Jogado como parte do Backloggd Discord Game of the Week

Hm, não sei bem como classificar isso daqui. É um jogo bem esquisitão, do tipo que grita "JAPÃO". Uma mistura louca de Qix e city-building com estética anime pós-Evangelion.

Acho que eu apreciaria mais o game se entendesse melhor o que estava acontecendo, mas infelizmente ainda não estudei japonês o suficiente para conseguir lidar com a barreira linguística, mesmo fazendo uso de vários recursos como dicionários e tradutores. Sendo assim sinto que meu contato foi um tanto quanto incompleto, mais como uma curiosidade estética do que uma experiência lúdica. Talvez eu volte para essa obra inusitada no futuro, mas por enquanto fica só a consideração de que "é, os japoneses faziam umas coisas doidas nos 1990".

2023, The Year of the Rabbit; a year of terrible significance. In the great country of Eggstonia, an undercooked scramble was beginning......

Orange Julius, the emperor walks up the stairs to the Curia of Poinpy as he hails his colleagues. A bearded eggish soothsayer approaches and speaks to Julius, "beware the ides of starch...."; they quickly leave much to Julius' confusion.

Suddenly, from behind Brutus and Cassius draw out their egg beaters and plunge them deep into the back of Julius' eggshell, yolk spills out onto the stairs as yellow becomes it's new coat of paint.

"Egg tu, Brute!?"

Orange Julius has been beaten to death. Chaos ensues, the country of Eggstonia now in political ruin; giant rolling siege weapons in the form of what would be the chicken become a common sight of what formerly was the peaceful sunny side of Eggstonia. Cities smashed underegg by these terrible Easter Sunday monoliths of death as warring empires look only to expand their territories without a worry for the common cackleberry.

"Omelette du fromage...." they sang in hopes that the goddess Midnerva would protect their battered shells from continued damage as the oval-shaped monstrosities roll over their once fair cities. Flattened, beaten, scrambled, fried; the once great country of Eggstonia now nothing but a destroyed mess of protein and healthy calories. Breakfast will be served, but not to anyone in Eggstonia....

camera tilts upwards revealing the narrator and true mastermind behind it all...

...Time to eat.

stabs the camera with fork

chews and swallows a bite and begins the real review

Not really my cup of tea, but if anything it does perfectly represent one of the many reasons why the PS1 has my favorite library of any system; experimentation hitting peak levels of bizarre. I thought about playing Power Shovel quick, but I think I gaslit Detchibe enough with the Game & Watch title a bit ago.

continues eating scrambled eggs

Its a weird thought to have, but about halfway through my play session of egg a thought entered my head - "how long is inbetween each turn?" Is the game real time, or do the machinations of these egg gods fighting it out take place over eons, their civilisations living their lives under the shadows of the eggs, that only move occasionally to distribute destruction and bountiful life all the same?

Of course, there is no answer and it's not important really. But I bring it up because this weird-ass strategy golf-god game about eggs legitimately wormed quite deep into my head. As you knock your egg, raising and destroying huge cities as lovely music plays on weird abstract playfield, there's just the right amount of time left for you to think, the gameplay is just the right pace, for the ambience to really get to you - in my experience at least.

And the aesthetic here is just great. There's your obligatory excellent 1990s pre-rendered CGs which go hard as hell and are particularly fitting, but the sprite art is also excellent, particularly the remarkable amount of effort that's gone into giving the various stages of your civilisation different animated sprites, which really makes it feel alive.

And the end result is a bit unnerving, which I think is the point. I know it's a bizzare comparison to make but it reminds me a lot of Flower, Sun and Rain in how it makes and treats a semi-real bizzaro logic world, and how it gets the mind racing. It's hard to make much of a statement on an art piece that people are going to take very different things away from, but I just really like this kinda shit.

Also in the ultimate plot twist, its actualy a pretty good strategy game? The combination of golf, city building and conquest with a fucking egg actually works really well. The key really in my opinion is that there's a good number of different win conditions which overlap with each other just enough, and are generally enough in reach at any one point to make for frankly, really interesting gameplay. And the egg golf itself is just a thing of genius - I think without it the game's strategy could get too "worked out", but with the layer of chaos that comes with smashing eggs all over the place mistakes and misjudgements are inevitably made, and capitalising off them and changing your plans on the fly is where the gameplay really shines.

It is too slow, the mission mode is shite and the enemy AI isn't great, but it's still a pretty great time for what it is. I think the main thing i'd change is making either the maps smaller or making the egg shots a bit more powerful, because things can really get drawn out if you allow them to - but honestly with a bit of adjustment would make an absolutely fantastic board game.

Perhaps the most baffling thing about Egg then, is how cohesive it all is. There are frankly, plenty of cool as hell aesthetic games of this era which are captivating on a conceptual or visual level, but the gameplay in Egg turns out a perfect compliment as something to get the mind racing. It's engaging and honestly fun, but also fundementally extremely simple, and it just makes it oh so easy to immerse oneself in it, get in the headspace it feels like the devs want you in - at least in my experience.

It is a very limited work, granted. Exceptionally cool and well worth a look, but it's hard to imagine this truly captivating anyone for too long, and it's more of a thought provoker than something that will truly linger in the mind, but for what it is, it's an exceptionally cool time, and well worth the sub-hour it really takes to get the whole gist of it all.

The egg can create. The egg can destroy. The struggle of egg never ceases. is also peak tagline, and also honestly represents the game quite well.