Froggy Good Time – Time on Frog Island

After taking an extended break from indie games, and playing lots of God of War (and still not having completed it yet) I am refreshed and ready to play the games that I bought from the Steam Autumn Sale.I bought only a handful of games and I was really excited to play this week’s game. I take the role of a man who has sailed and crashed landed on an island inhabited by frogs. I take my time reconstructing our ship to see the sights this week with

Time on Frog Island is an adventure game from Half Past Yellow and Merge Games. The game was released in July of this year for all those fancy new platforms for the low price of $20.

There is an incredibly bad storm that shipwrecks you on an island that is filled with frogs. Your boat is wrecked and you will have to socialize and end up trading to reconstruct your boat. There are small memories that are shown of your life outside of the island and it involves a woman and a plant. It is a vague story that tears at the heartstrings and even though there isn’t much, there is enough to have a passable story.

The gameplay of Time on Frog Island can be boiled down to a phrase that I only have ever seen on the Steam page and that is a “spaghetti network of trades.” Time on Frog Island is an open-world game consisting of three large islands that all have their own secrets and collectibles. The main island (the starting island) contains most of the inhabitants of the island and with that most of the gameplay. For the most part, the entirety of Time on Frog Island is figuring out which frog has what and completing their quests until you have all of the items to fix your boat. Merchant Frog wants a lantern that another frog has but that frog will only give you the lantern if you give them the bell and so on and so forth. Most quests can be done in any order but there is usually one that has to start the “spaghetti network”, to say the least.

I called the main character “The Admiral” and The Admiral can only really run, jump, carry, interact and throw stuff. This is perfect though because the frogs only really want stuff given to them, so the limits really kinda just fit the bill. There are ways to enhance The Admiral’s arsenal of traversal (like a leap and a tongue whip) that are useful at times but only really accentuate the frog theme of the game. There is no readable dialogue, only pictures of items of interest inside of thought bubbles are the main form of communication between The Admiral and the froggy islanders. For the most part, the communication did not yield any frustrations. I always knew what either the frog or The Admiral was trying to convey when communicating with each other.

I love the art style of Time on Frog Island. It is a very cute and colorful-looking game. I love every single one of the froggy islanders. There’s a farmer frog, a merchant frog, a carpenter frog, tadpole puppies, a fisherman frog and so many more and I, again, love them all. Each of the islands is vastly different from the other with its own distinct color palette. Ancient froggy ruins covered in sand cover one island and a lush green forest cover the other while the third island shares both of those plus incredibly beautiful mountain ruins. Time on Frog Island is truly a beautiful game.

Time on Frog Island took me a total of about three hours to complete everything. I do believe that Time on Frog Island is a game for all even though the game is just one long fetch quest. Seeing past that one negative can really make for an enjoyable experience filled with adorable frogs and a short, tearing-jerking story about love and what to do when tragedy strikes. Time on Frog Island is a cozy adventure game that allows the player to focus on any task at any time and to take their time completing the said project. The relaxed gameplay really mixes well with the pace that is pushed by the game.