I never thought I’d become obsessed with a game where a chicken dodges traffic. Sounds ridiculous, right? But somehow, that’s exactly what happened. It started as a joke — I downloaded Chicken Road Game after hearing some friends laugh about it. I figured I’d play for a couple of minutes and delete it. Instead, it became one of my favorite little escapes.

The mechanics are almost laughably simple: tap to move forward, left, or right, and try not to get flattened by a truck or swept away by a river. But beneath that simplicity lies a strange kind of intensity. Every second counts. One wrong step, and it’s game over. I found myself holding my breath, calculating every move like I was playing chess, not hopping across traffic.

What surprised me the most wasn’t the game itself, but how often I kept coming back to it. Waiting for a bus? A quick round. Lying in bed, avoiding sleep? Just one more try. It’s oddly relaxing, even when my little chicken gets hit by a speeding car for the fiftieth time.