Frog Game Concept

1 year ago by jperry6

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Frog Game Concept

Working Title

A Normal Game About Frogs

Overview

Frogs are cool. But what about frogs with lasers? Eviscerate the evil anti-frogs while you fly through the sky with your beams as Frogkingdom’s greatest saviour, Forg!

Genre

A Normal Game About Frogs is a 2D Action Platformer (with a bit of comedy)

The action comes from fighting enemies (anti-frogs), and the game is a left-to-right scrolling platformer. Comedy is intended to be added via small moments during the game or miniature cutscenes.

Concept creation process

As a general statement I really enjoy movement abilities in games. Games with parkour built in like Dying Light are amazingly fun to me, as well as heroes with high mobility in Overwatch such as Echo, Sojourn, and others. I also love comedy games, especially dark comedy like Little Misfortune. I wanted to see if I could create a character like the main characters in Night In The Woods and Little Misfortune.

I decide to combine these two areas into a comedic little action game where you play as a frog (Forg!). I thought about games that have movement that annoys me as well. This led to me giving Forg clunky movement at the beginning. Whilst he lacks his laser, he cannot walk and can only leap (which requires a charge-up). This is fine for a short while but makes dodging enemies and making small adjustments difficult. When you gain the laser shortly through the game, you can now fire it to blast yourself in the opposite direction like a thruster!

That’s what I had for the base concept of the game, with many other 2D platformer games with enemies being the inspiration for the battle part of the game. We were told to keep it simple, so I decided to make a few small levels, and a short boss fight.

Audience and Competitive Analysis

The aim for this game is a young audience. The goal is somewhere between 12 to 25, for both male and female audiences. The game is intended to be more casual, with an option for harder difficulty (simply higher enemy spawns and maybe a cooldown on abilities). The game is also entertaining for players who enjoy platformers with abilities such as Celeste, with good mobility usage required to get through levels or dodge enemies.

The tone of the game is intended to be a light-hearted, especially with the comedy, but a slight shift towards semi-intense action as the game progresses.

For my competitive analysis I’d like to look at how games with fun mobility performed. Celeste is very loved by many gamers, especially for it’s tight platforming and movement. I want to harness this movement but at the same time make it more accessible for younger players. Games with grappling hooks, such as the Just Cause series, are known especially for the movement. My competitors are all these games and similar games, but my game aims directly for the younger audience and hopes to grapple their interest by combining both the movement and comedy.

Bizarre games like Frog Fractions are also very well received, and whilst the comedy side will not be quite as strange as FF I think harnessing this will help my game.

Game treatment and concept art

You are a frog on a mission to defend Frogkingdom from the evil anti-frogs in an uprising. Help your friends and loved ones by hopping about trying to destroy their monstrous plans. Once you discover your inner peace, use your laser to both defeat your enemies and as your method of transportation.

Figure 1. Basic Frog Movement Concep

Figure 2. Frog Laser Concept

Whilst you’re a slow, tactical frog you must sneak past all your enemies (Figure 1.). But when you get your laser (Figure 2.), mow through your enemies on a brilliant quest to get to the final villain, Forg Jr., your son.

Levels are laid out like a platformer, with different platforms at altitudes that you may have to jump to or drop to reach. Some of these platformers are unreachable by jump, or have impossible gaps, which is where your friendly laser comes in! You can play through the levels normally or act like this is Sonic and fire yourself all the way to the end to get to Forg Jr. as fast as possible.

In each level you must find and save a frog-friend. These frogs will be hidden about the level, sometimes imprisoned, usually guarded. If you can make it out of the level (with or without destroying all of the anti-frogs around you) with your frog-friend, you get to move on!

Your enemies aren’t the fun kind of enemy and will come after you on sight. Avoid their attacks or grapples to survive to make your way out.

Once you finally meet Forg Jr., you will have to chase after him as he flees away from you as fast as a laser-frog’s son possible can. Then upon catching him, you get to play a boss fight against him, complete with several attacks and additional enemies.

All this is how you make the journey to save Frogkingdom and all Frogkind.