a.k.a. Egg, Inc.

March 29, 2018 10:00 AM

Are any other mefites playing the stupid chicken game? Anyone want to join a co-op?

This is the game on android, iphone.

My co-op name is raptor-butts and I encourage you to join (help me!) but maybe when there's a fresh contract we can have a metafilter co-op?

posted by phunniemee to MetaFilter-Related at 10:00 AM (46 comments total)

I played it and then I stopped playing it, which is basically The Story Of Every Clicker. It was fun while it was fun, I can heartily endorse taking a short dalliance with it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:03 AM on March 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

I am playing it based on the recommendation of MeFites in my AskMe that Cortex never answered.

I ended up joining some Reddit co-ops for the first round of contracts, but I would happily join MeFi co-ops for future contracts. For big co-ops, just calling one Metafilter is probably sufficient, for smaller co-ops, the thing that seemed to work well initially Reddit was just having people try numbers in order Metafilter1, Metafilter2, etc -- when they find a number that isn't full, they join. When they find a number that doesn't exist, they create it. I feel like MeFi is enough smaller that this would work for us.

I was thinking of starting a thread like this, but wasn't sure if it was appropriate for MeTa. If we ever get video games in FanFare, this will obviously fit there, though.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:27 AM on March 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

you have to actually page me for paging to work

why do i even carry this pager
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:49 AM on March 29, 2018 [14 favorites]

it's what you farmed chickens on back before cell phones
posted by phunniemee at 11:22 AM on March 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

lol wuts a pager?

$20.00, same as in town.

Greetings. I am a time traveler from 1992. Anything interesting happening in 2018?
posted by bondcliff at 12:03 PM on March 29, 2018 [22 favorites]

I played this for a somewhat embarrassingly long time and got to a point where I couldn't really seem to make much progress (the dilithium egg, I think). I haven't upgraded my henhouses in weeks. I'm sorry, hens.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:04 PM on March 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I reinstalled it the other day so I think I need to work back up to whenever co-ops become a thing? But I would be interested whenever I get there.
posted by Stacey at 3:15 PM on March 29, 2018

I would love a new clicker game but there is no. way. I'm putting one on my phone.
posted by rhizome at 3:38 PM on March 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Greetings. I am a time traveler from 1992. Anything interesting happening in 2018?
posted by bondcliff at 3:03 PM on March 29

You'll love the computers and cell phones, and cars sort of drive themselves, but wait until you hear who's President.
posted by 4ster at 6:44 PM on March 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Speaking of jacquilynne's AskMe and clicker games in general, there are now only three active participants still clicking away in the "MetaFilter 2 Electric Boogaloo" Clan (we had to start another one when Kyle got too strong and broke the original one, don't ask) in the original Clicker Heroes game. It's now just three grumpy guys that spend three-four days getting their top hero up to speed, moving a little bit further along in all the metrics and then starting it all over again. Sometimes we complain about our mercenaries dying. If you're out there playing and want some company, send Kyle a message, I bet he'll let you join.
posted by yhbc at 9:34 PM on March 29, 2018

I have actual chickens, raising them in a game would be too much lol.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 9:53 PM on March 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

why do i even carry this pager

Time it is for you to look past a pile of old tech, mmm?
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:54 PM on March 29, 2018

Greetings. I am a time traveler from 1992. Anything interesting happening in 2018?
posted by bondcliff at 3:03 PM on March 29

DUDE YOU'RE SO LATE, I THOUGHT IT WAS OVER. IT'S WORSE THAN PREDICTED. ACTIVATE PLAN CHEETO FINGERS IMMEDIATELY. DROP THE PRODUCT IN LOCATION 47C BEFORE THEY POUR THE LAST CONCRETE.
posted by loquacious at 10:02 PM on March 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Wow, because SimCity BuildIt isn't enough of a time-suck. I'm wendyth on ios GameCenter for both city friends and chicken friends.
posted by bendy at 11:43 PM on March 29, 2018

I don't know anything about this chicken game, but remember the shark clicker game that was posted a couple of years ago? Well I made it my pregnancy project to get lots* of everything and have everything that goes up going up by lots/second.

*THe units go tens, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions, quintillions, sextillions, septillions, octillions, lots.

