Wot I Thought - The Haunted Island - A Frog Detective Game
Like, frogs n’ stuff, Scoob!
This article is a ~7 and a half minute read.
Table of Contents:
- Introduction
- The Events (feel free to skip)
- The Gameplay
- The Writing
- The Characters
- The Bad :(
- The Conclusion
Part 1 - Introduction
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Frog Detective is this wonderful trilogy of indie games by Grace Bruxner, an indie dev makin’ games since 2016. You play as the lovable Frog Detective, the best detective in town! Well, second-best. He could never really compete with Lobster Cop, anyway. (that’s a real plot point in the game btw see why I love it now??) His first game is The Haunted Island - A Frog Detective Game, where he is sent to an island in the middle of nowhere to investigate an alleged “ghost” that the “king” of the island, Martin the sloth has been hearing. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, EVERYTHING IS ANIMALS in this game. All the characters, main or side. I love it. But let’s not beat around the bush no more, shan’t we?
Part 2 - The Events (feel free to skip)
The game begins immediately with a first-person view into the Detective’s room: a sparse but quaint area, with a phone on a desk, as well as one painting on the wall of the Detective having some fun with some friends I believe are not present in none of the games; and of course, his signature magnifying glass on a nightstand lookin’ thingy near the door. The Detective gets a call from his Supervisor about a case proposed to Lobster Cop, but unfortunately he is not present, so the Detective will have to do. Right here, the game is already presenting its excellent writing bare, but I will leave that part for later.
the second-best detective in town…
The Detective arrives at the Haunted Island, and interacts with the silly characters there in order to find the source of the weird noises that Martin has been hearing. After a bit of snooping around, the Detective finds out that the noises seem to be coming from the nearby cave, the entrance of which has been blocked off by big rocks. In more important news, some characters are talking about a dance competition between the Haunted Island (well as of now anyway) and another island, whose sole resident is Finley, a friend of Martin’s. After talking to Larry the Lobster, (two lobsters already?? how wouldn’t this game be a krillion/10) the Detective is informed that he would need explosives to proceed into the cave. This, of course, sparks a point-n’-click game style “quest” where you have to find 4 items in order to make the dynamite. These are a chunk of gold, a plate of pasta, a tube of toothpaste and… and wool? Yeah, the items are exactly what you would expect out of a game like this, tbh.
Once you find the items, Larry makes the dynamite and blows up the rocks. The Detective enters the spooookky cave, full of dank mushrooms and other stuff he outright considers gross. At the end is… Finley, of the other island! It turns out she had been practicing for the dance competition in the cave. For 2 weeks. So what one does on a Tuesday. Finley and the Detective exit the cave and tell Martin that it’s all been a huge misunderstanding. Then, they actually have the dance competition! That’s how the game ends! I love it so much! As one person in a server I’m in put it, “it’s an hour long game of silly breakdancing animals”.
Part 3 - The Gameplay
So what is Frog Detective like to play? To be honest, this might be one of the only weaker parts of the game. It just consists of fetching an item from a character or finding it in the world, then giving it to a different character for another item you need. It’s basically a web of needs and wants from NPCs. To its credit, however, if the game had focused more on gameplay, I genuinely feel it would not be as good. The game is meant to be about the writing, the characters, and especially the special brand of humor the game uses. If the gameplay had more fleshed-out puzzles, I feel it would’ve gotten in the way of that, adding unnecessary complexities where there needn’t any be. For this game, the gameplay IS perfect.
Part 4 - The Writing
The daft, literal writing of this game is BY FAR the best part about it, in my humble opinion. Every word is taken so literally by all characters who partake in conversation. There are no room for metaphors, nay, not even offhanded comments. The characters also keep their motivations clear and they stick to them, no matter what any person says. On a different note, there are frequently moments where the Detective just says “Okay.” So frequently, in fact, that it stuck with me long enough to make it into this review. Not in a sarcastic way, not any way of malice, just processing the conversation. I love it. Also, the characters very wholesomely comfort each other and stop talking whenever one of them is nervous. Take Mo “The Mouse” Mouse, who is nervous about his crush (not gonna spoil tho), and the Detective. When they start talking to each other, the Detective knows where to back off once starting that line of dialogue.
The fucking frog in the frog game has a better understanding of boundaries than some people in real life!
the detective is a good person.
Anyways, all this results in a simple, diluted story that a child could understand, yet using that to its advantage. There’s nothing wrong with a simple, one-hour, easily consumable plot. In fact, it services the game’s wholesome theme. This game would be PERFECT for children.
Part 5 - The Characters
Another huge strength of the game, and a building block without which the game could not exist. It rests on the characters being lovable. And, damn, are they lovable!
Due to the simple writing I yapped about above, each character has clear motivations that allow for immediate lovability. Each time I met a new character, I said to myself “Aww, now that’s my favourite character!” This happened… multiple times. (lol)
No matter which character it is, you will probably find one you absolutely love. Whether that be because of their dreams and aspirations, their personality, or just their look, there is a character in there for everyone.
Part 6 - The Bad :(
There is very little explicitly “wrong” with Frog Detective’s vision. Its execution, however, does have a few small stains. For one, as I mentioned earlier, the gameplay is shallow. Even though the game might be better off with it, it’s still a compromise. Speaking of gameplay, clicking through dialogue is a slog. Not because of the dialogue itself, no, the game has brilliant writing you WANT to see all of. Instead, the mechanic of dialogue is the offender. You can skip and speed up dialogue with the mouse buttons OR enter, but I found that that just didn’t work, multiple times, through different characters. This is a short game, but having to see the text box still there while you’re mashing the skip button is infuriating.
the dialogue system in action…
That’s all. That should probably tell you how good this game is. It makes few mistakes.
Part 7 - The Conclusion
What did we learn today? That frogs make for good detectives. No, but, I find it hard to put a bow on this review because I’ve already told you all about how good this game is, you’ve felt it (hopefully). But, if you may let me be pretentious for a second, (NO NO DON’T KICK ME OFF THE STAGE) I think there is something to learn from Frog Detective. Its wholesome theme and writing, along with its short length, provide the perfect length for not just children’s games, but experimental games in general. I really hope to see more games like it, weird little indie games, about 1 hour long, that may do whatever they want with that time. But also, preferably, using that time to have goofy animals breakdancing all over the place. The willingness to be unabashedly “silly” is also brilliant.
Be more silly, I guess. The world could use it. <3
Aight, peace,
/SvrBrnDmg