While sailing the Seven Seas you hit a wild and windy storm and are washed up on a strange and mysterious island. Judging by the name of the game you’re playing and the by the numerous humanoid frogs inhabiting the islet, you safely – and correctly – assume you have found yourself on Frog Island.
Time on Frog Island – Gameplay
After your unfortunate shipwreck, you are left to explore the beautiful, colorful lands, unbidden and completely at your own leisure. Time on Frog island is devoid of any sort of instructional guidance. While this leaves you with a couple of minutes wondering what to do next, it also rids the experience of game-hampering introductions and makes way for the player to use their own intuition to progress.
For all intent and purposes Time on Frog island is a sandbox trading game. You quickly realize that your main objective is to repair your crashed vessel and once again set for the high seas and choppy waters (some people never learn). It’s also clear on how you need to meet those ends – by trading with the amphibian locals.
A Lack of Dialogue makes for a Charming Ride
Despite these frogs being bipedal and seemingly in gainful employment, it would be crazy to assume that a frog can talk. So, in a bid to make the game a little more realistic, the studio behind the game, Half Past Yellow, have given their society-loving frogs a whole new language. Instead of vocals (or croakles?) each frog’s needs are displayed in pictorial form, accompanied by a mumbled tangent in a language quite like that we hear in The Sims franchise. This fits in nicely with the cute but fun feel that the game exudes.
Thinking Outside of the Box is Key in Time on Frog Island
As mentioned earlier, Time on Frog Island is a test of intuition. Instead of the game taking you by the hand and walking you through, it instead presents various challenges that require a little thinking, outside of the proverbial box. ‘Propeller fruits’ can be activated to launch you several metres and wild mushrooms can be planted to give you a spongy platform you can use to bounce to hard to reach areas.
With such reliance on puzzle-solving and forward thinking, completing a task is a rewarding experience that keeps you playing for more.
Time on Frog Island is Best Played with a Control Pad
While a lot of PC gamers usually prefer to navigate their games using a keyboard and mouse, Time on Frog Island is far better played using a control pad. With the usual ‘WASD’ movement buttons assigned to the keyboard, gameplay can become frustrating and a little tedious when you need to perform quick actions on other keys that aren’t in quick reach. The constant interruptions had us quickly switching to a pad, which made for a far more fluid experience.
Time on Frog Island – Summary
It’s always an absolute pleasure to play games like Time on Frog Island. With its cutesy approach and easy on the eye visuals, it’s all too easy to get lost in the game and burn away hours on end without it becoming boring and stale. Time on Frog Island‘s graphical splendor is – as my son pointed out – very much like the massively popular, Animal Crossing. Cute and furry creatures bounce around your feet as you explore and flocks of birds scatter as you approach, everything about the world of Time on Frog Island adds to it’s alluring charm.
Half Past Yellow have announced a July 12, 2022 release date.