Captured on Nintendo Switch (portable / unplugged)
Time on Frog Island is like a fever dream playable in the best way. It places you in the role of the captain of a small sailboat that is abandoned on a strange island populated by a society of frogs. His only hope of getting off the island is to successfully mix with the frogs and get them to help him with the different goods he needs to fix the ship. That’s really all there is to the story, aside from the brief sequences of dreams that tell how the captain got to the island. The real appeal here is in the charm of how the narrative is conveyed, such as how everyone speaks with gibberish and pantomime to convey their point.
The gameplay on Time on Frog Island could be described more closely as a sandbox with some light platforms and puzzle elements. The main goal is to repair your boat with several missing items, all of which must be obtained from the interaction with the extensive commercial network among the residents of the frog population.
For example, to get a rope for your boat’s gear, you have to negotiate with the fisherman, who asks for a pen in return. To get the feather, you have to talk to the village chief, who asks you to get yourself a concrete flower. However, even to talk to the boss, you must first deliver a love letter to the guard. Continue and keep making a few detours before you can finally return to the original item you were looking for.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (portable / unplugged)
Sometimes frogs will give you clues that point you in the right direction for their article, other times they give you nothing to continue. If you can’t find a specific item you’re asking for, sometimes it’s a good idea to drop the application a bit and go find someone else who needs something, as this will help you cover more ground and can make you stumble. the item he needed initially. The only flaw in this setup, however, is that sometimes you have to complete specific trades to unlock access to the later ones, which can lead to annoying bottlenecks when there is nothing to do but go through the island and hope you are lucky enough to find it somewhere. .
The world itself is easy enough to explore and is periodically dotted with some lightweight platform-integrated puzzles. Jump on a big mushroom and you’ll come out taller than you could normally jump. Grab a giant blade and you’ll be able to slide short distances. It’s not that hard at all, but these little obstacles help break the long back and forth that comes with doing all the errands. The whole game is literally just compressing yourself to point B, grabbing an item, and bringing it back to point A.
There is a slight progression along the way, which helps make your trip feel a little more appealing than just a huge amount of research. For example, once you’ve helped the fisherman, you can use the new bait he makes to catch things in the ocean. Or, after helping the carpenter, you may eventually have a house to display your favorite collectibles. Some of these unlocks even have gameplay advantages, such as when the bartender shows you how to make a beer that improves your jumps. Time on Frog Island is certainly not about chasing unlocks and enhancing your character, but we liked having little things like this to give a sense of advancement beyond seeing how your ship comes together as you add new pieces.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (portable / unplugged)
It’s important to keep in mind that Time on Frog Island requires a pretty specific mindset to enjoy it properly. Looking at things objectively, it only takes a few hours to assemble your boat and those few hours are spent engaging with a glorified “walking simulator” as you simply walk around an island and pick up or drop things off. Going into this hoping that the game mechanics will only satisfy you will leave you disappointed, but the main attraction here is how Time on Frog Island makes you feel. There’s something offered when you play a game that doesn’t require much of you and allows you to take things at your own pace, which is what Time on Frog Island stands out about.
However, this does not mean that there is no room for improvement. A major drawback is that there is no map or other means to keep track of the positions of important items such as items or frogs. The island isn’t huge, but it’s big enough that it’s easy to turn around and forget the specific location of an item you found some time ago. At one point, in a distracted way, we’ve fixed a key element needed for a particular trade and we still haven’t found where we’ve put the nonsense; there is no way to know where he might be now, but to find him by chance. Maybe the missing map is to encourage you to take things more slowly and not approach this game as a checklist, as many players usually do, but the downside is that it seems like a lot is being lost. time unnecessarily when you can’t. comply with requests so that you continue to get lost or do not find what you are looking for.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (portable / unplugged)
This lack of a map links to a bigger problem with the organization affecting weather on Frog Island. For example, you don’t have an inventory to store important items that you don’t need now, but you may need later, so you’ll need to remember where it’s all or take the items one by one across the island to a designated location. it will be easier for you to get back to it. Also, there is no mission tracking system, which can make it difficult to remember which frogs you have helped, which ones still need help, and in what order you need to help them. Again, it could be argued that the goal of not making any maps, without mission tracking and without inventory is to push you to wander more and therefore stumble upon new encounters, but this wandering often feels more frustrating than interesting. Sometimes you just want to move forward and not spin the tires for half an hour.
Visually, the Danish studio Half Past Yellow nails an intentionally simple, low-poly aesthetic. Each frog has a distinctive design to help make them a little more memorable and the island itself feels as lush and lively as you would expect from a strange tropical place. While the color palette looks a bit off and there are no big visual surprises, of course there’s a “snowy mountain” in there, we felt Frog Island has a clean, simple style without looking so cheap or low. effort.
Conclusion
Time on Frog Island is a charming and intriguing game, but if it’s fun it will depend a lot on how you approach it. The silly frog characters and small society they have developed can be great to interact with, and there are plenty of surprises to have as you delve deeper into the commercial network, but the deeper you go, the more time on the island of the frog. he becomes a one-trick pony. Making orders for frogs is good for a bit, but the lack of a map or any effective means to handle requests makes even this single task unnecessarily more difficult. We would make a slight recommendation on this game, as the cool vibes and lovely atmosphere do a great job of making Time on Frog Island worthwhile, but given their frustrations, you may want to wait for a sale.