Runny Egg review

A scrambled experience

Review written by
Jeremy Kanjanapangka

February 6th, 2016

Runny Egg is a simple 2D momentum-based platformer, kind of like the classic Sonic games. It's got a light and cutesy art style, and it's very easy to pick up and play. The first level starts out pretty strong. You've got a bright and green landscape, the music is upbeat and cheery, and our little egg friend is sitting there waiting for your command.

You control the egg with the directional pad or the circle pad, B makes you jump, and the Y button makes you run when held down. I ran a couple feet in front of me, jumping here and there dodging some purple piranha plant-looking guys, when I noticed there was a path of clouds above and to the left of me. Here's where the first big design flaw came up - it's really hard to backtrack and go left! The camera in Runny Egg is always offset to the right a little bit, enabling you to see a little bit further... to the right only, unfortunately. When egg buddy - I'm going to call it that since it doesn't have a name - faces to the left, the camera remains in the offset position making it very difficult to see where you're going if you want to go backwards.

When I finally did get to the clouds, I jumped on them and fell right through. Perplexed, I made my way back up, and noticed a sign this time. It showed egg buddy performing some sort of spin dash, and I immediately tried to pull off the classic Sonic move. It didn't work, and I just continued through the level normally. After you beat a level, collectibles are tallied and any side-missions are checked, earning you egg points. You can spend egg points to upgrade egg buddy in three different ways: more health, more speed, or more defense.

"More health? Toughness?" Well, seeing that you're an EGG and all, an object not really known for its sturdiness, you got to adapt to survive! Egg buddy picks up momentum and speed when you hold down the run button or when you're going down slopes. Turns out, once you upgrade your speed a bit, going fast enough will make egg buddy start rolling as depicted in the sign, letting you travel across certain terrain... or clouds, for this matter. You have to be careful though, as colliding into platforms or walls will hurt! More health means you can take more of a beating and more toughness makes your shell harder to crack.

Each level has three difficulties to tackle, and two side-missions. The side-missions are always the same - one is to collect a certain amount of baby chicks, the coins or rings of this game, and the other is to beat the level under a certain time limit. Naturally, they go hand in hand, as you'll want to go slow for your first run to collect all of the chicks. This helps you scope out of the level, and through practice and rote memorization, you'll be able to pull off the speed-run mission. Pretty cool design here. However, the game seems to have only one level song. Get used to it, because you're going to hear it a lot! Also, from Stage 8 onwards, the game will begin to reuse themes and enemies from previous levels, making things feel kind of repetitive.

As you progress through the game, the levels get gradually longer and longer, which means bigger spaces to trek, bigger gaps to jump, and bigger enemies to dodge. That's when I realized that over half of the jumps I was making in this game were completely blind. Needless to say that is a big no-no in a platforming game! The platforms are just too big and far apart, and there are bottomless pits to boot. You can't see enough of what's ahead of you to be able to judge and react, and this is on top of the aforementioned problem about moving left. Also, remember that mechanic about going fast enough to roll? If you do end up rolling into a wall or obstacle - and you will many times on your first runs - egg buddy comes to a complete halt and the platforms are usually too awkward to build up speed again, requiring you to either backtrack or continue forward hoping the terrain evens out. Everything comes together in this slightly frustrating "stop'n'go" experience where you want to build up speed but there's just so many things in the way.

As you try to memorize the levels and play on the harder difficulties, you'll quickly notice that more and more enemies start to fill up the levels, which brings up an interesting quirk about Runny Egg - the recipe book. Every time you take damage in some unique fashion you'll unlock a new entry for the recipe book. It is exactly what it sounds like - a book full of egg-themed dishes. Each individual one is unlocked by taking damage from different enemies and environmental hazards, and some of them even match their unlock criteria. For example, you unlock the Soft Boiled egg recipe by taking damage from boiling water. It's a cute little distraction, but it doesn't actually serve any purpose gameplay-wise. Also for some reason the entries themselves aren't even actual recipes; they're just pictures of the dish with a silly little quote or joke on it. It would've been cool if Runny Egg was also an egg-themed cookbook!

Despite its questionable design choices and clunky level design, Runny Egg is a simple and fun distraction that's best served in short bursts. There's plenty of side missions for the completionists, but that's assuming the core gameplay clicks with them. The momentum-based platforming is far from the best and the levels could use some work, but for $2.99 USD it's a fun little egg romp.