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Home / Reviews / Apps and Games / App of the week: Egz review

App of the week: Egz review

Forget Angry Birds — in this prehistoric cartoon platformer, it’s time to fling some ‘Egz’ about the place.

It turns out all the clever people were wrong. What first emerged from primordial soup were Egz, jolly bipedal blobs that like nothing more than leaping about.

Unfortunately for the Egz, they were swiftly followed by an endless horde of fun-hating meanies intent on smashing any nearby Egz to pieces.

Hard boiled

Hard boiled

Fortunately, the Egz have you on their side. By dragging your finger and letting go, Angry Birds-style, you catapult one of these rotund heroes about, helping it dart from ledge to ledge. The aim, ostensibly, is to reach a pool of goop at each level’s end. But mostly, it’s about not dying — and dying is very easy when you’ve a fragile shell.

Egz‘ fast pace, bright colours and vaguely demented soundtrack give it a console-style urgency, but you also have to think about every jump you make. Land badly and your Egz cracks. Do that too many times and it’s not so much ‘the yolk’s on you’ as ‘the yolk’s all over the floor and OH NO MY EGZ IS DEAD’.

This is because, unlike Sonic, Mario and almost every other videogame hero, Egz don’t regenerate after a horrible death — they just rot in a tomb.

Do well at levels and you can use accumulated XP to give your Egz extra health, resistance and jumping powers (often by the power of hats), boosting their hopes of long-term survival. But a few reckless leaps can be all it needs to smash one to bits. At that point, you must hatch another (and build it up again), or gather 15 XP to bring a dead Egz back to life.

Scrambled Egz

Scrambled Egz

In theory, this is a really interesting and clever piece of game design. It adds a layer of strategy and forces players to think, rather than merrily fling Egz about without a care in the world. You also get a strong sense of achievement on reaching the goal with a perfectly intact Egz.

However, this game can be a bit too hostile in how it treats the player. Run out of time on a stage and your Egz instantly dies, whereas a replay button would be more appropriate; additionally, you’re further punished by losing three XP. You can at least quickly earn XP (and thereby revive your Egz) by playing previously completed levels with a new hatchling or messing around with three mini-games (a skipping rope; a mini rhythm-action outing; and a Fruit Ninja rip-off), but even so: HRNG.

Egz is otherwise a superb game. The level design is excellent and imaginative, regularly throwing new ideas into the mix. It also looks and sounds fantastic, and even the boss battles are fun. Only the XP issue and the resultant enforced grinding robs the game of our highest rating.

Egz is available for Android and iOS.

Stuff Says…

Score: 4/5

A great-looking platformer that’s huge fun to play, even if the XP system sometimes makes you want to smash up more than an Egz

Good Stuff

Excellent level design

Intuitive yet challenging

Looks and sounds superb

Bad Stuff

XP system can be hateful

Some bugs and freezes

Profile image of Craig Grannell Craig Grannell Contributor

About

I’m a regular contributor to Stuff magazine and Stuff.tv, covering apps, games, Apple kit, Android, Lego, retro gaming and other interesting oddities. I also pen opinion pieces when the editor lets me, getting all serious about accessibility and predicting when sentient AI smart cookware will take over the world, in a terrifying mix of Bake Off and Terminator.

Areas of expertise

Mobile apps and games, Macs, iOS and tvOS devices, Android, retro games, crowdfunding, design, how to fight off an enraged smart saucepan with a massive stick.

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