My baby is now 11 months old and I have lots of all the resources, obviuosly, and lots of all the animals, but the animals are only going up by septillians or octillians per second, not lots, and I only have sextillions of each reprodiuing animal. So every few days I buy more reproducing-animals (dolphin biologists, lobster berriers, etc.) I will get every number in that game turned to "lots" eventually. Maybe by the time my son graduates from high school.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:07 AM on March 30, 2018

but wait until you hear who's President.

Pretty awesome that 1992's first lady made it back into the Wh...dammit bondcliff, you didn't just break the timeline, you obliterated it. No more time travel for you.
posted by ambrosen at 4:19 AM on March 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

The enormity of—of their flat brain, the enormity of their stupidity is just overwhelming. You have to do yourself a favor, when you're out in the countryside and you see chicken, try to look a chicken in the eye with great intensity, and the intensity of stupidity that is looking back at you is just amazing. By the way, uh, it's very easy to hypnotize a chicken. Uh, they're very prone to hypnosis.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 4:32 AM on March 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Pretty awesome that 1992's first lady made it back into the Wh...dammit bondcliff, you didn't just break the timeline, you obliterated it. No more time travel for you.

"Kris... it's your cousin, Marvin Kross... you know that new sound you've been looking for?"
posted by bondcliff at 6:38 AM on March 30, 2018 [9 favorites]

So, since I’m a sucker for clicker games and they don’t make Stardew Valley for the iPhone, here I am. I’m only on the Superfood egg, though. I presume I have a while before co-op stuff kicks in?
posted by booksherpa at 6:46 AM on March 30, 2018

Sorry, no time to raise chickens. Still making those damn cookies.
posted by melgy at 10:39 AM on March 30, 2018

Ooh, I have just enough soul eggs. My tiny farm has joined raptor-butts!
posted by Akhu at 12:46 PM on March 30, 2018

Thanks a lot, phunniemee, I have now been completely sucked into this game. I'll look for a metafilter group when I have more soul eggs. In the meantime, I'll just continue worrying that the drug dealers who keep flying drones full of money around are going to show up to get it back sometime.
posted by Margalo Epps at 2:52 PM on March 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

I have no idea how these people got their paper clips wedged into their eggs, or why.
posted by komara at 8:46 PM on March 30, 2018

I quit this game before co-ops were a thing. Now I’m back. Hoo boy there goes some time. I joined your co-op now and I’ll look for the metafilter ones in the future.
posted by crazycanuck at 9:37 AM on March 31, 2018

I didn't even know you could do co-ops! I'll have to check on the state of my chicken-farm when I get home.
posted by sarcasticah at 12:55 PM on March 31, 2018

I mean eggs aren't as good as paperclips, but I'm in I guess.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:19 PM on March 31, 2018

This sounds extremely dumb, so of course I will sign up immediately.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:55 PM on March 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

I tried to join raptor-butts (as I am now able to do the contracts thing) but apparent it's expired. I like the idea of Metafilter1, Metafilter2, etc. and I guess I should go ask and see if anyone's started that.
posted by komara at 7:27 PM on April 1, 2018

and of course they have and I should have tried that before I commented but I am not a smart man and ALSO now I feel like I absolutely have to play this game otherwise I let Metafilter1 down. This is tough.
posted by komara at 7:37 PM on April 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

The Easter egg contract is still open for raptor-butts, I think for another day or two.
posted by mochapickle at 12:53 AM on April 2, 2018

I am currently dead weight in raptor-butts because I maxed out on chicken housing and would need 50 quintillion dollars to upgrade. Apologies to my fellow butts.
posted by Mavri at 7:36 AM on April 2, 2018

The metafilter Easter egg contract is open for three more days and has space for forty or so more people. (Don't even need to start a metafilter1 yet for Easter eggs.)
posted by Margalo Epps at 11:32 AM on April 2, 2018

welp. I'm hooked. When does prestige/soul eggs kick in?
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 2:17 PM on April 2, 2018

> I tried to join raptor-butts (as I am now able to do the contracts thing) but apparent it's expired.

> The Easter egg contract is still open for raptor-butts, I think for another day or two.

In hindsight I see what I did wrong - I was only trying raptor-butts for the Chocolate Egg contract, not Easter Egg.

> I am currently dead weight in raptor-butts

yeah I had to exit the contract after an hour - I'm like "I'm applying for a job tomorrow, I can't stay up all night just because I feel like I might let these folks down."

anyway I have a question or two, because I am not a pro at these maximization-clicker games.

