Hataraku Chokobo (はたらくチョコボ, Working Chocobo or Chocobo on the Job?) is a video game that was released in 2000 for the Bandai WonderSwan.
The player must tend to a Chocobo ranch to cultivate the land and harvest various resources, while competing against several rivals.
The soundtrack was composed by Yoko Shimomura. It is a rare example of a forward-compatible video game: released near the release of the WonderSwan Color, it was programmed to play on either the black & white or color systems.
Gameplay[]
The land of the New Frontier is arid and desolate, preventing a wave of colonists from settling there. There is one creature that thrives in this environment, however: Chocobos. The colonists establish an organization called the Admin Bureau, represented by Cid, and encourage Chocobo Ranchers to coordinate and cultivate the land one region at a time.
The player controls one such Chocobo rancher, competing against three rivals in each round. Each turn ("year"), the player gives their Chocobos one of four tasks (farming, gathering water, logging, or mining), and assigns them to a region, where they will attempt to produce the resource associated with that task (gysahl Greens, water, logs, or ore, respectively). Rivals do the same, competing with the player for space. Some Chocobo breeds are naturally better at one of the four jobs, while others perform better in certain terrain. Any rival Chocobos performing the same job on the same location will reduce the payout for both sides, which might convince the player to either cooperate with their rival using the friendly Brown Chocobos, or to play aggressively with the confrontational Tiger Chocobos. The player may also spend their time hunting for Wild Chocobo, who appear in the main gameplay area. Each region has its own Chocobo population, and they may spot a type they want to keep back at their home farm.
At the end of each year, Chocobos must be fed with greens, or the player will risk them running away. Any surviving resources might also spoil, encouraging the player to build a storage depot (in more advanced maps) or to simply plan their resources strategically. Ore plays a special role, because it is the one resource that cannot spoil.
At the end of the year, Cid begins an auction of resources from the Admin Bureau, and then offers to sell even more resources at a sort of shop - these phases play an important part in the game can dramatically affect the outcome. Then, play continues with the next planning phase.
At the end of the game, Cid totals everyone's resources to judge if the land has been properly cultivated. A score above 50 is considered a success, while a score above 100 is considered a big success (marked with a star on the player's map). Getting successes and big successes is the primary objective of the game, which might encourage the player to coordinate with their rivals, but there are also many ways to compete, and so players may choose to shoot for the MVP position awarded to the player with the most resources. If they are lucky or skilled, they might even manage to do both.
Etymology[]
The name "chocobo" derives from a Japanese brand of chocolate malt ball by Morinaga, ChocoBall (チョコボール, Chokobōru?). The mascot for this product is Kyoro-chan (キョロちゃん?), a bird who says "kweh".
食う / くう / kuu is a rough way to say "eat", whose volitional casual form is 食え / くえ / kue ("let's scoff 'em down!"), leading to Kweh!