Big Bird’s Egg Catch

How to play Big Bird’s Egg Catch online

A note on controls: this cartridge was made for the Atari Kid’s Controller, a children’s keypad with a picture overlay showing left and right arrows. The emulator on this site emulates joysticks and paddles, but not keypads, so Big Bird will most likely not move when you press the arrow keys or Space. In practice the game cannot really be played here, though you can still pick a game and start it to see how it looks.

• Choose one of the ten games: F11 (the console’s Select switch); the game number shows at the bottom left, the number of players at the bottom right
• Start or restart: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)

The difficulty switches are not used.

Gameplay

Hens sit at the top of the screen and lay eggs that roll down chutes. You move Big Bird left and right so that he is under the right chute when an egg drops out. A plain egg is worth one point. From game 4 on, each round also has one golden egg worth five points, and the EGGS sign on the barn roof turns yellow when it is laid. In two-player games the players take turns, one round each.

• Game 1: one-player practice with two straight chutes. Big Bird jumps straight to the next chute each time you press an arrow.
• Games 2 and 3: three and four chutes, straight in game 2 and zigzag in game 3. The hens lay faster as the round goes on.
• Games 4 to 6: Big Bird no longer jumps from chute to chute, so you line him up yourself. Three rounds of a dozen eggs make 48 points a perfect score.
• Games 7 and 8: you may miss five eggs, and each golden egg you catch adds another chance, so the game lasts as long as you keep catching. In game 8 the eggs stay invisible until they leave the chute, so you watch which hen stands up to lay.
• Games 9 and 10: the chutes fade away, so you must remember their pattern. In game 10 the pattern changes before every egg.

Tips

• Watch the sign on the barn. When EGGS turns yellow, a golden egg is coming: five points and, in games 7 to 10, an extra miss.
• Follow the chute, not the egg. In the crossing layouts, trace where a chute comes out before the egg gets there.
• Talk while you play. The manual suggests parents ask questions like “where do you think the egg will come out?”

History

The game is part of a series of children’s cartridges that Atari made with the Children’s Computer Workshop, which the manual introduces as the creators of Sesame Street, The Electric Company and 3-2-1 Contact. It came out in November 1983, with a manual that includes a read-aloud story about Big Bird’s hens winning a golden egg award. One reviewer expected young children to love it and thought adults might enjoy it as well. Today the cartridge is hard to find.