Moorhuhn (distributed as Crazy Chicken in English-speaking countries) is a German casual game franchise for PCs and the Nintendo DS. It consists of more than 30 games, the first of which – a shoot ‘em up – was Germany’s most popular computer game in the early 2000s.

The Moorhuhn character is a brainchild of Ingo Mesche. The game (now distributed as Die Original Moorhuhn Jagd) was developed by the Dutch Witan studios, the Art Department advertising agency and Ingo Mesche as an advertisement for Johnnie Walker whisky in 1999. The game’s objective was to shoot down, through a point-and-click interface, as many cartoonish “swamp chickens” (German: Moorhühner; literally “moorhens”, ie. willow grouses) as possible in 90 seconds.

The game was originally not intended for distribution, but was made available to play on laptops in bars by promoters dressed up as hunters. It was soon illicitly copied, however, and became widely available for download on private websites. The publisher’s initial irritation at this subsided after the game received favorable mentions in popular media and demand for it grew. From 2000 onwards the game was officially made available for download by Art Department.It became wildly popular in German-speaking Europe, to the point of being denounced in the media as a threat to the bottom line of businesses, on account of the number of hours wasted by employees playing the game.

The game’s success spawned a great deal of merchandise, a comic book series, an animated TV series, several motion picture scripts (although no movie was ever made) and a BMG-produced single (Gimme more Huhn by comedian Wigald Boning). It also caused Germany’s authoritative Duden dictionary to include the word “Moorhuhn”

angry birds is a puzzle video game developed by Finland-based Rovio Mobile, in which players use a slingshot to launch birds at pigs stationed on or within various structures, with the intent of destroying all the pigs on the playfield. Inspired by a simple sketch of stylized wingless birds, the game was first released for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices in December 2009. Since that time, over 12 million copies of the game have been purchased from Apple’s App Store, which has prompted the company to design versions for other touchscreen-based smartphones, including those using the Android and the Symbian^3 operating systems. Rovio Mobile has supported angry birds with numerous free updates that add additional game content, and the company has even released stand-alone holiday versions of the game.

Angry Birds has been praised for its successful combination of addictive gameplay, comical style and low price. Its popularity has spawned proposals to create versions of angry birds for personal computers and gaming consoles, a market for merchandise featuring its characters and even long-range plans for a feature film or television series. With over 50 million downloads across all platforms, the game has been called “one of the most mainstream games out right now” and “one of the great runaway hits of 2010″.