Just set up a simple state machine, and wrote a one line helper function to center text. Still just an empty project waiting for a theme and a brainstorm.

Fun, but so difficult! I think the "failed jump" mechanic might be a bit too punishing. But when I did get the timing right and got several jumps in a row, it was pretty satisfying. The screen shake effect is cool but a bit distracting at its current level. I love how the squashed frogs stay on the road. Nice job!

something about this frog feels familiar...

I really like the timed jump mechanic. it's possibly a little harsh but it feels really good to get good at

it can feel a bit impossible when a car comes out of nowhere and runs you down though, especially when you're partway across a road so can't time your jumps as carefully.

LOVE the splattered frogs left on the road (RIP tho)

Started playing before reading the description. Figured out there's a power meter and I need to hold the jump button down instead of tapping it. Approached the street, started charging, waited for the right moment to jump.

Screen started shaking. Anticipation started building. JUST HOW FAR CAN THIS FROG JUMP AT FULL POWER?

oh

=D

Little difficult, but style is awesome!! :muscle:

Wow this game is so hard! It took me quite a while to figure out how to use the power meter and time my jumps and even longer to figure out a way to get past the first row of traffic without getting squashed. If anything I'd say this is a little too punishing, perhaps a little bit of tweaking on the timing for the power might help given the additional challenge of having to also time movement based on oncoming obstacles. However having said that, this is still really solid and a great game idea, and it's still fun! I enjoyed my time playing it and I'll probably stick this on my rgb30 and practice this week to see if I can beat it.

@historymaker118 That makes me happy to hear. I grew up with Commodore 64, so I was used to hard games growing up...that might still influence me. ;) Good luck with your practice, I hope you make it through the game, please let me know if you do. :)

A cool variation on Frogger!

Doesn't feel you're much in control of what happens, though; felt like the best strategy was to get the hang of the full jump timing and spam that until you got through all lanes..

A really fun game when you get to grips with the power meter. And those people on the starting path, so mean :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: . Great jam!

@steffo You are right. I didn’t have time to balance the game, to make the game more skill based and less luck based. That could be improved a lot.

@wisstopher Thanks! Yes, maybe it should have had a grass patch before the sidewalk to start on.

Simple but fun!

The power meter sure adds a unique twist to this frogger-like. You'd think it's a minor difference, but it's practically a completely different game with that. It made it pretty difficult, yet also a lot of fun. Nice job!

Very fun but also very hard! The bees at the end are evil! :)

I was wondering if someone will make a PICO 8 game here. :D
Absolutely brilliant! I love the mechanic of jumping like that. So simple and elegant, but also so fun and addicting! The art and overall mood are also super good. I personally like the current difficulty and keeping the game on the harder side. Good job making this badass game! This is my favorite game of this jam so far!

Love the visuals, jumping is a bit hard to get used to, but this is one of those games where losing is also fun (because of visuals). Great job!

Cool twist on frogger! The difficulty is maybe a bit much when cars appear so quick it's hard to react to an impossible pattern

Nice game! I like this style of art of simplistic pixel art, and simple games are always the most entertained

It's a challenge to get the good jump. Satisfying when I got it. Looks good and it's fun to play. With all those guts, this could be a drawing game.

Unlimited mush indeed! It felt a bit odd to have the power meter on the corner of the screen instead of next to the frog, but you start getting the hang of the timing anyway. Pretty nice game!

Cute game, feels even more arcadey then regular frogger. It'd be fun if the level was infinite with different kinds of hazards. Making you want to go for a high score. There is no real point in going left/right at the moment since the only thing it's useful for is making sure you're either centered or at the end of a lane so you can better time traffic

Fun little frogger-like, I like the pixel graphics, and the gameplay is fun to play around with for a bit. It feels a bit random and you can sometimes get stuck respawning into pedestrians, but cool entry otherwise !

