Installing the Game:
The downloaded zip file consists of the usual three files:
1) A Read Me document that all new comers to the game giveaway project should read
2) Activation module
3) game set up file.
Please click on the activate module first to ensure that the game has been registered. Once the message pops up that says the game has been activated you can then install the game to wherever you wish to place it. As usual, if you are lucky enough to have more than one physical hard drive, or have a partitioned drive I would advise installing it to any drive other than the boot drive which by default is usually the C: drive
Note for newcomers:
Sometimes the activation module and set up files are combined into one, so you don’t need to worry about activating and then installing the game as it’s done automatically
Game information & first Impressions:
The game consists of 85 levels plus four tutorial levels, divided into four worlds all of which have a boss to beat at the end of the level set, before you can enter a new world. There are six different power ups available to help you accomplish this task and there are five unique monsters to avoid or kill. :)
Believe me that is enough as any more and if you’re anything like me you’d never get through the game. ;) And that was playing it on Medium. I tried the hard setting and lost all my lives before I could progress to the second level.
Follow the link below to see what others had to say about the game on the Alawar comments section.
http://www.alawar.com/games/froggys-adventures/comments/
When booting up the game the first window gives you the opportunity to play in either full screen or windowed mode by checking/un-checking the tick box. By default the game will start in full screen mode. The main menu allows you to change the user profile by clicking on the change player below the welcome message; however on booting up the game for the very first time you will be asked to enter a profile name before you can proceed to the games main menu. By default the name chosen will be whatever name you have called the computer.
The options menu consists of the usual sound and music sliders as well as another toggle for window or full screen mode and also the key bindings which by default are the left and right arrow keys for movement, the up arrow key for jumping and the space bar for blowing bubbles. You can change these to whatever you wish by clicking on the wood effect buttons then selecting the key you wish to bind to the command.
The help menu outlines the modus of the game and lists the various power ups such as the monster freezer, rockets, monster cleaner and the thunderstorm clouds.
There are six power ups in total, which I initially thought was a little ‘tight fisted’, but after playing for a couple more hours after posting my initial review over in the game giveaway comments section, I found that these were all that were needed to enjoy this game (I’m used to twenty or so power up’s when playing my favorite genre), especially as you got lots of these appearing during the game. For example; I found that if I was on my last life, plenty of hearts appeared when I popped the power up balloons; but when I had three or more lives these rarely appeared.
You will find several bonus items with different values for example the large sweets are worth 1000 points whereas the water melon is worth 100 points, as well as a whole range of bonuses in between. The help menu also lists and describes the five monster types available, but leaves the end of world boss as a surprise, :D
Starting the Game
On starting the game for the first time you are given the choice of three difficulty settings Easy, Medium and Hard, and then you can select any level that has already been unlocked. There are four tutorial levels and Eighty Five game levels to play. All but the first tutorial level are locked at the start of a game. If you choose another profile you do have to start from the beginning as all the levels previously opened by another player will not be accessible to you (obviously).
Bonuses and power ups are collected by popping the balloons that appear frequently, (depending upon what difficulty setting you play on) Once a bonus appears you must collect it within a certain time otherwise it disappears.
