The task of raising a hero destined to save the world is an underrated role. In video games, many of our RPG heroes come to us as fully grown adults who are old enough to be the hero they need for the game they’re playing. We don’t have to worry about bathing them, making sure they don’t poop themselves, or raising them properly so they can have the right powers for whatever class of fighter they become. To be honest, I never thought about the hero’s early years. That is, until I played Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago.
Developed by the small studio 14 Hours Productions and published by Astrolabe Games, Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago starts with a fairy. She lays an egg (for you) and tells you she doesn’t want to raise it (rude!). She then gives you the egg and says that it is up to you to raise the creature so that it can grow into a hero who saves the land of Faria from the Frog Lord. Thus began the greatest adventure of all: parenthood. I named my character Beadle (like the skinny salesman Beedle from The Legend of Zelda games), because I didn’t know what would hatch from the egg. After a few minutes of tending to the egg and playing a simple mini-game of protecting it from the elements, a human baby with a whole butt hatched from the egg – Beadle was a girl!
Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago includes all the trappings of your typical pet simulation and idle game – like a Tamagotchi – but then adds a whole host of other things to that framework. At the most basic level, you can care for your Yolk Hero in the guild where they live. There you manage your future hero’s four different status bars – energy, hunger, hygiene and bladder – by taking actions such as washing him or sending him to the toilet. Each task takes a certain amount of time unless you decide to help your Yolk Hero by playing a simple mini-game. So it may take Beadle a minute and a half to poop on her own, but I can shorten the amount of time it takes and reduce her constipation by pressing the button with my mouse.
Image: 14 Hours Productions/Astrolabe Games
Image: 14 Hours Productions/Astrolabe Games
The game gets more complicated when it comes to the “hero” part of it all. I can send Beadle on little adventures where she fights a series of enemies with short walking breaks in between. It can take 30 minutes to complete a quest, but I can intervene so that Beadle can complete the quest much faster by helping her fight. These quests introduce systems with a surprising amount of depth: Area 1 contains 12 different quests, in which you can level up your Yolk Hero. Player characters even develop specific skills for different classes, such as Monk, Ninja, Paladin, and so on. Beadle grew up to be a Samurai, which was not my choice but may have been influenced by the training I put her through in her infancy, so I purchased items and upgrades specifically tailored to her class to increase her chances of maximize success.
Turns out I’m a bit of a helicopter parent, so I’ve been watching her fight a goose to the left of my browser as I write this. If I see her struggling in a fight, I click on her and give her a little push to make sure she stays safe. That might make this game a little demanding, but most of it Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago is that I feel like I can put in as much or as little time as I want.
I still have memories of rushing to the bathroom to feed my needy Tamagotchi as a child, but I don’t deal with that. Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago. I’m taking care of a budding hero. She may not be the mightiest warrior in the land, but she’s not so helpless that I have to check on her all the time.
What’s more is that the game has settings that allow you to control details of the gameplay, such as whether or not you want the game to continue running in the background when you close it or not. So if you want to switch off caring for your character for a weekend when you’re away from your desk, you can. Likewise, features like the task queue allow you to create a to-do list for your Yolk Hero. So when I went out to dinner last night, I set up a little evening routine for her so that she would come back with her status bars in good shape.
Image: 14 Hours Productions/Astrolabe Games
Every time I log out, I feel a slight fear: Will my Yolk Hero be okay? What if she dies during her quest? I worry about my poor beadle – but never for too long.
Again, that’s because Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago is an idle game that gives you a lot of flexibility regarding how much time you actually spend playing. If you really want to go on an adventure and help your Yolk Hero fight and explore, you can. If you just want to watch them move along the side of the screen as you work, that’s possible too. Or if you have moments where it just gets to be too much, you can just close the game completely and let your hero solve the challenges on his own.
The joy of parenthood – at least as it’s depicted in this game’s sweet little microcosm – is about seeing growth, but also about knowing when it’s okay to step back and let your child be surprised.
Yolk Heroes: A Long Tamago released on May 20 on Windows PC. The game was played on PC using a pre-release download code from 14 Hours Productions. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.