CRACK Preview: Don't Mess With the Egg!

2026 has turned out to be an especially good year for co-op games — and not just because of the "friendslop" titles flooding the popular launchers. We've also had a few large-scale session-based shooters, puzzle games built for joint playthroughs, and a dozen or so notable survival sandboxes, some of the brightest of which weren't even new releases, just games from previous years finally leaving early access. All in all, there's been little trouble finding something to spend an evening on with friends.

On October 26, CRACK joins that pile — a solo-developed indie project from a creator going by the handle Rafoli. On paper, it's a cooperative incremental game about constant progression in a thoroughly unusual setting: players take on the role of scientists at a secret laboratory trying to crack open a gigantic egg. As for what it's actually like in practice, that's what this piece is for — I got to play a pre-release build, and I'm happy to share the details about the upcoming release.

The setup is about as basic as it gets — I've essentially already summed it up in one line above. The only thing worth adding is that CRACK isn't in a hurry to get into the details: you come to in one of the lab's "boxes", and a robotic voice in the background demands you get started on your shift. That's it.

When the technical shutters separating the living quarters from the work area slide open, you're greeted with quite a sight: a massive egg that looks just like a chicken's. Though exactly how big would the chicken that laid it have to be?.. Either way, there's no one around to answer the questions that keep piling up — you just have to grab your tools and get to work. Especially since every exit from the place has been boarded up tight.

Shifts last a few real-time minutes, and at the end of each one you need to head straight to your bunk — otherwise you'll have to pay out of pocket for the "complimentary" sedative the staff gets dosed with. All the while, a lab AI keeps up a running commentary, cracking jokes at the expense of capitalism and corporate culture.

The core loop is equally dead simple: day after day, you work your way toward the center of the egg, completing various tasks and unlocking new upgrades. To make coordination easier, CRACK uses a proximity voice chat.

At first, players only have pickaxes and chisels: the former crack the shell, the latter pry pieces loose and detach them from the giant object. The shell itself is physics-based, so you can't just click it into submission — you need to keep moving and aim for new fragments breaking off the main body like puzzle pieces.

Underneath the "shell" is a new layer (which, incidentally, looks nothing like the inside of a chicken egg…) — digging into it requires shovels. Every resource you mine this way needs to be collected in buckets and sold.

Step by step, overcoming new obstacles along the way, players push toward the finale. But that's only part of the gameplay.

Here's the thing: whatever's living inside the egg — he, she, it, who knows — isn't planning to just sit there and quietly watch the scientists' vandalism. A special monitoring device tracks an "aggression" meter: the more players interact with the anomaly, the faster it fills up. CRACK even has a positional mechanic built in — keep hammering away at the same spot, and the meter climbs much faster.

Players have access to a special computer that lets them give the egg a dose of "sedative", though the number of injections is limited — sooner or later you'll have to deal with the consequences of your actions. What are those consequences? I'll keep that a surprise, but I will say the game managed to catch me off guard (and once even genuinely spooked me). There are several possible "scenes", and they differ quite a bit from one another. After an aggression spike, the injection supply refills, and players get some breathing room to work without pressure for a while.

Money you earn can (and should) be spent at the shop: both on new tools — the old ones wear out with use — and on new gadgets and gear for your arsenal. Completing tasks unlocks new lab sections and more advanced parts of the shop. Over time, players gain access to a game room with gambling machines and arcade cabinets, a garage with vehicles for hauling several buckets of resources to the sell point at once, and a robotics bay that automates part of the routine. Most interactions with computers and other systems require solving a "captcha" in the form of mini-games like sliding puzzles or memory-matching. Each player has a separate budget, though a dedicated device lets you transfer funds between accounts.

The egg isn't just made of layers — its "depths" also hide plenty of ore deposits and precious minerals. Some can be sold or processed at a special device for a decent rate, others are used to upgrade robots. A scanner — which can also be upgraded — helps you locate the richest spots.

From the floor, you can only reach the lowest parts of the egg — getting to the middle and the top requires building auxiliary scaffolding, assembled by hand from a few pieces.

Shifts occasionally throw in special events — like a power outage (forcing you to rely on lamps and flashlights) or quotas requiring a set amount of a specific resource. Completing them earns you a cash bonus.

Almost every hand tool comes in several versions that differ in durability and efficiency. And closer to the final stages, dynamite gets added to your toolkit.

There are also two endings, one of which requires some non-obvious actions to reach.

The developer is open to feedback and promises to keep actively refining the game, but even now CRACK feels like a solid, distinctive project packed with neat little "features".

What I missed most during the playthrough was more variety in how you interact with the egg's fragments. The only things that really stand out are the shell, which you chip away piece by piece, and the parasites living inside, which you need to rush to the processor within a time limit or they'll explode. Beyond that, nearly all the "innards" are static and require similar actions to mine.

Another small issue is uneven pacing. Progress starts off steady and gradual, then jumps sharply once robots unlock and automation kicks in, and after that there's barely anything new, even though there's still a fairly long stretch of the game left.

There were a handful of harmless bugs, getting stuck in geometry (thankfully there's a dedicated button to escape "backstage"), and some wonky animations, but nothing critical overall — nothing a hotfix couldn't handle.

CRACK feels like a solidly entertaining way to spend a few evenings with a small group of friends. It's a very simple game by design, but it works well within its chosen gameplay formula and actively keeps players entertained by gradually introducing new gimmicks and mechanics.

There's no way to lose here (though the atmosphere occasionally makes it feel otherwise), and you never get seriously frustrated, while the actions you perform throughout never quite overstay their welcome. All in all, it's the kind of game where the real fun comes from the process itself and from playing together with others.