The basic idea is that you are a giant xenopus (a type of frog) embryo, and you have to gather nutrients (in this case, chickens) and go through the various stages of embryonic development.
the meter on the bottom shows your progress. You have until the timer runs out to gather as much nutrients (kinda like pac-man) as possible. If you don't have enough when it runs out, you lose!
When you get a nutrient, the timer stops for 2 seconds. Level one doesn't actually give you as much time as in that screenshot. It's actually 0:35. So, you have to keep getting them without being interrupted too much.
There are other elements at play, but those are for the project post that I'm working on.
... whether or not it's fun has yet to be determined.