Overview

Froggee Toadems was created in just 9 days for the Godot Wild Jam #73, many of us stepping into Godot for the first or second time. Despite the challenges of a new engine, we’re extremely proud of what we accomplished in such a short period. The game idea took an unconventional route with the tower theme: instead of the typical tower defense or castle-themed platformer, we chose to build a tower out of frogs. Once we had this tower, knocking it down became the goal—who better to do this than cats? From there, we created the character of Tac, a cat wizard who runs a magic frog shop, setting the stage for a unique and whimsical experience.

Design Changes and Iterations

Initially, Froggee Toadems was envisioned as a physics-based frog stacker, where players would use spells to tame the frogs into cooperation. However, we struggled with questions about how the physics would function—would all frogs be square to make them easy to stack? How do we balance forces that knock them over? These complications led us to go with a snapping system instead, where frogs automatically snap into place when stacked, allowing for a smoother and more manageable gameplay experience.

Concept art where you would've needed to tame frogs with magic items:

What Went Right

Visual and Audio Design: 

We’re proud of the look and feel of the game, especially given the limited time frame. The art and music teams did an excellent job creating a cohesive yet bizarre mix of cats, frogs, and magic, which gave the game its unique charm. 

Scope: 

Despite the short timeline, we were able to develop a lot of content quickly, including multiple customers with unique dialogue and interactions. This made the game much richer and more engaging. In the end, we managed to include 8 customers and a full dialogue and ordering system—far beyond our initial goal of just one hard coded customer!

Core Mechanics: 

One of our favorite discoveries was the stacking mechanic—it was incredibly fun and satisfying, quickly becoming a core part of the game. We often found ourselves distracted from development, simply stacking, throwing, and creating frogs for fun.

Mapping out the gameplay loop:

What Could Be Improved

Engine Learning Curves: 

Given our limited experience with Godot, a significant portion of our time was spent learning the engine. This led to some growing pains, particularly when it came time to integrate systems and assets. Odd solutions were made on the fly that would not be ideal in a longer-term project.

Visual Feedback Issues: 

One area we hope to improve is the visual feedback and UI/UX of our game. For example, when entering “Wand mode,” there’s no clear indicator to the player that they are in this mode, leading to confusion and players accidentally using the wand. This is something we plan to address in future updates.

Core Loop Refinements: 

The frog crafting mechanic is fun, but we found that recreating frogs for each level could become repetitive. Additionally, there isn’t a tutorial to introduce players to our unusual gameplay loop, making it difficult for newcomers to understand the mechanics. If we continue development, streamlining this loop and creating a tutorial to help players quickly grasp how to play will be a priority.

Cutting room floor:

We had to leave a decent amount of assets out of the initial release, many sound effects and art assets have yet to be implemented, look forward to seeing them in future updates!

Takeaways 

Creating Froggee Toadems was a fun yet challenging experience. We chose an ambitious project that pushed us to quickly learn a new engine and think creatively within the constraints of the game jam. The end result was a game we believe has a lot of charm and potential. We hope to address these issues and release an updated version in the future. 

Thank you for playing Froggee Toadems!