Its been a year since the initial Jam version of Arctic Eggs was released, and I just wanted to take a moment and reflect on it as the jam version is a really interesting piece of the games history, and obviously the thing that got the whole ball rolling. For those unfamiliar, a game jam is a contest where developers sign up to create a complete game within a set time frame. Arctic Eggs was made during The Big Mode Game Jam, a two-week-long event hosted by YouTuber Dunkey. Looking back, Im still amazed by the support Arctic Eggs received during the jam. I vividly remember the week after the game dropped all my free time was spent just watching every new play through I could find. While the gameplay kept people engaged, what surprised me most was how much the small bits of writing resonated with players. Seeing how people connected with this little slice of a world was incredibly inspiring, and watching so many playthroughs gave me valuable insight into what worked and what could be improved.

WASD Pan movement

So probably the first change that got made was I removed was the ability to use WASD to slightly adjust the pan's position. In fact I removed it while watching Dunkey play the game on his stream. If you're curious why, just watch. [previewyoutube=g1ZMd6_qXlo;full][/previewyoutube] Obviously seeing him struggle with the game like this was incredibly disheartening at the time. I initially thought the feature was a helpful way to ease the difficulty by allowing players to correct imperfect flips. However, I quickly realized it muddied the games core mechanics. The game is designed around flipping and tilting the pan as the primary tools, and adding WASD control diluted that focus. In a game with an unconventional control scheme, most players instinctively gravitated toward the simpler WASD inputs, and ignore the tilting mechanics entirely leading to more frustration than necessary.

The Story

All the way back in the jam version it is implied that the previous Poultry Peddler didn't last long, and you are just another in a long line of Poultry Peddlers. Because of this it made sense to me that the final version of the game wasn't just an expanded/polished version of the Jam version, but more of a continuation of this cycle of Poultry Peddlers coming and going. You can see this throughout the first area of the game (since that is all the jam version was) where conversations occasionally call back to conversations these same characters had not too long ago with the previous Poultry Peddler of the Jam version. Here are just a few examples: Curtain Guy This solider believes the last poultry peddler was jealous of the curtains he mentioned in the jam version, which drove him to run away.
Demoted Guy This guy was originally the person who gave you the egg tutorial in the beginning, but he was demoted because the last Poultry Peddler escaped
The Pilot The Pilot was the original way you ended the game in the jam version, once you fed all the people on the rooftops, you would have enough money to pay him for a ride out. Since you and him escaped in the jam version, he is no where to be found in the final. I didn't have the heart to take away his spot though so all that is left is just a nice view of the roofs.

Ingredient Changes

In the jam version there was only the rooftops, so the only ingredients in game were the Eggs, Bacon, Sardines, Sausages, and Cigarettes. All of them received small tweaks, mainly related to their cook times. For example I think in the final version eggs take about 6-8 seconds to cook, whereas in the jam version it was maybe 10-12 seconds. The biggest change however came with the sardines. I was never super happy with them in the jam version, they were very static and didn't really read as fish, just cubes with a fish model slapped on them, so they almost got scrapped. But after giving them some rag doll physics I quickly fell in love with them again. The extra flop really helps give the impression they are organic and consumable. I love watching them.
Fun fact in the bar in the game there is a sardine + beer challenge where the sardines actually are alive and able to jump around on there own, the only instance of this in the game. My thinking behind this was the beer brought them back to life.

Visual Changes

So visually the game did not change too much since the jam version, In all honesty I was very scared when touching anything in regards to layout/visuals, since I didn't want to fix what wasn't broken. The main thing I updated was the lighting. Since I had so much time In comparison to the jam version I could really make sure each challenge was well lit. I also added a dithering filter to everything, but that was just because I played Buckshot Roulette and thought it looked cool.

Difficulty Changes

So the game is hard but it used to be worse. The frying pan in the original jam version had a much lower rim, basically nothing at all. It closely resembles the hard mode pan in the final game.
This actually did not get changed until probably 2 or 3 weeks before the launch of the final game. You can actually see in most of the screenshots for the store page that it uses the old frying pan model. Looking back on it this was a very risky change to make so late in development, especially since the shape of the frying pan is so fundamental to the difficulty of the game and at that point we already did all our play tests. The reason I think I was willing to take the risk of easing the games difficulty by raising the rim so late in development is because I realized I really wanted people to finish the game and experience its worldnot just wrestle with its mechanics. I dont define Arctic Eggs as a rage game like a lot of people seem to. Classic rage games like Getting Over It or Only Up feel more like tests of will than stories. The worlds are designed to service a mechanic and usually nothing further. They are designed so that finishing isnt necessary to understand the experiencethe struggle is the point, exploring frustration, persistence, and acceptance of failure. With Arctic Eggs, the struggle was never the pointyou can never lose progress and it was designed so if a challenge is too much, you can just skip it. The difficulty was an unintended result of a weird journey through a world I hoped players could explore, connect with, and find meaning in. I am glad so many of you did.

Slightly Different Ending

It was always my thinking that the final challenge of the game would be frying one singular egg for full circle/look how far you come blah blah reasons and with the final releases addition of the Saint Of Six Stomachs this "final egg" moment worked really well in that context, especially since just before that you were frying more eggs than realistically fit in your pan. But in the jam version there was no Saint so the only place that made sense to have this final egg challenge was on Mount Everest.
I remember not being entirely satisfied with that ending, as the logic behind the question was never the point and having the player test it out verbatim kinda simplifies the whole experience in my mind. But still, if you really want to know if you can fry an egg on top of Mount Everest, the answer is in the jam version.

Thank you!

There was a lot of smaller things that got tweaked, like group conversations, camera movements, etc. But I think these were the main ones. If you enjoyed the game, I hope this look back has been interesting. Im incredibly grateful for all the support Arctic Eggs has received since the very beginning. This journey has solidified my love for making games and, I think, changed the trajectory of my life. I hope you stick around for whatever game comes next.

[ 2024-12-16 16:44:19 CET ] [ Original post ]