Frogatto

[Gambit]

So a bunch of the super awesome people that brought us Wesnoth got together (behind our backs and without our permission!) and started making another game! Can you believe it? The nerve of them. Not satisfied with having the greatest available open source video game, and arguably the greatest turn based strategy under any type of license, they decided to make another super high quality game and make it open source as well!

The game in question is a platformer called Frogatto. It's really quite fun. You play a frog who can use his tongue to catch and swallow things and then spit them back out at other things. When two things collide via spitting, they both die. The things might be bugs, or cat soldiers, or robots, or plants that spit things at you. You can also suck something up, spit it out, and jump on it while it's vulnerable, but I found this to be a little tricky.

The editor is really awesome too! It's got pencil drawing or rectangle drawing, and the tile placement is very smart so you just draw the terrain type you want on where you want it and it takes care of making it look fancy. You can place enemies right inside the editor, modify their behavior, and then see a little preview of how they plan to behave just by hovering over them.

Have any of you tried it yet? What do you think?

[Dixie]

Well, although I'm not usually platformer kinda guy, I went and took a look at it. Looks funny and well made, although I couldn't get very far: Whenever I tried to leave Frogatto's house, backdoor or frontdoor, the game would crash. So huh... about 30 secs of gaming. It's not the finished version, though, so I guess it doesn't really matter all that much yet.

My main comment, though, is about the music: boy, some of it is so weird! It's all major and happy and stuff, and then every once in a while you get those weird chromatic passing tones that clash with the harmony. Or maybe it's some use of the pitch wheel that disturb me. The background pads sound somewhat off key from times to times and there are some weird rythms, and some other stuff is a bit weird too, imo. But still, it's not half bad.

[artisticdude]

...they decided to make another super high quality game and make it open source as well!

Actually, the code is open source, the content is not.

I've been playing Frogatto for a while now (who couldn't play something with Dave, Jetrel, and Neorice involved?), and it's a very enjoyable game. It's actually quite sophisticated and unique, too... not just a rip-off of Mario (such as SuperTux). I don't recall seeing an editor, though... I should probably go download the latest release...

[Speedbrain]

(who couldn't play something with Dave, Jetrel, and Neorice involved?)

Don't forget shadowmaster, too!

[Hulavuta]

Zuma+Kirby=Frogatto

[Joram]

I've played it all the way through. I haven't played many video games, and virtually no platformers (a tiny bit of mario almost a decade ago is it), so don't have prior experience to tell me what it resembles most. I found it to be fun and interesting without being a big brain burner. I did learn a trick command by accident that they don't tell you about that makes some of the fights a lot easier.

Something I will add is that some enemies can be disposed of by jumping on them. Others you just bounce off. Others you can sit on and ride. Others will hurt you. If you suck something out and spit it out, jumping on it while vulnerable will dispose of it, even if it is one of the more lethal types.

Also, some enemies cannot be sucked up.

[Gambit]

...they decided to make another super high quality game and make it open source as well!

Actually, the code is open source, the content is not.

More specifically the engine is open source. The content is GPL (I think), but must be paid for.

[Jetrel]

Oh hi what's this.

Actually, the code is open source, the content is not.

More specifically the engine is open source. The content is GPL (I think), but must be paid for.

Wrong: The content is copywritten. On computers, it's freeware. On mobiles, it's payware.

We're hoping we might actually sell a decent number of copies on mobile, but that's up to you guys.

[artisticdude]

We're hoping we might actually sell a decent number of copies on mobile, but that's up to you guys.

IIRC, it will be available for iTouch/iPhone, so you've got at least one customer here.

I don't know all that much about marketing, but I would think that the 'free on PC, pay on mobile' method would work really well for sales. For example, Wesnoth has an extensive fanbase, so when it became available for the iOS platform a lot of people already knew and loved the game, hence they would be more willing to pay for something they already knew to be worth it than some game they'd never heard of before. But there are probably all sorts of factors that I haven't taken into account, so my assessment isn't really worth much.

What's your opinion of this kind of marketing, Jetrel?

[Frogger5]

As with Dixie, when I try to go anywhere, the game crashes.

[artisticdude]

Do you have the latest version?

[Dixie]

For the records: downloaded it this afternoon. Using the one for mac, I'm on Mac OS X tiger (10.4.11). I tried multiple times, but it always crashes at the very moment of exiting Frogatto's house. Too bad

[Frogger5]

Exactly the same scenario for me.
What ever it is I hope it gets fixed, it looks like a good game.

[artisticdude]

That is quite odd, as I downloaded the latest mac version only yesterday, and I've had no problems at all.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Oh sweet! Dave, Jet, Neorice, and Shadowmaster are in on this? I have got to go download this...