Where's an Egg

A renegade cop with nothing to lose and an egg on his mind.

Where's an Egg? box art. 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?

Instructions

The object of the game is to find an egg that one of the suspects is hiding. The task is a variation of 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. For example, if they give you information about an egg, you can ask them about an item and verify that the location or suspect with which they reply indeed corresponds to that item. If the answer they give is correct, then the location of an egg that they give is correct as well.

The above method can be modified by first asking about the first person or item you have seen, then if the suspect answers correctly, ask about an egg. Continue asking all the suspects the same question until you find a person who gives a correct answer and knows about an egg. If none are found, revisit your first person and ask about an egg. Then simply find the culprit and shoot them.

In some cases, a lying suspect may reveal themselves as such by giving the same answer for two different questions (e.g., suggesting that two different characters have a potted plant) or, due to a programming error, even answering with their own face when questioned about a different item.

Another strategy is to ask every suspect the location of an egg until you have two replies that agree. In that case, it is likely, though not certain, that the suspect they incriminate indeed has an egg.

In order to keep accurate track of which person matches which object, just quickly visit all of the locations before asking anyone a question. This will cause each person and their object to appear in the same order at the bottom of the screen. Once you have visited all locations, start asking each person where an egg is. Once you find someone who replies, figure out if they are a truth-teller or a liar by seeing if their responses properly match up people to their object. If they are a truth-teller, move on to asking about an egg. If they tell the truth, you know who has an egg.

One haphazard strategy is to randomly shoot three people. This gives a one in three chance of winning, with no real effort.

Suspects, locations, and items

Suspects, locations, and items are randomly assigned for each game.

Suspects

Blonde woman	Blue hat man	Butcher	Butler
John McEnroe	Mechanic	Old Woman	Red-haired boy
Red hat man

Locations

Aquarium	Art museum	Bank	Beach
Bridge	City	Desert	Siberia
Park

Items

An egg	Beer	Bomb	Cat
Gym bag	Pencil	Potted plant	Slingshot
Strawberry	Wrench

Endings

Lose screen

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 Siberia wearing prison clothes and a ball-and-chain. He quickly turns into a skeleton.

Win screen

If you successfully reclaim an egg, a uniformed man (probably Stalin) awards you with a badge in front of what appears to be 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 [#Translations 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).
• 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, and at least one of the honest suspects will answer about an egg.
• 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 shoot a suspect, their theme song volume is lowered.
  • The victory music is all of the suspects' themes played on top of each other.
• Where's an Egg? is shown on a floppy disk in the introductions for strongbad email.exe Discs Three and Five.
• The movements of the cosmonaut match the beat of the victory song.

Remarks

Page 13 of the instruction manual

• 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.
• The game has a check to prevent liars from replying with their own picture, item, or location, but a programming error allows them to answer with their own picture when questioned about an item that isn't theirs, or the egg.

Glitches

• If you shoot the last bullet at the wrong person right before time is up, when the clock runs to 000, you will be presented with a win screen with the perpetrator sliding across the screen and the lose screen in Siberia. Then you are presented with a medal.

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.
• Mancuso is mentioned again.

Real-World References

• Boise is the capital city of the US state Idaho. Idaho is likely referenced because one of its northern cities is named Moscow, like the capital of the former USSR/Russia (where this game really seems to take place).
• 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.
  • The congratulation scene is reminiscent of the Game Boy and NES versions of Tetris (a game that is famous for having come out of Russia), in which the player was shown rocket and shuttle launches of spacecraft at the end of a game depending on how well the player did.
• Gameplay bears certain superficial similarities to the board game 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.

Fast Forward

• The Compé wallpaper in dictionary advertises a sequel to this game.
• As revealed in Poker Night at the Inventory, Where's an Egg? is the favorite game of Team Fortress 2's Heavy Weapons Guy; in his version of Russia, it is as big as Tetris.
• The game has been mentioned several times on @StrongBadActual:
  • On November 27, 2018, Strong Bad posted a crossover picture of Dangeresque and Where's an Egg?.
    • This same crossover would later be mentioned on December 21, 2020.
  • On January 14, 2021, Strong Bad pleaded for patience for those trying to play the game using Ruffle.
  • On July 6, 2021, Strong Bad featured the game music while posting a full play-through.

Translations

Location	Message	Transliteration	Translation	Notes
Loading screen	телевизионный электрический	televizzionniy elektricheskii	Videlectrix	Literally: "televisual electric". Electric video would be "Электрическое Видео" (Elektricheskoe Video). In fact, it's a mistranslation of "Electronic Videogame", thus the correct title in Russian would be "Электронная видеоигра" (Elektronnaya videoigra).
Title	Где – Яйцо?	Gde Yaitso?	Where's an egg?	Russian has no articles, 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 is most always dropped 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). Furthermore, in the game the last letter is mistakenly written as a capital "R" instead of the Cyrillic "г", which resembles a lowercase "r" and has a hard "g" sound.
When you discover who had an egg	виновник	vinovnik	criminal or guilty person or culprit	Criminal is actually Преступник (Prestupnik).
When you win the game	поздравление	pozdravlenie	congratulations	Although English speakers often use the noun "Congratulations," a Russian would just use "Победа" (Pobeda), translated as "Victory". The verb "I congratulate you with your victory" is very unlikely to be used in a real Russian video game.
	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). A grammatically correct version would read "игра закончена" (igra zakonchena), although in real games the words "Конец игры" (Konetz igry) (End of the game) and "Игра окончена" (Igra okonchena) (the game is over) are more likely to be used.

External Links

• play "Where's an Egg?"
• play "Where's an Egg?" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "Where's an Egg?"
• forum thread re: "Where's an Egg?"
• view the auction for the instructions

Videlectrix Games
Playable	50K Racewalker, Awexome Cross, Dangeresque Roomisode 1: Behind the Dangerdesque, Duck Guardian One, Duck Pond, Gel-Arshie's Pro Fruitboarder, Hallrunner, Kid Speedy, Limozeen's Hot Babelien Odyssey, Math Kickers, Peasant's Quest, Pigs on Head, Population: Tire, RhinoFeeder, Secret Collect., Snake Boxer 5, Space Circus Catastrophe, Stinkoman 20X6, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, StrongBadZone, TROGDOR!, Thy Dungeonman, Thy Dungeonman II, Thy Dungeonman 3, Where's an Egg?
Non-playable	Butcher Bros., C.H.E.A.T., Cheat Commandos Tactics, Dangeresque Roomisode 2, Duck Guardian 2, Fluffy Puff Mayonnaise Game, Halfathlon, King Dingo, Lewis Rudkin SX: england, Planet Alert!, QWERTY, Rabbit Algebra, Salad Daze, Shploitz!, Spaceshipper, Spirits of '76, Sundae Drivin', Trogdor: Let's Burninate Phonics