SOYF: S#!t on Your Friends Review

I’m not generally a particularly mature person. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy intelligent comedy, but I’m certainly not averse to a few crude jokes (Editor note: Understatement.). Scatological humour is something that at some point, everyone has taken delight in, but most people tend to grow out of it before they reach adulthood. SOYF: S#!T ON YOUR FRIENDS is the debut game to be created from Egonaut Games, a team of people who clearly never grew out of poo jokes. I can relate to that, I didn’t really either, so it is with much aplomb that I present my review of the faeces-flinging fancy.

The concept is a very simple one, much like Duck Game and other such titles. You control a character that flies around unsteadily, trying to knock your opponent out of the sky with, you guessed it, the finest guano your little colon can produce. Along the way you’ll collect bonuses such as sweet corn and coffee, and visit a variety of environments. The title is designed for local multiplayer, with up to four players able to battle it out at the same PC using either mouse and keyboard controls, or a control pad.

Binding of Isaac makes a guest appearance in the game.

My initial impressions of the game were rather good. Everything is brightly coloured and on the first menu you’re presented with a nice little tune. It’s clearly a tongue-in-cheek game and the smiling face of a dripping pat sat on the head of a character not actually in the game is testament to that. Actually playing the game was initially quite enjoyable, with myself and my friend getting a few decent battles in. The trouble is though, that the law of diminishing returns applies here.

To explain what I mean, consider the following: Do you remember the first time you saw Kevin James riding a Segway? It was a little bit funny wasn’t it? “He’s a larger gentleman riding on a novelty vehicle, this tickles my funny bone” you may have exclaimed with joy. The second time was still sort of funny, perhaps eliciting a response along the lines of “oh look, he’s on that contraption again, what a crazy man”. Fast-forward to the ninth time, and it’s stopped being funny now. Instead of laughing, you’re considering how long it would take to reduce the actor to a fine powder using a nutmeg grater. SOYF is the Paul Blart: Mall Cop of the videogaming world: It’s vaguely amusing to start with but the concept truly outstays its welcome.

Unicorns that poo rainbows is a nice touch. Sort of.

The game gives you a few different characters to play with, including a pug, a unicorn, a ghost thingy, and a YouTuber that I hadn’t heard of. These characters all look different, but they don’t act any differently. The unicorn’s rainbow poos are very pretty, but they don’t do anything different to anybody else so each character plays identically. This means that the game is totally balanced, but it also means that there’s no variety in play styles. There’s no new characters or levels to unlock as you go, and after an hour, you'll have seen every character and level in the game already.

We’ve reviewed one-joke games about poo here before on GameGrin, and when my colleague Calmine reviewed Super Duper Party Pooper, one of his main criticisms was that the game only had a short term appeal. This was countered by the fact that it was ok because it was only a few pence, at seven quid, SOYF doesn’t have that in its favour.

Ultimately, after a few sessions playing this game, both myself and my friend came to the conclusion that it feels more like an early access title with lots more work needed to flesh it out. There’s a short amount of entertainment and the novelty of your projectiles being poo very quickly wears off. If it’s on sale for under a couple of quid then it’s probably worth picking up for a quick drunken laugh, but there’s not enough here to justify getting it at full price.

Look! They are egesting! Isn't it hilarious?