Frog Fractions 2

Frog Fractions 2
Developer(s)	Twinbeard Inc.
Publisher(s)	Adult Swim Games
Director(s)	Jim Crawford
Designer(s)	Jim Crawford Craig Timpany
Programmer(s)	Jim Crawford Craig Timpany
Artist(s)	Rachel Sala Juan Ramirez
Writer(s)	Jim Crawford Laura Michet Justin Bortnick Jenni Polodna
Composer(s)	Ryan Ike Danny Aley Danny Baranowsky Francisco Cerda Chris J. Hampton Ben Prunty
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux
Release	WW: December 13, 2016
Mode(s)	Single-player

Frog Fractions 2 is a sequel to the free, browser-based game Frog Fractions, which was developed by independent game studio Twinbeard, founded by Jim Crawford. Crawford used a extended alternate reality game (ARG) as part of the game's announcement and subsequent development, tying the release of the game to the success of the players' completing the ARG's puzzles. Frog Fractions 2 was revealed to have been released on December 26, 2016, after players completed the ARG, though its content was hidden within the game Glittermitten Grove, a secondary game developed by Craig Timpany, a friend of Crawford's, and released without much attention a few weeks prior to the ARG's completion. completion.

Gameplay

Frog Fractions 2 is primarily presented through "TXT World", a text-based adventure game similar to ZZT. Players move throughout the world solving puzzles and completing various minigames in order to further progress. Examples of such minigames include a text adventure set within The Divine Comedy, an Obama shaving simulator (which was used during the ARG), and a text-based simulated multiplayer online battle arena game. The game also allows players to import their saved game from Mass Effect 2, which Crawford says is part of a larger puzzle.

Development

Following the 2012 release and surprise success of Frog Fractions, Jim Crawford did not have immediate plans for a sequel, and instead worked on the mobile title Gunhouse for the development studio Necrosoft. During that time, ideas about what Frog Fractions 2 might be started to come to mind, and by January 2014, had enough of the game planned out to start development. However, Crawford was less concerned about its development and more about keeping the same surprising nature that Frog Fractions had. Around this time he came up with the idea of hiding the identify of what Frog Fractions 2 would be until it was actually released. This led to three months of work to develop a pitch video for Kickstarter as to obtain funding for the game; several friends helped him to film and star in this production. The Kickstarter campaign launched on March 2014, and Crawford wrote in its pitch that Frog Fractions 2 would be "a weird ride I would release someday, under a different name", leaving it up to players to actually find the game themselves. The Kickstarter was successfully funded in April 2014, with $72,107 pledged from 2,571 backers, exceeding the planned $60,000 goal.

Full development work started in April 2014. Crawford had used a similar approach he took from the first Frog Fractions, in that he built each section as an extension of the previous section. He already had a number of small game prototypes that he planned to incorporate into the final game. One of these was called an ASCII-based "TXT World", which would become the central hub for Frog Fractions 2. "TXT World" was inspired by ZZT, Deadly Rooms of Death, and Insanity, with Crawford citing these as obscure games few had heard of but that he loved. He recognized that "TXT World" would serve well as the hub, letting his other mini-games branch off from it, and added flavor elements of The Legend of Zelda atop it. On advise from Tim Ambrogi, who had helped test both Frog Fractions, Crawford added dynamic elements to "TXT World" that let the player gain access to more parts of the game, such as a sword to help cut through bushes blocking paths.

Early on in development, Crawford knew that he wanted to release Frog Fractions 2 hidden within a city-building style game called Glittermitten Grove which was developed by Crawford's friend Craig Timpany and alongside Frog Fractions 2. In contrast to Frog Fractions 2, Glittermitten Grove did not require any narrative, making it easy to focus on its gameplay. As Crawford assembled more of the mini-games for Frog Fractions 2, he recognized he was lacking a narrative. His co-developer Justin Bortnick suggested they could use the tutorial character they designed for Glittermitten Grove as the protagonist for Frog Fractions 2. Though they did develop a story arc for this character that was ultimately dropped, they still found that her presence as a persistent narrator within Frog Fractions 2 helped to tie all the mini-games together.

Crawford had anticipated the game to be done by August 2015, but had not completed it by that point. Adult Swim Games helped to provide Crawford with about 18 additional months of funding to complete the game.

Alternate reality game and release

The development of Frog Fractions 2 was accompanied by two multiple-year ARG, gaining much media attention. Crawford had often referred to what would be released as Frog Fractions 2, the game, as "Frog Fractions 3", envisioning the ARGs as "Frog Fractions 2" and a game in and of itself. Large coordinated efforts of players worked together to try to decipher the elements of the ARG.

