Frogatto (by Lost Pixel) [Universal]

[ImNoSuperMan]

[ImNoSuperMan]

TA Review http://toucharcade.com/2010/07/21/fr...ol-platformer/
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Forum impressions

Originally Posted by Lazuli

The fact this has slipped to page 4 is criminal, so here's some impressions. I never did get round to playing this on my PC so bear in mind this is me considering it as an iDevice game, rather than weighing it up as a port.

Been playing this for half an hour and I think I've finally been able to move on after Soosiz, this game is beeeeaaaauuuutiful. I still find the cyan blue skies, rolling clouds and lush green vegetation reminiscint of what Sega used to do so well, and the fact that it's counterbalanced by stunning artwork and minute details (the little clocks in the houses have tiny moving hands!) makes me very happy.

The platforming itself is pretty good, although I've not yet delved massively deeply yet. I found that at first I thought the worries about lack of precision in a port were well founded (it took me about 10 goes to reach the first coin in the starting house, involving just a simple jump) but I gradually got used to the heavier 'physics' and began to perform much better. The jumps are reminiscent of those in chop chop ninja, performing gravity defying jumps from vertical wall to vertical wall, requiring careful timing.

A special note to the animations of the main character; The little thumbs ups he gives in conversations, the fact he waddles around fatly when he's swallowed an enemy and the swimming animation are delightful.

Consider it a lazuli thumbs up.

Edit: this feels a bit like half a review now i reread it; i'l go through stuff in more detail tomorrow.

Originally Posted by jddoctor

Unfortunately I don't have the time to write detailed impressions, but I'll agree with most people before me - this is a highly polished game, with as good controls as a touchscreen permits. I just wanted to comment on the ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC MUSIC. It's simply enchanting, so much so that for me personally the music was worth the price of admission alone. It makes the game a remarkable experience. Well done to the composer. So far, this seems like a gem of a game.

Originally Posted by TheCleaner

I haven't played any great platformers as of late (played Cave Story and I Wanna Be The Guy almost a year ago, lol), but I have been craving some good platforming on the ipod a la Cave Story lately. I was hoping that this would whet my appetite, and it certainly doesn't disappoint!

The graphics are fantastic, and the music really entices me to play on (I had mixed feelings about it at first, but I've enjoyed it after sitting down and playing it for a while). The controls worked fairly well and aren't too difficult to get a good feeling for it at first (there might be a slight learning curve, as stated before). I was confused on how to control swimming, but I've actually found it to be easier than controlling the frog on land after a few attempts.

I'm guessing auto-save will be implemented later on, but I did find myself reluctant to quit before finding those outhouses/save points. (Not much of a problem, since even after I found one, I couldn't get myself to stop playing the game!) My only gripe is the size of the 'down arrow' - the cover on my ipod made me somewhat discouraged when I kept missing the arrow to duck or couldn't execute a 'jump-attack' (or whatever it's called), but I did get used to it after a while.

I've been waiting/hoping/dreaming that Cave Story might find it's way onto the iDevice, but Frogatto has certainly made me forget about that for now. Great game at a great price!

Originally Posted by ManofAegis

Just bought and started the games. So far it's really neat! Great graphic style, witty dialogue, and great gameplay. At times, the arrows to move your character get a little frustrating but it's easily bearable. There's plenty of moves that your guy does. He can rush or sprint, do a drill-like spin in the air, jumb, fling his toungue, swim, wall jump, duck and other things. There's only one save file unfortunately, but it's no big deal. In levels, ? marks act as hints for gameplay assitance and other things.
The combat is a little like "Yoshi" style; you stick your tongue out and grab enemies then spit them back out as a deadly projectile. But if they don't hit anything else, they are just stunned and you stomp on them (kind of like those turtle guys from Mario).
There are various collectables in the game. Big and small coins are all around hidden within the environment and you collect them.
So far the game is really entertaining and fun. Definitely worth buying especially since it's 60% off currently

Originally Posted by howiedeano

I had a great time with this game this morning, an hour absolutely flew by, played on an iPad, graphics still look great, loved the audio, above water the controls are fine, swimming controls absolutely stink though!

