Egging On Review (PC)

“You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.” Well, as it turns out, making an omelette is a lot harder than simply breaking a few eggs. Scratch that, it’s an emotionally draining task—a daunting, almost one-sided affair that serves little to no benefit to the whisk-beater whatsoever. Egging On, for example, does a splendid job of illustrating this scrambled feud. However, it doesn’t remediate your feelings about it; it simply informs you that, if you’re going to make an omelette, then you should at least be prepared to witness your sanity gradually plummet before tasting the fruits, or yolk, of your labor.

Egging On is everything that is wrong with the world. And I’m being salty here, not because it doesn’t allow me to make an omelette, but because, despite it being aesthetically wholesome and harmless, it hates me. It’s a lot like your typical rage game, in that it presents itself as a seamlessly balanced experience, but then makes it so that even the simplest maneuvers are made to feel fundamentally flawed and impossible to execute. It’s I Am Bread without the toaster; it’s I Am Fish without the bowl; it’s Strong Crab without the missing claw. It is, in short, an egg with an irritable obsession with cracking at the mere sight of a whisk.

Egging On certainly has the appearance of a family-friendly platforming game, but the truth is, it isn’t one that’s for the faint of heart. No, what Egging On is, really, is a painfully tough precision-based platform game that utilizes its carrot-on-a-stick tactics to entice you to keep the ball rolling, even when you’re at the end of your tether and emotionally hard-boiled. It doesn’t guide you; it mocks you for being inept.

I Don’t Like Omelettes, Anyway

Egging On isn’t about making an omelette; it’s about ferrying an egg from the chicken coop to an idyllic yolk-friendly haven. It’s a simple, clean-spirited tale that doesn’t leave much to the imagination, true. Yet, while the objective is as clear as day, it’s the task of bringing that egg to said haven, that’s the clincher.

A textbook rage game at its core, Egging On tasks you with manually rolling an egg-shaped “protagonist” through a series of environmental puzzles and not-so-structurally sound buildings. Unlike, say, I Am Bread, though, you don’t control each portion of the egg; you manipulate the whole thing through a conduit of rolling, jumping, and building momentum to execute otherwise ordinary maneuvers. And if you think that sounds easy, well, you’re mistaken. See, where the act of simply jumping wouldn’t be an issue for most, Egging On makes it so that every attempt is either met with an uneven surface, a daringly large gap, or a paper-thin tight rope that lacks the strength to hold your weight. It’s the little things like that, annoyingly, that make Egging On an absolute pain in the neck to romp through.

The mechanics aren’t the problem here; if anything, the mechanics are almost too easy to grasp. No, it’s the world and its questionable layouts, the tight-fisted nature of the checkpoints and the fact that, perfect timing or not, nothing is ever guaranteed. I suppose it’s a game that leans towards dumb luck and broken dreams, last-minute desperation and the occasional spurt of success. Is it a fair game? Absolutely not, no.

Breaking, Emotionally and Physically

So, is Egging On a fun game? Eh — define the word fun. To make it a little clearer — yes, it is fun, if only in short bursts. However, like a lot of rage games that lean on cluttered environments and questionably poor design choices, it does have its drawbacks. And when I say drawbacks I mean, barbaric obstacle courses and ludicrously tough environmental curveballs. But that’s to be expected, to be fair.

Let it be said that, while Egging On is a bit of a pain in the backside to beat, it is one that supplies some great breadcrumbs for you to follow en route to the final stretch of its relatively short journey. For example, the level design is great, albeit a nightmare to tackle as, you know, an egg. Moreover, there are some fantastic obstacles to overcome, too, including an entire multi-layer chicken coop, an object-heavy backyard, and the inner workings of an frosty appliance. With all of that, let it be known that, campaign-wise, there is plenty of bang for your buck here. And yes, that was an awful pun.

Verdict

If I can ignore the bulging veins in my forehead and take a well-needed breather, I should be able to find it in my heart to give Egging On a firm but fair review. Don’t get me wrong, I am flabbergasted—no, fuming about its mere existence. Yet, once I breeze over the emotional turmoil that is actively driving me to the brink of a meltdown, I can think of a few good reasons as to why you should also give Egging On a crack.

Suffice it to say, Egging On isn’t a rage game that you would necessarily turn to for a quick blowout. Rather, it’s a game that you typically love to hate, and with that, one that you need the patience of a saint to muster up the mental energy to beat. It isn’t even all that rewarding, either. Yet, it’s a bit like most rage games à la Getting Over It, in that you don’t play it to reap the in-game benefits, but to unlock bragging rights over your peers. And that’s all that this is: a challenge that, if beaten, can elevate your ego.

Of course, if you’re easily defeated and, more to the point, you lack the virtuous qualities of a patient user, then you will probably hate Egging On and just about everything that it stands for. If you’re all for the idea of watching yolk drizzle from an eggshell a thousand times over, however, then you might just have the skills needed to rustle up that ever-elusive omelette.

The omelette is a lie. There is no omelette.