Damn, this game is loud. There’s no better way to get to my nerves then a game which has a total disregard for volume control. The game in question is EggBlox for the iPhone/iPod touch. The premise of the game is simple, your chickens are all sitting on the wire above you (on why such a premise I can’t really comprehend), and they are laying eggs and pooping as well.

Your task is basically to run left or right with a wheelbarrow to catch the falling eggs, and avoid collecting the poop as well. Once the wheelbarrow is full, you drop the eggs off in a basket at the right end of the screen. Each level has a quota of eggs to be collected, and you’ll get paid for the eggs you collected. The pay can then be used buy stuff like chicken feed, more chickens and even a new farm.

In any case, the premise of the game sounds simple enough to the point it’s simply hard to believe the developers can screw it up so much. First up is the volume control. These chickens squawk every time they lay an egg and despite my best efforts to lower the volume via the side control buttons, it just simply doesn’t work. Let’s just say I embarrassed myself playing the game for the first time, and in public.

The game graphics and animation, while no doubt do their job, are pretty poor as well. And what’s this, and egg jutting out the side of the wheelbarrow?ย  Clipping and collision detection issues further mar the experience as I find myself asking “Hey, I thought I got that egg in?!” several times as the eggs missed the wheelbarrow right smack into the ground.

The Shop screen is pretty much a joke, you really won’t have an idea on how much money you have left, simply because there’s no way to tell how much your balance is. Eggblox is simply a lazy, sloppy implementation of a game, and considering that it was done by an outsourcing company which claims to be an industry veteran in iPhone app creation, this is just shameful. I can’t believe that they are even charging USD 1.99 for this game. I’ve seen way better stuff from indie developers.