Time on Frog Island Review

Time on Frog Island is a charming game that takes the hidden object genre and puts a spin on it, which is one of my favourite trends lately. Although I haven't gotten the pleasure of playing too many of these types of games (I've really only experienced Cozy Grove aside from this one), I really like the approach the developer took of no words, just images.

This game centres around the main character, who gets shipwrecked on the island after a storm and wakes up to his wreckage scattered all around, seemingly scavenged by the frogs. Although there's no dialogue, the game shows you images every night during sleep time that tell you the character's past. I think it goes without saying, but I feel it's important to mention anyway: if you care for story, Time on Frog Island is definitely not the game for you. Not only because of the lack of dialogue, obviously, but also because the story that is given is quite short-lived and doesn't really have a conclusion. I did not mind this though, as I believe the lack of story adds to the charm of just running around frantically meeting frogs and trying to find the stuff they ask for.

I'm going to be honest, I was a bit scared of the lack of dialogue because it's not fun when you get stuck in a game due to too little or vague information. Although my wife and I did get stumped a couple of times (she came along for the ride because she loves puzzle games and frogs), we eventually found our way around and it wasn't that tough to understand without text. Sometimes the images are a bit strange and hard to discern, but if you have patience and really put your brain to it, the game does a good job at spelling things out for you through logic. I thought they did a really good job at making the item-hunting very fun!

The only times I felt like it took a particular amount of thinking was whenever I was trying to brew an item. The point of doing that is to finish a mission for one of the frogs or give yourself an ability, be it permanent or not. One of the challenges is that, because the game has no dialogue, there are no tutorials to be had; it felt like we found out we could get boosts by completely lucking out when one of the frogs asked for a brew and we made a jump boost by accident. I personally love that system because there’s a sense of wonder in having to tinker around with the ingredients to find the different potions. This isn’t the only place where you really have to put your mind to it either because the game offers plenty of other experiences without tutorials, but again, with a little bit of thinking they’re possible to figure out! 

There are three permanent boosts that include abilities — such as having a frog tongue with which you can grab items — as well as temporary ones, like being able to run faster for a while. I thought it was a really nice quality of life addition to the game because they aren't difficult to brew and can offer some nice boosts, especially for those who might start getting bored walking back and forth all around the island. When it was my wife’s turn to play, she spent her time zooming around with the speed potion, which I thought looked very fun.

Time on Frog Island offers the opportunity for you to choose how long you want the experience to be, and I think the shorter path that you choose, the harder it is. You can pretty much end the game by fixing up your boat and getting out of the island (there’s even an achievement to manage that under five in-game days), or you can achievement hunt and complete all the missions available; by sticking around and helping, you start piecing together how everything works, so things start getting a bit easier but never enough for it to be boring. 

All in all, the game is quite charming. The graphics are very cute, the abilities you can get make it fun to platform and run around, and the puzzles were — for the most part — at a nice difficulty level. That being said, I don't think the game would be worth it if you don't plan on finishing the sidequests and having fun with hunting achievements because the main questline itself is a bit short.

I'd like to mention that Time on Frog Island has a demo on Steam that I think is worth the try if you thought this might be your type of game.