Twice in a row I took a shot in the dark, with no eggs, entered a pod and made it to the forest. Maybe you should make it so that it's chance based? For example, entering a pod when you've collected no eggs results in a 1% chance (or lower) of success, and with each egg collected it jumps 10%? Something like that. I'm saying this because I also completed it the legit way using the eggs and it was a lot more fun and tense so I think an effort to force the player to play smart would go a long way!