There are no more Steam Nextfest games in my inventory, just a bunch of demos that I put off and even now I am putting them off for longer in lieu of browsing the Steam demo and finding this week’s game. I really try to look for games that innovate and I think that this game, by combining skating boarding and platforming makes for a very interesting game. ALSO IT HAS A FROG AS THE PROTAGONIST.

This week is Seafrog.

Seafrog is Metroidvania by Oh My Me Games. The game is slated to be released for Steam and will be released sometime in 2024.

The player controls a super adorable-looking frog mechanic as they are stranded in a huge hole in the middle of the ocean, essentially a graveyard of ships. You need a way out and apparently, the only way to get out is to fix a ship with your comedically large wrench that also serves as a skateboard, conveniently, for the skatepark-like levels. Get a ship, fuel it up, and get out before the denizens of the graveyard and for that matter, the deep find out what you are doing.

The Seafrog demo introduces the main meat of the gameplay; traversal. It is understood immediately that Seafrog is slow but when they are on their wrench skateboard you are incredibly mobile. The game then introduces the “auto trick system” and the boost meter. Tricks are done while in the air and grinding rails and provide points to fill up the boost meter that makes you go fast with the press of a button, which gets you to areas that you couldn’t reach without the boost, mostly for collecting out of the way “Golden Barnacles” which is the prime collectible fuel to progress the narrative.

Seafrog facilitates its core gameplay by introducing a “skate park” -like level system where it takes full advantage of skateboarding and platforming. Levels are pretty large and incorporate a lot of ramps, half-pipes, and rails to do tricks on, all the while the main objective of getting the ship fixed by latching your tongue onto pipes to turn them on to open up doors to more levels to do more of the same.

The traversal and gameplay mix really well together and there were times when I was having a blast just skating around.

There is an instance of a mini-game that requires you to hit a certain amount of points for a key that really tests your knowledge of the combo system that the game has implemented which is much like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. It is simple enough: do a bunch of tricks in a row and get the multiplayer that racks up the points.

There is a “chip modification” gameplay element that looks like it will allow players to equip mods that will impact the gameplay pretty heavily. The mod that I got in the demo allowed me to get more boost for the tricks that I performed.

Seafrog’s look really reminds me of Frogun. It captures that era of PSx/N64 low poly look and runs with it. Seafrog’s ocean-themed world is incredibly colorful and the two ships in the demo are so visually different than each other, which is a nice change when you realize that the demo ships are pretty much the same gameplay-wise.

The soundtrack so far doesn’t have any cool punk covers of older songs, but it does have a song that makes the skateboarding element more fun. The skateboard sounds like hitting the ground, grinding and the general boost sound hits really well for me. The sound design is really good.

Seafrog is a sleeper for sure. The proposed concept for a skateboarding Metroidvania piqued my interest. When actually playing the game I fell in love with the charm. You have a frog that is a mechanic but also an avid skateboarder who has a USB stick as a friend trying to find a way out of a seahole is as quirky as it comes. The gameplay is tight enough to where there are loads of options for stringing tricks together for massive points and the overall platforming and pace is super fun.

Super fun demo I recommend checking it out for yourself. You can thank me later.