Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2000/05/04/look_out_lara_here_comes/

Look out Lara, here comes the Red Scottish Moor Hen

Three million German speakers can't be wrong

By Valerie Thompson

Posted in On-Prem, 4th May 2000 17:17 GMT

Even in the intensely competitive PC games market, where silliness seems to be the order of the day, the popularity of The Hunt for the Red Scottish Moor Hen has industry insiders scratching their heads. What started as a tribute to (a romantic notion of) Scottish country life has turned into a craze, verging on cult status. More than three million German and Swiss Internet users have downloaded the original game, which involves chasing a bug eyed grouse (which looks suspiciously like a chicken) across a realistically rendered Scottish moor and blasting it to smithereens. Countless others have download game patches, clones (e.g. Moorhuhn: The Star Trek version or the Football Patch that changes the castle into a football stadium and a scarecrow wears an FC Bayern team shirt), and screen savers. Currently, 12 of German site Computer Channel's top 25 downloads are related to the Moor Hen game. The game was developed originally as a gag to help sell Johnny Walker Whiskey in Germany by Phenomedia AG, one of three recently floated Germany companies that develop, publish, and distribute electronic games.