Happy 50th expedition! We have a shorter journey this week. Floss would like to offer you an egg (or five) in this trying time.

The Bathysphere crew
Christian Donlan
Florence Smith Nicholls
Keith Stuart

Contact us at bathyspherecrew@gmail.com

Interesting things

I’ve started reading Uketsu’s latest book, Strange Buildings, and it might be his best. This volume contains stories about eleven houses, including illustrations of their floorpans and other epistolary details. I particularly like how each of the vignettes are interwoven, hinting at a wider and much more sinister tapestry of dark deeds. FSN

If you’re in London this Friday, then I recommend you check out the Carboot Casino at the V&A Late! You’ll have the chance to play a range of home-brew card games and potentially win a second-hand treasure in the process. FSN

Essay: (Not quite) half a dozen eggs

With Easter on the horizon, what better time to offer you some eggs that I enjoy in video games!

Slay the Spire 2

Let’s start with something new and flashy. Slay the Spire 2 recently came out and it features a fun new Quest card - the Byrdonis Egg. You can pick it up via a random encounter in an Event room, where you’ll have the choice to either eat the egg or take it and hatch it at a rest site. Obviously no one would ever actually eat the egg, of course. Anyway, if you do hatch it (spoilers) you’ll be rewarded with the Byrd Swoop card, and a delightfully lime green avian companion in battle.

Egg

Few games have such a single-minded elegance as Terry Cavanagh’s Egg. In this lo-fi platformer, you must embody a surprisingly durable egg across fraught landscapes. What does it mean to be an egg? To contain. To endure.

Arctic Eggs

There are so many games that contain eggs in different incarnations, but I had to include a game that involves actually cooking eggs. Arctic Eggs could be described as a dystopian cooling simulator with delicate frying pan mechanics. Set in late 21st century Antarctica, the player must cook for the hungry residents of their desolate city, including one who continues to ask if it's possible to fry eggs on the top of Mount Everest. 

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg

It would be bad form for me to play favourites, but if I had to pick the good-est egg on this list, it would be Billy Hatcher. I have very fond memories of playing this platformer on the Gamecube. One of the main mechanics involves you finding eggs and rolling them over fruit to feed them until they grow and can be hatched into mythical critter companions. As bizarre as the gameplay and visuals were, rolling the egg around was just so satisfying and tactile.

The Dizzy series

It would be remiss of me to discuss ludic eggs and not mention Dizzy, who is essentially video game royalty. Created by the Oliver twins, the games about the eponymous anthropomorphic egg Dizzy were popular in the 1980s and 90s. There are what seems like dozens, but I think the one with the best name is Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk. FSN