability emphasized a whole bunch of bugs and "did more damage than it was worth, slowing down a game that's supposed to be fast". Throne Butt allowed Chicken to move at normal speed while using Slow Motion, during which she had a different run animation.
Update #76 also changed both of Chicken's Ultra Mutations. Harder to Kill used to double the time Chicken can survive while headless. Chicken's second Ultra Mutation was called Focus and significantly increased the radius of Slow Motion.
Prior to update #86, Chicken's Weapon Throw ability dealt 24 damage, regardless of her level.
Chicken is reminiscent of a playable character in the another Vlambeer game, Super Crate Box.

If you leave the Chicken Sword on the 1-1 Desert area and loop the game, you will find the Black Sword near your spawn point in 1-1 Desert. It's a melee weapon similar to the Chicken Sword initially, but it gains increased range and damage when Chicken is headless. The inspiration for Black Sword came from the old "Cursed Sword" tradition in samurai culture and the movie The Sword of Doom. The Black Sword's loading screen tip mentions that Chicken is afraid of it.
Chicken can feed the Frozen Corpse Flower and enter the Jungle while being headless.
It's possible to see the ending with Chicken being headless. This actually causes the player to earn an achievement.

Chicken

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