One ARG involved hiding parts of Frog Fractions 2 within several different indie games on Steam, including Crypt of the NecroDancer, The Magic Circle, Quadrilateral Cowboy, Duskers, Firewatch, and Moon Hunters, where different parts of an "eye sigil" graphic was found, directly players to find a portion of a map within the game, which eventually pointed to real life locations. Crawford credits 31 different developers for their help in this portion. Crawford ran this ARG and used relationships with developers he met at Game Developers Conferences to work on inserting Frog Fraction 2-related material into their games. Crawford had found some independent developers had included the sigil without his request in their games, making these games red herrings within the community trying to decipher the puzzle, which he found helped to deepen the mystery akin to an urban legend. He had initially planned to have the sigil ARG lead to a map image that would provide a password that the player could apply within Glittermitten Grove to decrypt the Frog Fractions 2, but felt this forced players to examine the executables of the indie games for art information, and opted for a different approach, eventually deciding to only have Glittermitten Grove update once a milestone in the ARG was met.

The other ARG was more narrative-driven, and initially ran primarily by Bortnick. This ARG, initiated by the Kickstarter pitch video, focused on the idea of time travel, which Dr. Erica Newman, who eventually ran the ARG, explained centered on "the story of the 'Resistance' [...], a group that was manipulating timelines to prevent an existential threat called the 'Decay' from destroying their world and our timeline". They took inspiration from Dark Souls, a game they felt was " really good at communicating a world scale with a small amount of information" to rely puzzles and clues to players. Bortnick worked on the ARG's narrative alongside the narrative they were building for Frog Fractions 2; Bortnick described that at one point they had considered naming Glittermitten Grove as Fairies vs. Badgers, but dropped that title, requiring Bortnick to drop a plot line regarding badgers from the ARG. Near the end of 2016, Bortnick was producing less content for the ARG, and he and Crawford were considering ending it. Near the same time, one of the ARG's players, Erica Newman, won a box of clues from an ARG event centered around Indiecade. She received the box in person from Crawford, and jokingly offered the idea of writing a side-ARG to keep players interested, and develop further the fictional universe of the ARG. Crawford encouraged this, believing this kept the chaotic spirit of Frog Fractions. Newman brought in two others, Justin Melvin, and Micah Edwards to help with puzzle development. She involved at least six musicians and musical groups to write original music, and created all art and remaining story elements for the ARG. As Bortnick's role in the main ARG diminished due to schoolwork, and Newman's branch of the ARG having gotten more attention, Crawford suggested to Newman that she run out the rest of the ARG. She, Melvin and Edwards then created an ARG that introduced novel characters and plot lines, and spanned multiple websites and physical puzzles. In the final months, Newman tied her ARG to Bortnick's content, the original ARG material written by Jim Crawford, and the Eye Sigil ARG (which was an entirely independent ARG recently revealed to be related to the release of Frog Fractions 2) to lead up to the game's release.

The ARG was solved after 2 years and 8 months in late December 2016. Players of the ARG found clues to a physical location where a box with a button, labeled "FF2", and a key switch was found, as well as to a real-life escape the room game where players found the matching key. The key was shipped to the box recoverer, and was triggered on December 24, 2016; once triggered, Glittermitten Grove was updated with the Frog Fractions 2 content. Newman said that they had set some of the narrative that activating the box would release the "Decay", and had suggested the option of destroying the box to prevent this. Newman said they had no backup plan were the box to be destroyed, because she was confident that the ARG players would release the game no matter what the cost, as was introduced through the narration to them.

The large update to Glittermitten Grove and its content was eventually discovered by players a few days later. Those that backed the Kickstarter could contact Crawford for Steam keys if they could tell him the hidden location of game following the activation of the box, though they were encouraged to keep the reveal quiet until more players had found the hidden game.

Reception

Reception

Review scores

Publication	Score
Destructoid	4/10
Polygon	7.5/10

Frog Fractions 2 itself has received mixed reviews, with reviewers noting that the anticipation of a Frog Fractions sequel has potentially diminished the surprise element that made the predecessor as popular as it was. Writing for Polygon, Janine Hawkins wrote that "Frog Fractions 2 feels more concerned with its own irreverence than with being outright surprising"; Jeffrey Matulef for Eurogamer wrote that the "game is stretched too thin with a more predictable format that robs it of its predecessor's more purposeful pace". Darren Nakamura of Destructoid noted that "without the element of surprise, Frog Fractions 2 is just a collection of mostly bad minigames."