I only managed to get to level three on my first attempt, while playing on the medium difficulty setting :( I’m more into using a mouse as I always find the keyboard a bind to use, especially at the moment because I bought one of those ergonomic keyboards recently and find all the keys have changed position slightly with respect to the reference point of a traditional keyboard., so I’m having to relearn the positions of the keys. (That’s my excuse for being so bad at this game, lol)
You can change the difficulty setting using the same profile once a game has ended. When ending a game half way through a level, all progress in that particular level is lost but all completed levels are saved as indicated above. The main difference I could see between the different levels of difficulty was the number of monsters you had to contend with as well as more flowers to collect. The more monsters there were the more flowers were eaten, which made it much harder to complete a level. To end a level you have to collect all flowers. Those eaten by monsters would reappear after several seconds. Despite beong eaten you can still see where the flowers will reappear because the stalks and leaves were left behind. Some monsters are restricted to a particular platform, so are easy to avoid , but those that can move from platform to platform are far more difficult to shake and it is these that you have to watch out for. I found I was constantly jumping on the monsters by accident because they move quite fast (it seemed so to me while playing the game). Partly because of my poor keyboard coordination and partly because I'm atrocious at most platform games that require speedy responses. Although with some practice I’m sure I’d be able to progress as well as my children have already. It constantly suprises me when I return to one of these giveaways to find that at least one of my children has progressed quite far into the game and in some cases, such as Hyperspace Invaders and all of the RIP series as well as more sedate games such as Zak and Jack in Monster Town, they have been completed in their entirity. They tried Froggy's Adventures shortly after arriving home from school and found it much easier than I did. I asked them If I should keep the game and both said yes.
Conclusions
The whole family found this game entertaining (apart from my wife who unfortunately was to busy preparing a lesson for her inspection tomorrow). So will definitely be keeping this game on one of the children’s computers (the other is still in the process of being upgraded) as well as one of mine. :) My children both like platform games and no doubt will be more adept than me at progressing through the levels. I’ve still not progressed further than the 10th level despite having had over two hours of practice.
Comparing it to other platforms we’ve been given I’d say this is a little more challenging, although compared to games such as Turtix the graphics are not as good, but as I’ve said countless times, the graphics are only a small part of a games playability so shouldn’t be a major reason why a game is given a poor rating. So despite my own aversion for the common type of platform game, which I put this particular game into, I think it would be worthy of a 7 for playability and family fun value as I enjoyed playing the levels I managed to survive in. 8)
If you are a lover of platform games I would strongly recommend you try out the following games, all of which come under the umbrella of the platform genre, and in my opinion far out shine today’s game for playability and originality, and (IMO) are far more entertaining than today’s giveaway.
Suggestions to the developer
The game is reasonably strong in the game play department, but I would consider adding some mini games within the game:
1) As earned bonus's, for example after collecting so many melons in a row, or surviving so many levels without using a power up, or attaining a cxertain score before a certain level. (there's loads more ideas but I'm sure you'd bve able to come up with many more)
or
2) Between the different worlds or after say for example every fifth or 10th level.
I'd also add a selection of music, with a toggle so that you could switch between the tracks
Suggestions/Recommendations to the community
Today’s giveaway is overpriced and I certainly wouldn’t consider buying it unless it was at least the same price as Gumboy Crazy Adventures, which I mention below. Check out the demos of all three games and I’m sure you’ll love them all as they have a touch of originality about them. Two of them have won indie awards for their game play and originality.
Gumboy Crazy adventures:
http://www.gumboycrazyadventures.com/
Wik and the Fable of Souls:
http://www.reflexive.com/index.php?PAGE=game_detail&AID=135
Gish:
http://www.chroniclogic.com/~gishgame/index.htm
All of the above three games are unusual platform games and well worth at least checking out. The first one comes packaged with a full version ‘free’ level that introduces you to all the different power ups that can be found within the complete version and is called Gumboy Crazy Features. The cost of the full version is only $9.95 which compared to today’s offering of nearly $20 is a steal.
Gish is one of my favorites and has a cult following; involving an animated lump of tar and a maze of underground tunnels, nasty enemies and some quirky physics. The game also includes several different modes of game play as well as a fan site attached to the developers site called Chronic Logic, where you can download more level sets. There’s an editor included in the game, but the manual that’s included is almost non existent. I promised to write a better user manual for the editor as the one that comes with the game is not really a manual, but I’ve been too busy to get the project off the ground yet.
Today’s game was developed by Butterfly iSoft and is distributed by Alawar amongst others.
Check out the screen captures:
All on one page:
http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/Whiterabbit_01/gaotd/Froggy%20Adventures/?start=all
As a slideshow:
Googled images:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=froggys+adventures&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2