The controls switch from buttons to an analogue circle when you enter the water, the closer your finger to the outside of the circle, the faster you move, move your finger outside the circle (which happens constantly when you're trying to move as fast as possible) and you stop! Not good when you're being chased by an angry fish! You should maintain the highest rate of movement when you move out of the circle till you remove your finger from the screen. It seems like an easy problem to fix.

Even with this control snafu, it's still lots of fun and my favourite platformer for the iPad so far (more depth than the bite sized pix'n love rush & more fun than the Giana Sisters).

Originally Posted by Egoyan

Ok, I've finally had the opportunity to play with it for a while, and for now, it holds up to what I was hoping for, that is: finally have a really great platformer on my iPod.

I do have two complaints for now though, both about the controls; the first one is already being adressed, concerning the underwater kind-of-joystick. It is indeed very annoying to have Frogatto stop as soon as your finger leaves the circle, which happens, well, all the time.

The second one is about the controls on land; I find them effective enough, but I do have a bit of trouble getting used to them. The reason for this is, I think, the way the left and right buttons are designed. They are very wide, which is good, but very slim, which is my complaint here; I'm the kind of player who just keeps dragging my fingers on the buttons even if it's unnecessary. I guess it's a (bad) habit.

Well, the way the buttons are designed means that I can drag my finger left-right on a given button almost as much as I want and still get a response, but I can't drag it up-down too much as it will then leave the button and Frogatto will become still. It's also annoying when trying to precisely land a jump: I put my finger right on the button, considering only its length, but I'm often just a little bit too high or low, because they're just too slim.

I don't know if I'm explaining the problem clearly enough, I hope you guys can understand (French's the native language here ). I'd like to know if others feel the same way.

Well, other than this, I'm really impressed by the game, and I really look forward to playing it a lot more and seeing it grow with the eventual updates and player-created content.

Great job guys!

Edit: @Lazuli: This the icon that shows up on my iPod too, and I think this is the one other people have been talking about. Personally, I think it's cute enough and I kinda like it too, but I'm not as big an Icon fan as other people here.

[ImNoSuperMan]

Originally Posted by ferb12321

bought the game with my last 2.00 on my iTunes card, and I don't regret it. I love the game and having player created content on the iPod version would be a blast, especially with the wall jumping and powerups.

I mean, look at jellycar 2's level editor. they were able to dumb down the originals level editor for the pc and fit it on the iPhone and iPod.
you guys could easily do that. just make a button you tap and place down different objects like grass, rock, warp to new area, enemies, powerups, start point and end point.
Just dumb down the original level editor for the pc and Mac. just take out unessary features for the iPod, but make it compatible with the pc level editor for more complex editing.

a nice control option would to have the arrows the same size, and set up like a dpad; not arrow keys on a computer.
Also you should be able to put a finger on down and press left by moving your finger to roll. I hbe to use 2 fingers to roll, one holding down and one pressing right.


I have one thing to say about this game.
It is a mashup of my favorite games. Kirby+new super Mario bros+ rayman 1
Kirby because of eating things and spitting them, new super Mario bros for wall jumping, rayman for the animations. Seriously:the cool 2d art with backdrops, the crawl animation, the thumbs up animation, THE FACT THAT THE MAIN CHARACTER HAS NO LEGS OR ARMS!!!

Originally Posted by Morenar

Im enjoying this game so far. A couple things I noticed that could use a little iprovement however(I will try not to repeat what everyone else has said)

The first thing is the button placement. In all of my classic genesis games the jump button was c, on the far right. The action button was usually b in the middle. in this the positions of the buttons are opposite. I do ok with it, but in particularly frantic sections old reflexes jump in and i tend to die horribly. even if you allow for choosing which button goes where rather than changing the default I will do significantly better, and the game will feel more natural.

Second, the arrows: The pixel art is fantastic and the arrows cover this up to an uncomfortable degree. Either making the arrows translucent, or making them smaller while keeping the same zone for the button would make the game more fun to watch.

