The Wholesome Direct usually gives me ideas for games I want to play over the coming year. It also tends to be pretty strong on having games I’ll enjoy. Time on Frog Island is a game that I followed after the Wholesome Direct, but I can’t say I’m happy with it now that it has been released.

In Time on Frog Island, you play a young ship’s captain who shipwrecks on the titular Frog Island and must trade with the villagers to get the materials he needs to rebuild his ship. What ensues is very similar to chain-type fetch quests from RPGs. A frog asks for something, which you usually get from another frog or part of the island, which requires something else, and so on.

While this seems fine in theory, there are some major problems. For one, there is a day/night cycle. This wouldn’t be a problem on its own, except you walk the entire island. Sometimes getting one part of your general overarching quest done requires a full day, then you have to trek back to a campfire, build the fire, and then go to bed to start the next day.

Another problem lies in the fact that while some puzzles are fairly obvious, others are incredibly obtuse. What makes this worse, is that there is virtually no tutorial, and the only “dialogue” in the game is speech bubbles with pictures of what the frogs want. Worse still, is that there are apparently Life-Sim elements such as farming and fishing, yet you aren’t told anything about how to utilize these things.

The lack of dialogue is fine, and the general puzzle structure is fine. However, without a hint option or any sort of guiding force to tell you where to start in the puzzle chain, things get very frustrating. The biggest sin of this in general is that it just isn’t fun. I wanted to like it, because the visuals are adorable, and it is very colorful.

However, I spent several hours trying to progress and understand what I was doing over the course of several days, only to discover from a guide that I had been running in circles because I missed an NPC. Then, after progressing a little more out of spite, hoping that the game might get better, I discovered references to farming and fishing, but absolutely no details on how to do either of them.

I’m all for a game that doesn’t hold your hand. I’m also okay with a game having difficult puzzles that challenge you. However, Time on Frog Island just threw me into the deep end, shipwrecked me on an island, and expected me to understand how to progress from there based on a few pictures and a giant island that was full of things that I didn’t know how to use.

The Steam page advertises lots of things to discover and lots of relaxing elements. Maybe I don’t have the patience for it, but I didn’t find it relaxing. It was cute and it was wholesome, but I was more stressed that I couldn’t understand why I felt so aimless. At the end of it all, it just wasn’t fun for me. A variety of Steam reviews also say that it is relatively short, 1-2 hours if you don’t get stuck like I did. I’d say there are probably 10 hours at most if you get stuck or figure out the life sim mechanics.

I wanted to like Time at Frog Island. I really wish I could recommend it. Maybe the things I’ve said here interest you. Maybe you’re the type who really likes the adventure and gets a thrill out of banging your head on things. It just isn’t for me, and my time on Frog Island was not a pleasant experience.

A PlayStation 5 review copy of Time on Frog Island was provided by Merge Games for this review.

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Time on Frog Island

$15.99

3

Score

3.0/10

Pros

• Cute Visuals
• Simple Controls

Cons

• Lots of Aimless Wandering
• No Tutorials or Guidance
• Short Main-Game Length
• No Explanation of Farming or Fishing