Why Egg-Laying != Jumping

As develop continues, I started finding myself questioning the validity of this game's claim. Is this really a platformer without a jump button?

Yes, there is nothing on my Input Action Map labelled "Jump". There is nowhere in my scripts that calls a Jump method. There's nowhere in any documentation that I referencing jumping. But as this game has taken shape, there have been some points this week where I have asked myself if i'm just kidding myself a bit and I've really just masked a jumping mechanic as something else and tried to claim some sort of originality.

Up to this point I had mostly been relying on the fact that laying an egg happens on the release of the Lay button, rather than the press of it, which separates itself from the typical jump mechanics of the genre. But over this past week, whilst doing some internal playtesting I realised something that restored my faith, and catapulted Sunnyside's core mechanic into a safe separation from being a dressed up jump.

Egg laying can happen while you're falling. Not only that, but sometimes it's required. Sometimes its the most efficient way of doing something. Personally, I don't think I've ever played a platformer where you can begin a jump from nothing, while mid-air! I'm sure there must be games where that does exist, but like I say, I don't know of any that I can think of. And it makes sense right? Because in real life, you can't just jump in the middle of a freefall. But why couldn't you lay an egg? And so not only does the egg-laying mechanic further differentiate itself from a standard jump, it actually makes sense contextually. Phew!