The Remote Dystopian Comforts of Arctic Eggs
Can you fry an egg on top of Mount Everest?
“I want to replace the roads with some sort of non-Newtonian fluid,” says a woman draped in a blanket, who is wearing mittens and dancing in the middle of a night club. “Think about it. If you drive too slow, you fucking sink.” These are not words I thought I’d hear before firing up Arctic Eggs, a physics-based egg frying simulator set in a near-future dystopian society which has outlawed chickens. I’m not sure what I expected, but it sure wasn’t any of this. After playing for a few minutes, however, nothing that happened across its 2ish hour runtime felt out of place. Arctic Eggs quickly establishes its absurdity, both in tone and premise.
It’s worth noting the frying doesn’t stop at eggs, either. I want avoid too much gameplay talk here, but I do want to mention that I found the frying mechanics to be quite engaging. The frying pan is bound to the mouse, and most of the gameplay feels like carefully threading a needle; mindful movements paired with the strategic flicking of your wrists to fully cook eggs and other, much stranger items. Discovering how each of these items modify the frying experience is part of the fun. I don’t want to spoil what they are exactly or how they impact the delicate physical balancing act, but I do want to note: it’s good stuff, and there are even challenges in the sandbox mode that you unlock after completing the game that will really test your mettle. Anyway, back to it.
You play as the Poultry Prepper, a possible cyborg whose crime has landed them in captivity. The game opens in dark room, walls lined with chickens in solitary cages. An armed soldier tells you that your “main functions have been stripped”, your mobility reduced to walking and frying. The crime? You tried to “escape last time”. Hm - last time? He asks you to cook him an egg, and then sends you out into the cold to feed others. That’s the beginning and end of the exposition. You cannot run, jump, or really do anything save for slowly approach the citizens of this strange city block, hopeful that they may be hungry or have something insightful to say. Feed enough of them, and you may be granted an audience with the Saint of Six Stomachs and given an opportunity to leave. The last Poultry Prepper didn’t last long, so the expectations for your tenure are minimal. You may be thinking something like, “Wait, isn’t cooking eggs illegal? Why would this Poultry Prepper position exist as a legal penalty in a society which has outlawed chickens?” I came to think of it like prohibition in the US: taking legal action against boozers had economic and political benefits, but even the lawmakers had to get their booze somewhere. You get popped for frying eggs, and all of a sudden you’re the personal egg chef for policemen and high-ranking government officials. The truth is, though, I still don’t know for sure. The narrative breadcrumbs are there, but they are submerged by a steady drip of pleasantly daft monologues that often teeter on the edge of profundity.
The game’s setting is bleak; towering concrete tenements connected by plain, wrought-iron walkways stand under a dull purple haze that blankets the sky. In one direction, a few other buildings fade quickly into a dense fog. In the other, a giant cylindrical tower stretches infinitely upward. Snow falls lazily from above, and the whistle of the wind is persistent and oppressive. Looking up, the tower seems to feed directly into a source of blinding light. Perhaps this is the sun, though most of its light does not reach us down here. There is an eerie isolation to it, a remoteness that feels beyond even the gaze of gods. Visibility is low, and I get the sense that there isn’t much that sets day apart from night in this place. Many of its inhabitants have cybernetic body modifications, ranging from what appear to be assistive respiratory devices to entirely synthetic heads. In a later area, you meet several characters without heads at all, only a robotic spinal cord sticking out of the stubs of their necks. They have no trouble speaking to you anyway. Oh, and there are armed soldiers everywhere.
The implications of this environment are as grim as they are absurd: an authoritarian stratocracy, a singularity event, widespread environmental crisis, and a ban on the most beloved of resources (chickens) in a near-future city governed by a six-stomached cyborg. Yet, all of the inhabitants of this harsh world seem to be doing…alright? That’s not to say that they all share the same disposition: some are cheery, some dejected, some upset or confused. Some of the characters that you cook for are dancing, and some are lying slumped in the corner. Some of them are even in prison. I often wondered what crimes the prisoners committed, as a criminal myself. I never found out, but it seems likely that they were chicken-related. Most all roads in Arctic Eggs lead back to chickens, and most everyone wants you to fry them an egg. Nearly every NPC is willing to talk to you, though, whether they need your frying services or not. At the least, they’ll pose the age-old question, “Can you fry an egg on top of Mount Everest?” In this cold, dark place, you find much warmth in the company of its people. Tenderness and empathy abound. There is a pervasive sense of togetherness that I have rarely felt in games.
There is a palpable humanity to the whole thing. Soldiers apologize for having to guard forbidden doorways, strangers speak warmly to one another at the bar. A fishmonger can barely stand to watch people eat his fish in front of him, having fallen out of love with his work. Folks mingle in the cool blue light of an open-air meat market. Each area features a different elevator tune, further bolstering the dream-like, liminal quality of these spaces to great effect. At one point, a patron at an outdoor watering hole is eager to tell you about a trick that they learned to perform with the napkins at restaurants. They end up shying away, slithering around on the ground like an eel out of water, and then sitting back up at the bar, solemn and ashamed. “Sorry, I thought I could tell you about it.” There are many such moments of mere human tragedy.
The world of Arctic Eggs feels drawn from the deep, a manifestation of real human isolation and longing, dripping with the need to express and connect. Immediately, I took comfort in this feeling. Its world is absurd, but it is the shared experience of that absurdity that open these characters up to connection. In the neon pink glow of the night club, a soldier, gun in hand, says, “Too many soldiers, honestly. Makes everything feel a bit too hostile.” This world, like ours, is one of irony and contradictions. We all suffer the consequences of the human endeavor, hopeful that one day we will together endeavor to suffer less.
That I have lingering questions after two playthroughs only befits the central conceit of Arctic Eggs. All of these people have questions with answers loftier than they can comprehend, if they are able to be answered at all. Who is breeding all of these chickens? Why is it that, looking down from the starting terrace, the ground is nowhere in sight, but just through that door over there is a dock surrounded by water? What is the mollusk-looking creature with the body of a barstool outside of the night club? Am I stuck in a time loop? Will anyone ever truly understand the forces that shape our world? Can you fry an egg on top of Mount Everest? I’m not sure, but I found solace in wondering.
Fantastic write up! This one’s been on my list for a while but now I’ve really got to play it.