Freeway

Overview

In the game the chickens start on one side of the freeway with ten lanes between them and the other side of the street, with each lane containing cars moving at varying speeds. Once a chicken reaches the other side of the street the player controlling it scores a point and a new chicken appears at the start position. On difficulty A if the chicken is hit by a car it will be reset to the start position while on difficulty B if the chicken is hit by a car it will be pushed back two lanes. The game can be played either in single player or two player mode and in two player mode the winner of the game is the player who can get the most chickens to the other side of the street in two minutes.
 
If players could send Activision a picture of them having scored 20 points on either the third or seventh level of the game, Activision would send them a 'Save The Chicken Foundation' patch featuring a picture of the chicken from the game.
 

Development

The game was created and programmed by David Crane who conceived the idea for the game during the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, while watching a man trying to cross Lake Shore Drive on foot. The original version of the game was called Bloody Human Freeway and featured a man crossing a street who would leave a bloody streak behind when hit by cars, however the change to the version of Freeway which was released was made after complaints from some employees within Activision. It was one of the first independent games published by Activision on the Atari 2600.