1.) Is there any advantage to having more than one chicken housing unit open at a time? I always buy the unit that's the farthest down the street (leftmost) so that the chickens have longer to walk and therefore I get more time on my chickens-onscreen bonus. When I need more space I just upgrade that one. Are the multiple buildings just for the very end game?

2.) Same question, but for the fleet. Only at the very beginning of the game / prestige restart have I ever run out of shipping capacity. Why am I spending lab points to make my trucks go faster and expand my fleet slots when I don't need more of either of those things?

for the record I'm on Immortality Egg so if the answer is just "you're not far enough along, keep playing" I'm happy to accept that.
posted by komara at 6:39 PM on April 2, 2018

The more upgrades you have the higher your farm value, and high farm value is what earns you soul eggs and lets you level up to the next egg. Also a lot of the research adds mulipliers per coop and per vehicle.
posted by phunniemee at 7:20 PM on April 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

omg, I just discovered you can hold down several research buttons at once, using multiple fingers. Very handy when replaying the early stages.
posted by mbrubeck at 10:47 PM on April 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

1.) Is there any advantage to having more than one chicken housing unit open at a time? I always buy the unit that's the farthest down the street (leftmost) so that the chickens have longer to walk and therefore I get more time on my chickens-onscreen bonus. When I need more space I just upgrade that one. Are the multiple buildings just for the very end game?

When you have the internal hatcheries, you'll have more chickens/minute auto-hatching with more housing units. I always go for 4 units rather than saving up for one massive one. (I'm not sure if that's the optimal strategy though).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:25 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Is there any advantage to having more than one chicken housing unit open at a time?

Your housing counts as part of your farm value, so as many big houses as you can reasonably afford will up the total value by a surprising amount. The value of your farm, in turn, affects the amount you get for drones and videos. (Transportation does not have an affect on it and should be kept at a level only where you haven't run out when you've let the game idle for awhile.)
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:11 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

> The value of your farm, in turn, affects the amount you get for drones and videos.

Did I just miss that being actually stated somewhere? Or is this something that players have noticed and proven? These kind of games move so fast (for me, at least) that I would have never put that together.

> as many big houses as you can reasonably afford

I love the concept of 'as you can reasonably afford' in a game like this where in the span of five minutes my net income will have changed by an order of magnitude and those out-of-reach henhouses are now less than I make in a single second of idling.
posted by komara at 10:45 AM on April 4, 2018

I always thought that the drone drop amount depends on your per-egg value, not necessarily farm value - hence how later on in the game you can get $1 billion from a drone you shoot down before hatching a single egg.

I downloaded this game over the Easter weekend and oh god I've spent way too much time on these stupid chickens
posted by btfreek at 12:30 PM on April 4, 2018

The thing you do have at that point is a single shack, though, which I think technically does have a value even before you have any chickens. I just discovered this myself--it seems like the original contract's not there but there was a 'metafilter' so hey why not.
posted by Sequence at 12:42 PM on April 4, 2018

I’m still struggling to get enough prestige to get 500 soul eggs. How are you guys doing it? Is it because I refuse to pay IRL money for extra silos?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:43 AM on April 5, 2018

I get some via the Missions (checkbox icon), which can give you Soul Eggs. I've also Prestiged three times now, usually around the Fusion/Quantum/Immortality level, getting ~200-250 each time (I have 795 total).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:47 AM on April 5, 2018

Is it because I refuse to pay IRL money for extra silos?

Oh, and I've never paid for extra silos, although I do check back on the game fairly frequently.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:52 AM on April 5, 2018

I'm stuck trying to get past the freakin' Tachyon egg and have been entertaining myself through the lower levels (because I keep losing patience and Prestige-ing) playing a game of "how far can I advance with one (1) single chicken on my farm?" Somehow I find it hilarious to picture my single chicken living a solitary life inside its giant mansion, a semi-trailer arriving every minute to pick up its single egg cargo...
posted by btfreek at 2:16 PM on April 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

> The value of your farm, in turn, affects the amount you get for drones and videos.

Did I just miss that being actually stated somewhere? Or is this something that players have noticed and proven? These kind of games move so fast (for me, at least) that I would have never put that together.

I got it from this reddit post. I confirmed in play that house size matters more than it should and can frequently get me up to a new level fast on replays.
posted by Margalo Epps at 8:10 AM on April 7, 2018