Where's an Egg?
From Homestar Runner Wiki
| Game Category: Videlectrix Game |
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Где – Яйцо?
"In this hard-bolied adventure game, you must help the Boise police force find a missing egg. Not in Mancuso's garage? Try Brodermaker's gymbag. Everyone's a suspect when 'Where's an Egg?' is the game that you are playing. And that's this game!!" -Videlectrix
Where's an Egg? is a game by Videlectrix.
Date: Monday, July 16, 2007
Page Title: Where's an Egg?
Contents |
Instructions
The object of the game is to find an egg that one of the suspects is hiding. The task is a variation on the Knights and Knaves puzzle, in which suspects either always lie or always tell the truth. After you think you know who or where an egg is, you go to that location and shoot the suspect, who will give up an egg if you have guessed correctly.
After clicking on the title screen, you are presented with several locations in a city. Clicking on the thumbnails will take you to those locations, at which you will encounter a suspect with an item. From the menu at the bottom of the screen, you can choose one of any of the items or suspects you've encountered. When you choose an item, the suspect will tell you the location where that item can be found or the suspect who has it. When you choose a suspect from your menu, the character on the screen will tell you where that suspect can be found or what item they have. Once again, they may or may not be telling the truth.
There are three other notable replies you may receive. If you ask a suspect about himself or about the items he carries, he will respond with a smiley face. If you ask a suspect about anything after shooting him, he will respond with a red cross. Also, if you ask a suspect about an egg and he replies with a question mark, he does not have any information about the location of an egg.
Strategy
Since a given suspect either always lies or always tells the truth, their reply about the location of an egg can be tested by asking them questions to which you know the answer. One way to utilize this strategy is to ask each person about the fist person and object you found. If the two anwsers are correct, ask them about the egg. Their answer is always correct. However, a person will sometimes display a ? over their head, indicating they do not know the location of the egg. In this case, a new subject is required.
Suspects, locations, and items
Suspects, locations, and items are randomly assigned for each game.
Suspects
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Locations
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Items
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Endings
If you run out of time or shoot three characters who do not have an egg, the game ends. The character who did have an egg is shown running with it through the area they were in, and the main character is shown in the icy mountains wearing prison clothes and a ball-and-chain. He quickly turns into a skeleton.
If you successfully shoot the character who has an egg, a uniformed man (probably Stalin) awards you with a badge in front of Lenin's Mausoleum. The screen pans up to the sky, where fireworks shoot off. If the game was completed with enough time left on the clock, different spaceships fly through the sky:
- 901–940 seconds left — one spaceship
- 941–970 seconds left — two spaceships
- 971 or more seconds left — three spaceships, the last of which is exited by a cosmonaut
Fun Facts
Trivia
- This game was released more than two and a half years after its description was featured on the Videlectrix website. The main page message announcing its release read: 'new' videlectrix game!
- The language used in the game is Russian, and is understandable to a native speaker, although there are various grammatical and stylistic errors (see Translation section).
- After shooting someone who does not have an egg, you can still question them and they will reply with the symbol for the Red Cross (indicating they require medical attention). The Red Cross has recently been trying to stop game creators from using their logo this way.
- In every game, there are either three or four suspects who tell the truth, and either three or four suspects who will give an answer when asked about an egg. Three is more common in both cases.
- Each suspect has a theme song that plays when you visit them.
- If a suspect talks about another person, that person's theme plays in the right speaker.
- If you ask about another person, that person's theme plays in the left speaker.
- If you kill a suspect, their theme song volume is lowered.
- The victory music is all of the suspects' themes played on top of each other.
Remarks
- A page of the manual was also made available at the same time as the game was released.
- Although the Videlectrix description suggests that an egg may be in "Mancuso's garage", a garage is not one of the locations in the game, although there is a mechanic.
Goofs
- For the first second of the game, the timer reads 000, when its true value is 999. One second later, it changes to 998. If you manage to win in that first second, it will read 999 on the victory screen.
- A programming error allows a liar to answer with their own picture when questioned about an item that isn't theirs.
Inside References
- This is another mention of eggs and alcohol.
- The main character wields a gun.
- All of the suspects lack visible arms.
- Some Type of Online Auction was previously used to sell a half-eaten breakfast burrito in english paper.
- The red-haired boy shares several features with both Kid Speedy and Ron Cumberdale from Peasant's Quest.
Real-World References
- Boise is the capital city of the US state Idaho.
- Brodermaker is a reference to video game company Brøderbund, makers of the Carmen Sandiego games.
- This game is also very similar, in some aspects, to the early Carmen Sandiego games.
- The music at the beginning of the game accompanying the Videlectrix logo is from the traditional Russian Song of the Volga Boatmen.
- The three spacecraft that fly across the screen in the ending sequence are Sputnik 1, Vostok 1, and Voskhod 2, commemorating three "firsts" of the Russian space program: the first artificial satellite, the first man in space, and the first spacewalk, respectively.
- Gameplay bears certain superficial similarities to the boardgame Clue, being a whodunit wherein a specific accusation must be formulated from a set of distinct suspects, items and locations.
- The scene where the main character is stuck in icy mountains with a ball and chain is a reference to the old Russian practice of exiling criminals to Siberia, which is a cold, mountainous region of Russia.
Translations
| Location | Message | Transliteration | Translation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading screen | телевизионный электрический | televizzionniy elektricheskii | Videlectrix | Literally: "televisual electric" |
| Title | Где – Яйцо? | Gde Yaitso? | Where's an egg? | Russian has no article, so it is impossible to make a distinction between "the egg" and "an egg" and the title could refer to either. The dash in the title is incorrect; such a dash is only used to separate a predicate from a noun phrase (an action from an object) instead of the present tense of the verb "to be", which does not exist in Russian. |
| Inscription above the columns of the gray building | берег | Bereg | Bank | The word has the sense of "riverbank", as opposed to a financial service institution, which would be "банк" (Bank). |
| When you discover who had an egg | виновник | vinovnik | criminal or guilty person | |
| When you win the game | поздравление | pozdravlenie | congratulations | |
| ЛЕНИН | LENIN | Lenin | An entrance to Lenin's Mausoleum | |
| When you lose | гулаг | gulag | Gulag | The name given to the Soviet labor camps |
| игра законченный | igra zakonchenniy | game over | This phrase is incorrect due to misuse of gender (nouns have genders in Russian). Grammatically correct phrase would read "игра закончена" (igra zakonchena). |
External Links
- Play Where's an Egg?
- Play Where's an Egg? (Flash file)
- View the auction for the instructions
- forum thread re: "Where's An Egg?"