Personal record: 461.6s

Personal record: 461.6s

A challenging and cool game :heart_eyes:

This was fun! I thought it was really cool how the relatively simple behavior of the cars created emergent/realistic traffic patterns, and I actually feel like I better understand how traffic jams are started, after seeing a car speed into the back of a truck then slam on the brakes, slowing the entire lane to a crawl.

I'm not sure if this was an intentional part of the difficulty or not, but I found it somewhat frustrating at first that my power meter was in the upper left corner - I wanted to look at my frog at the bottom of the screen, and was having a really hard time splitting my focus trying to understand what impact my jumps were having on the frog. I eventually got the timing down and didn't need to use the meter anymore, but it would have been a smoother onboarding experience if the meter was more within my field of view while I was learning the rhythm.

I agree with the above commenter that the screen shake was a little bit too intense at its current level - It made it a little bit too hard to see what was going on. Especially if the player died due to overshooting the last jump, it might have helped to slow the screenshake down a little bit, and slow the death transition, just to make it clear what had happened - I had several runs where I made it to the end, but wasn't sure what happened when I heard the death sound and warped back to the start. It was especially tricky because of just how unforgiving the spacing for the final jump is - I had several attempts where I thought that I was making the absolute minimum jump possible, and still overshot it. I captured one of my attempts as a gif, in case you were curious to see some live gameplay :)


Finally, I absolutely loved the pixel art - The walkers, bikers, cars, and trucks were all super readable, and all fit together really cohesively! I was particularly impressed with how incredibly readable the walkers were, for how few pixels you had to work with (even if I didn't love that they'd absolutely wreck my respawning frogs hahaha)

Overall, this is a very cool little game! Well done! :)

@koolruz Wow, thanks for the constructive feedback! :) I'm glad that you notticed the traffic simulation. I have wanted to do something like that for a while. It was quite simple to create, but seems to work quite well. I could tweek it to make people act like less jerks -- but then that might be less realistic. :P

I must admit that I didn't think about placing the power meter just above the frog. But after feedback, this is where I would put it now.

Personally I find the screen shake to be good. But you are sooo right about the quick respawn. If there was a delay, so that you could better see what had happened, it would be much better. I might try to change that after the jam. Also there is a bug that makes it sometimes play the water splashing sound, even when you hit the goals...I couldn't find the problem yet---that just adds to the confusion.

I'm glad you like the pixel art, it is not what I'm best at, but I was happy about the things you mention. Sadly I didn't find a better way to draw the frog, it is quite ugly...and it is the main character. Hehe

I wanted the player to not be safe in the beginning, so that you might be forced to jump on to the road. And as you have unlimited lives, dying at the start, is not really a problem. And it made for a more bloody game. ;)

Thanks for the feedback!

Hi there! I got a chance to play your game and I gotta say I was laughing at each mis-time I did. I loved that I could immediately get back into playing again. I also give kudos to using Pico-8. My only struggle was keeping an eye on incoming traffic and being able to see the meter. Perhaps the meter could be the frog? Hope to see more from you next jam!

Yeesh you managed to make frogger hard :D

I absolutely *love* the sort of "super meat boy" spin, but man, I think those controls were a little much for me lol

Great entry!

Woaw, this game is hard! The idea is interesting, and I love the graphics. The car traffic is nicely done too, the "traffic jam" / rush hour is nicely done.

I think that the "long jump" time windows is maybe a bit too short, or rather, it comes to soon. Wouldn't the game be less punishing if the power meter would increase slightly slower?

An interesting entry with a original (and punishing :p) take on an arcade classic, congrats!

Oof that was tough. Maybe a little more wiggle room between the perfect jump and the failed jump would be cool - I think the jump/arrows could be combined so rather than separate direction and jump, you just hold the arrow/wasd for the correct timing.

Great art and classic sound effects.

I never made it to the other side sadly. :cry:


Man, this is such a black comedy take on Frogger.

@johnnysix That is actually a really good idea, to use the arrow keys like that! I don’t know, why I didn’t think of that! :-) I might make people more likely to actually use jumping sideways. And make changing direction take less time. I might actually try to implement it like that later.

Wow! The game is so wonderful! Keep making games!