Frogger

Modern [fan game]
Self Published
2006
Complexity: 1

So I decided to cover another video game-based game, one that seems to be from the same 24-hour RPG challenge as the DDR one. Now you may assume that this is a game based on the 1981 arcade game Frogger, and that’s a pretty fair assumption to make. It is called Frogger, and uses themes from the game Frogger--plus I already reviewed a game based on Dance Dance Revolution, so it’s not like that would be outside the realm of things that exist--but it is actually a game which uses Frogger as a metaphor.



Setting: N/A
Frogger is about characters who are “cog[s] in the corporate machine,” who must navigate “Lane[s] of Traffic” to reach their “Home.” The metaphor actually works surprisingly well and according to the author was inspired by the arcade cabinet art which depicted a frog with a tie and briefcase. It is suggested that any setting will do, as long as the characters work some soul-crushing job, but the game works mainly around the assumption that it revolves around office workers.

Character Creation: 2/5
Players begin by giving their character a name, ‘Role’--AKA job--some ‘Traits,’ and other minutiae like appearance and stuff they may have. The Traits are the only thing that actually have a mechanical effect on gameplay. Three or more traits are selected by the player, they can pretty much be anything from “fast typist” to “knows a lot about pterodactyls.” As stated, there’s no real limit on how many Traits a character can have, but they only have 12 points to distribute across all their traits… actually I guess that makes the limit twelve. I generally like giving players the option to define their own abilities, but this just feels kinda empty overall.

Mechanics: 2/5
The mechanics are taken from another system--apparently with permission--and is novel if nothing else. When a conflict arises the player must “Watch the Clock” which comes down to guessing what number will be rolled on a d12--because a clock has twelve numbers too, get it? Guessing correctly is a success, not doing so is a failure. If the character can use one of their traits, they can still succeed if their guess equal to or less than their skill’s rank numbers away. Players can also get rerolls by taking “Bad Karma” which reduces their Traits and can only be removed by erasing one of the character's victories, or spent to make another character’s challenge harder. Overall the whole system is just kinda meh, the best thing I can say about it is that it’s thematically-appropriate for the setting.

Writing: 1/3 [−]
While there are more important things, I would first like to address the fact that this game is absolutely filthy with quotes. There are twenty-seven quotes from movies and Dilbert peppered throughout this twenty-one-page document. Also in one section it’s stated that “I meant to write more about this, but I ran out of time,” which I realize is a thing that can happen with timed challenges, but they found time to look up twenty-seven quotes and write a full page of acknowledgements. Aside from that, there’s the regular assortment of typos, dropped words, and just general lack of editing, which seems like it would have been a better use of time than looking up and writing out Office Space quotes.

Presentation: 2/5
Pretty much what you’d expect, words were written in a Word document and that’s what you get--they didn’t even change the title of the PDF from “Microsoft Word - frogger.doc.” Overall the text is well formatted, but there’s little beyond that other than the standard page break at the end of a section. The only thing I find particularly offensive is five words after a page break from a paragraph that’s filled almost entirely with unnecessary text, like they could have cut enough for the whole next paragraph to be on the previous page.

Final Remarks
Unfortunately I think the best word to describe this game is “unremarkable.” Everything feels very meh, the only noteworthy thing about it is the “based on a video game but not really based on a video game” aspect, which just comes across as “I’m far too clever to follow the intended theme of the challenge.”

Base Points: 6
Character Creation: 2/5, Mechanics: 2/5, Presentation: 2/5
Adjustments: −1
Setting: N/A, Writing: −1, Content: N/A

Overall Score: 33% (8/20 Points)
Office Space Frogger: the Role-Playing Game