As someone who has spent many academic hours studying human behavior I could write pages explaining why humans like slot machines. Or, I could just say, “They are really fun – particularly when you win!” Egg Breaker, a nifty little title on Facebook which has held my attention since November, curbs all of my slot machine impulses. Ok, well, most of them.
As someone who has spent many academic hours studying human behavior I could write pages explaining why humans like slot machines. Or, I could just say, “They are really fun – particularly when you win!” Egg Breaker, a nifty little title on Facebook which has held my attention since November, curbs all of my slot machine impulses. Ok, well, most of them.
The game is exactly what it sounds like – you break eggs. You do so with a hammer. Tap. Crack. Tap, tap. Crack. Tap, tap tap. Crack. That last one that took three hammer hits was a golden egg, but I’ll get to that soon enough. Assuming one could break open eggs with a hammer this might be something to do with confetti eggs but in my mind: Hammer + Egg = lots of shells everywhere. Oh, yes, back to the game.
You begin Egg Breaker with a daily allotment of 40 base hammers and 3 eggs per round on Level One. Break two eggs of three and see what you win. Simple enough. Prizes range from nothing (seriously, nothing) to feathers, multipliers, gold or collectable prizes. Gold and Score accumulate as you play. Your score is roughly equal to double your gold; however you to receive score for items such as multipliers and feathers so take that as a rough estimate only.
Moving up a level is a matter of reaching a certain score. Using your initial 40 hammers from day one, you can easily make level three – if you buy additional hammers. I hear you out there all you Doubting Thomases and Tanyas. “Aha! I’ve found where I have to spend money!” Aha, no you don’t. The gold you earn can be redeemed for up to 100 additional hammers per day. Day one: 140 hammers. Now, how to increase that?
Assuming you’ve made it to Level Three you’ll find yourself breaking 4 eggs out of 7. (If breaking one egg at a time gets tedious there is a lighting button that breaks random eggs really quickly.) A nifty part of the game is the Hammer Gift Bags. You can give a Bag of Hammers to one friend each day you play – and 20 hammers at that! Get a friend to play and now you’ve got 160 hammers. But wait, there’s more…
Playing contiguous days earns you additional hammers – 5 for each day up to 20 days. So, 20 days in a row earns an additional 100 hammers. Beware, if you break that streak for more than a day it resets. Ok… so, 40 base hammers, 100 bought with the gold you earn and 100 for playing 20 days… not too shabby. I’m sure you’re asking, “Yeah, so I’m breaking eggs why?” For the prizes!
Levels have collections of prizes; some have one collection with ten prizes, others have 8 collections with 4-15 items. Most collectables are obtained by breaking eggs. Some must be bought using gold and by Level Eight – where I am – they can get expensive! Others can only be obtained from a Gold Egg. *starts having flashbacks to Willy Wonka and Veruca Salt*
Gold Eggs require that you strike the egg three times with a guarantee that it won’t be empty. Of course, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to get what you want either. Sometimes it’s a multiplier; others it’s a star piece; often you receive a larger than usual pile of gold. The multipliers I keep mentioning can be used on the Gold Eggs as well. Until you reach the higher levels of the game, you’ll receive a X2 multiplier periodically. Some amazing payoffs can be had by saving the multipliers as each is cumulative to the one before. So, four X2 multipliers in a row will garner you a X8 multiplier… and…
A Lucky Multipliers Award! There are approximately 30 standard awards currently available with additional awards each time a unique holiday collection is introduced. The Lucky Multiplier Reward will increase the chance of receiving a multiplier by 1%. By ‘winning’ eight nothings in a row you’ll be awarded the Lucky Nothings Trophy – thankfully, this reduces the chance of receiving nothings by 3%.
As you complete your collections for each level you’ll receive Stage trophies: each grants 20 additional hammers per day up to 100 base hammers. For collecting prizes there are additional awards which increase the chance of receiving a Gold Egg. And (yes, there’s more!) there are the Givers Trophies. These are awarded for giving out sacks of hammers. Once you’ve given out your first 250 hammers you’ll be awarded a second bag so you don’t have to choose between favorite friends. Later, hammers will be added to each bag, then more bags, then more hammers and on.
In addition to the above are Silver Eggs – these take 2 hits and double whatever is inside. They are also the only egg that may contain hammers; they can also contain nothing and 2X nothing is still nothing. Map pieces are a unique collectable that resets every week. Each map has nine pieces and there are currently 11 map items to collecting. Finding all nine pieces before the week resets is not easy.
Stars have proved helpful in my pursuit to finish sets. As you smash your eggs you’ll find Star Pieces – one side of a five-sided star. (Nothing is more cool than using a X200 multiplier on an egg that has a Star Piece!) When you use a star, your hammers are left untouched and starfall rains down on your eggs smashing every single one. Woohoo! I like it when I can break a Gold and Silver Egg in one fell swoop.
Finishing the collections for levels can be… tedious at times. I easily collected all of the first four levels and had nearly finished levels six and seven but level five proved to be difficult for me. I simply could not find the final three pieces! To help alleviate this frustration, feathers were recently introduced. Each level has its own unique crystal feather. Crystal feathers can be used to by one of four items: multipliers, complete stars, more hammers, or Gold Egg prizes. The number of feathers per prize increases with the level (as you’ll be hitting more eggs with each level.) You can also exchange feathers from one level to another on a 2:1 basis if you find yourself trying to earn Gold on Level 8 to buy prizes but needing feathers on Level 3 for that final Gold Egg prize.
Blue eggs were introduced just this week and thought they require a bit of tweaking they’re a lot of fun. Think of them as buffs. A Blue Egg requires 4 hits with the hammer but the rewards can be quite helpful as they vary from ‘No Nothings for the Next 25 Eggs’ to ‘X4 Multiplier on the Next 10 Eggs’. They stack and can be moved from level to level. The only bummer is you can’t use the multipliers you have to increase them.
The holidays have brought Halloween, Thanksgiving and Winter collectable sets. Each had rewards that increased your base hammers for finishing and for nearly finishing. Winter was especially fun as we not only had a holiday set to collect but all of the Nothings were replaced with Snowflakes. Using said snowflakes we could purchase multipliers, stars, hammers or the winter collectables.
Of particular fun were Presents. Using Gold, presents could be purchased for 100-100k Gold. Each contained a number of hammers, multipliers and stars. The number of presents one could give each day was equal to your level. Just recently the results from the Winter events were posted: Over 1,000,000 presents were sent, costing players more than 22 billion gold total; these presents contained over 23 million hammers, 3.7 million stars, and more than 13 million multipliers; over 105 million snowflakes were collected, 97% of which were spent before the event ended.
A Valentine’s Event has been promised as well as a way to integrate presents back into the game. I haven’t bought Gold, yet. But, like playing the slots, my patience will only last so long before I have to get a few more hammers so I can get past Level Eight or gift some great Valentine’s Presents or just Break some more Eggs.
