In general I wouldn’t consider myself to the biggest fan of driving/racing games. I don’t mind the genre, but I wouldn’t consider it to be one of my favorites. Straight racing games with no other twists I just don’t find to be all that interesting. My favorite racing games take the typical driving mechanics and add some sort of twist. This is the main thing that intrigued me about Eggcelerate!. A racing game where you have to balance an egg on the top of your car while driving? How could I not be at least a little intrigued? Eggcelerate! is on the short and simple side, but it is a silly fun game that is more enjoyable than you may initially expect.
The premise behind Eggcelerate! is kind of silly. In the game you are tasked with delivering an Easter egg to its final destination. That seems simple. Two things complicate that mission though. First for some reason you are transporting the eggs in a basket strapped to the top of your car instead of just having it inside the car. Second there are a lot of obstacles standing between you and the destination. Can you get the eggs to the destinations in one piece?
In a lot of ways Eggcelerate! plays like your typical driving/racing game. You steer with the analog stick, one trigger button accelerates your car, and the other trigger button brakes/puts your car into reverse. The game features a number of different cars, but they all control mostly the same. You drive around the tracks trying to reach the finish line while jumping over bumps and avoiding various obstacles that get in your way.
Where the game differentiates itself is the fact that you have an egg sitting on the top of your car. The egg rolls around the basket that it is sitting in like an egg would in real life. Speed up or slam on the breaks too much and the egg will fly out the front or back of the basket. Turn too quickly or hit an obstacle and it can easily slide off one of the sides. Even jumping over hills presents problems as the egg will launch into the air. You can try to catch the egg if it leaves the basket, but once it hits the ground or another obstacle, you will have to restart the level from the very beginning.
The main reason why I was intrigued by Eggcelerate! was the premise of trying to balance an egg on a car while driving. In practice the game is basically what I expected it to be. The premise is silly and some people will think it is kind of stupid, but I actually had quite a bit of fun playing the game. Trying to keep an egg balanced on the top of your car brings an interesting new challenge to driving. Every turn you make and even speeding up or breaking needs to be done carefully or the egg will fall off your car. You can play recklessly zooming around the courses, but good luck keeping your egg on your car for more than a couple seconds. The game will basically transform into a juggling game as you try to position your car under the egg for it to land back in the basket. I will admit that it is quite satisfying when you can save an egg that is about to fall off or you catch a flying egg. Generally you are probably better off driving carefully though.
As driving carefully is likely to keep the egg safer, you might decide to try and drive as slow as possible. The catch is that all of the levels are timed. Technically you can beat the level in any amount of time and move onto the next stage. Each stage has a recommended time to beat though which will unlock the achievement for that stage. Each level also has the best time recorded by the developer for you to try and beat as well. As you have to rush to make the destination in time, you need to take some risks as you go around corners quicker or get closer to obstacles than you would like. While it can sometimes be a little frustrating losing your egg in the same location over and over again, this adds quite a bit to the game. Having to rush adds more excitement to the game and keeps it interesting as it otherwise might have become a little repetitive.
Speaking of difficulty I don’t know exactly how I would classify Eggcelerate!. I wouldn’t consider it particularly difficult, but not easy either. It mostly depends on what you want to accomplish. If you just want to beat the levels, it will be quite easy as you can just drive really slowly and cautiously. If you take the levels really cautiously, there are only a couple that may take more than a handful of attempts to complete. If you want to beat the recommend times you likely will fail quite a bit more. I would say that a decent amount of the levels you should beat the recommended time within ten or so attempts. There are the occasional levels that can be quite difficult where you will lose a lot of eggs in the exact same area each attempt. In particular there are two levels near the end where I lost count of how many eggs I broke. Some of the levels require a lot of trial and error, but I never found it to go too far where it becomes frustrating. This is mostly due to the game’s overall silliness and the fact that the levels are so short that you don’t lose much progress when you break an egg. I would say that the game is easy enough for kids to play, but they might have trouble beating some of the levels.
It is kind of hard to describe exactly why, but I enjoyed playing Eggcelerate!. The premise is silly and kind of simplistic, but it just works for some reason. If the premise intrigues you I think you will enjoy Eggcelerate!. I know the game won’t be for everyone though. If the premise doesn’t intrigue you, I don’t see it being the game for you. The game is pretty silly as it isn’t trying to be serious. The game is pretty simplistic as well. Outside of different courses to drive on and obstacles to overcome, there is no difference in the gameplay between the first and last stage. This is not necessarily a bad thing especially for those who enjoy the gameplay. I see this becoming repetitive for some players though.
Other than that, probably the biggest problem with Eggcelerate! is just that it isn’t a very long game. The game includes 30 total levels. The levels aren’t particularly long as the time to beat for most of them is between 15-30 seconds. Outside of rare instances you likely will fail at least a couple of times before completing a level though. There are also some levels that can be quite challenging where you will die quite a bit before being able to finish it. I can’t give an exact length due to how much you are invested in beating the best times, but I have reached the end of the game and it has taken me around 2-2.5 hours. I have probably beaten the recommended times on about 80-90% of the stages. The game is not particularly long, but at the game’s retail price of $8 the length is not terrible.
Heading into Eggcelerate! I was intrigued by the game’s premise. A driving game where you need to try and balance an egg on the top of your car? I was interested as I always like when a game actually tries something new. I wouldn’t say the game is particularly deep, but I found it to be pretty enjoyable. For some reason it is satisfying trying to balance an egg on the top of a car. You need to drive carefully as any sudden movement will make the egg fly off your car. I would say the game is moderately difficult as some levels are pretty easy while others can be challenging. Honestly the biggest issue I had with the game is that it can be pretty short as it only has 30 levels.
My recommendation for Eggcelerate! comes down to your feelings on the game’s premise. Does trying to balance an egg on the top of a car sound interesting to you? If not I doubt the game will be for you. Those who think the premise sounds interesting though should have fun and consider picking up Eggcelerate!.
Buy Eggcelerate! online: Steam
We at Geeky Hobbies would like to thank Tim Beaudet for the review copy of Eggcelerate! used for this review. Other than receiving a free copy of the game to review, we at Geeky Hobbies received no other compensation for this review. Receiving the review copy for free had no impact on the content of this review or the final score.