Plus, as everyone else has said, the controls are a bit sticky. if they were improved to soosiz reaction time this game would be perfect.

Even taking the complaints into consideration, this is a fantastic addition to my collection. Thanks for the great game and keep up the good work.

Originally Posted by da shiz wiz 19

This is a fantastic game. Graphics are top notch. The game play is cool with the spitting and launching and jumping and wall bouncing and swimming. My only complaint thus far are the controls. Mainly the underwater controls. At first I didn't pay attention to them too much, but once I tried to understand how they were working and that just threw me off completely. Swimming is a bitch.

Originally Posted by Qordobo

After have play the free Mac version 2/3mn I hurry get the iphone version. On iPad the game looks hugely better than on Mac and even if not all graphics look 100% clean on ipad doubled, overall the graphics doubled are surprisingly good. Also the controls are somehow more handy for me than the fixed keys of Mac version.

Still on iPad, the controls are huge, it's not pleasant, and when you have play a game like Chop Chop Ninja you can only regret that Frogatto hasn't an option for swipe controls. For example move right and jump on a wall, then jump again to bounce on the wall is ok, but when you need chain with an opposite wall it's a little a little troublesome and unpleasant controls. One swipe up right followed by one swipe up left would have been so much more pleasant and fun.

Swipe up to jump once, swipe left/run to walk and continue walk, up+left or right to move and jump, two swipe or 2 fingers swipe left/right to run, tap to stop current movement (run/walk/crounch), tap on an something to use it like doors or talks, swipe down to crouch and stay crouched, when crouched one swipe left/right to make a roll left/right, for climbing down either another swipe down when crouched or something else if it's troublesome, and one button to attack.

Would be dreamy I think, but well despite the controls, it seems quite a worthy game. I hope I'll won't be stuck at some point because of some controls chaining too difficult for my taste/enjoyment.

Originally Posted by mountainmohawk

So after seeing people complain about controls and then the subsequent update to address them, AND a sale, I couldn't pass up the game. And boy am I glad.

The graphics are just lovely. It looks like something you would play on a Super Nintendo or Gameboy Advance. Great character designs, parallax scrolling, nice effects. Just Awesome.

The music and sound are good as well. Nothing too memorable, but the songs are catchy and the sound effects will remind you of an earlier time, but at the same time, they aren't annoying either.

Gameplay is smooth as a whistle. (I'm pretty sure I just made that saying up...) I'm not sure how it controlled before the update, but it controls almost perfectly now. Dashing, jumping, swimming, it all controls well. The only issue I had was the up and down arrows. I'm not sure if my fingers were just not in the right places, but there were a couple of times where I ran off of edges when I just meant to look up.

Verdict:
BUY IT!

....

[sammysin]

Omg, Omg, Omg. This 13 Hour wait is going to be agonizing.

[LonERecoN]

The pixel art looks amazing! Will be out here in the UK in less than an hour! Anybody wanna TOFTT?

[sammysin]

Originally Posted by LonERecoN

The pixel art looks amazing! Will be out here in the UK in less than an hour! Anybody wanna TOFTT?

How do you work out it'll be out here in an hour? It'll be out Midnight.

[LonERecoN]

Originally Posted by sammysin

How do you work out it'll be out here in an hour? It'll be out Midnight.

Sorry. Accidently read '12am' as '12pm'. Sorry

[sam the lion]

downloading the free mac version!

[sammysin]

Originally Posted by LonERecoN

Sorry. Accidently read '12am' as '12pm'. Sorry

It's OK mate, no need for apologies! I understand that you're as excited as me, and excitement can cause all sorts of problems! Hahaha.

[VeganTnT]

played through the iphone version last week and really enjoyed it, so much that I immediately started a 2nd game.

The controls are a bit tough but it's a very different layout than most platformer so there is a learning curve.

The graphics look amazing as screens but honestly it doesn't compare to when you're holding it a foot away from your face. It's a downright beautiful game