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Kotaku: The Two-Year Mystery Is Over: Glittermitten Grove is Frog Fractions 2

Spoilers for joke I found a few minutes after unlocking the "real" game.
Import Mass Effect 2 save and what it does had me in tears,
this was already worth the 20 bucks.

Just going to play the damn thing now but off to a good start.
 
What made Frog Fractions great was hearing someone say "you should play Frog Fractions" and going in without knowing anything about it other than that.

With a sequel, I know going in that I'm looking to be surprised, which makes it inherently less surprising. Is this game still worth it at that point?
 

Berordn

Member
With a sequel, I know going in that I'm looking to be surprised, which makes it inherently less surprising. Is this game still worth it at that point?

I guess the question there is, is this an actual sequel, or just a spiritual successor to Frog Fractions that hits the same notes?

Being tucked away into a game about fairy village crafting makes me think the latter, but I haven't even touched it.
 

LordHuffnPuff

Neo Member
Hi guys I'm the story writer on this game and also the main ARG designer! Thanks so much for playing and for following us all of these years! I hope that you feel the wait and experience was worth it :)
 

FirewalkR

Member
The first game was _awesome_ and I'm ready for the second. I hope it also provides deeper insight into the life and work of Andre Filipe Filipe.
 

bigkrev

Member
I just spent half an hour trying to wrap my head around the farie mechanics in order to unlock FF2 and just hitting my head over and over again. The game is AWFUL.

Is there an easy way to do this or do I just have to steam refund this game and watch a FF2 playthru on youtube?
 

DNAbro

Member
I just spent half an hour trying to wrap my head around the farie mechanics in order to unlock FF2 and just hitting my head over and over again. The game is AWFUL.

Is there an easy way to do this or do I just have to steam refund this game and watch a FF2 playthru on youtube?

Just go down.

Hi guys I'm the story writer on this game and also the main ARG designer! Thanks so much for playing and for following us all of these years! I hope that you feel the wait and experience was worth it :)

Cool. You guys are crazy just FYI.
 

Protome

Member
I just spent half an hour trying to wrap my head around the farie mechanics in order to unlock FF2 and just hitting my head over and over again. The game is AWFUL.

Is there an easy way to do this or do I just have to steam refund this game and watch a FF2 playthru on youtube?

The Glittermitten Grove mechanics are basically a kids game, what are you not understanding about it?
You cut trees for wood, hang prisms to gain sparkles, dig with fireworks to get diamonds, fertilise plants to get fruit then you spend those resources building up a little town.

Dig down to get Frog Fractions 2.

lmao,
the entirety of Dante's Inferno is in it
.

I hope you mean the mediocre EA god of war knock off and not The Inferno.
 
Oh god you missed some true fuckery

That shit goes off the goddamn rails the second you go down

There is one very underrated bit in what I believe is a fake end or maybe even the end when something goes down the screen saying "nominators and denominators!" and goddamn I'll never laugh harder at something on the internet again lol.
 
Hi guys I'm the story writer on this game and also the main ARG designer! Thanks so much for playing and for following us all of these years! I hope that you feel the wait and experience was worth it :)

Hi my first question is how dare you and my second is exactly how many drugs did you guys do to pull this off

Also I am totally not a drug cop
 

Protome

Member
So listening to the GB podcast
apparently all those soapstone messages are from a server, so I assume you get a way to write them dark souls style at some point.

?

Of course I mean the entire text of Dante's Inferno. He's also travelling between the various circles of Hell.

Yeah. But imagine if the kickstarter had made a few million more...
 

Protome

Member
Yeah, the Twitch streamer did that earlier.

Neato.

I just found some weird game that's like turn based multiplayer Snake thing with chickens laying eggs.

Edit:
I just got the unlock from it and it's the best thing ever. This is so good..
 

bigkrev

Member
The Glittermitten Grove mechanics are basically a kids game, what are you not understanding about it?
You cut trees for wood, hang prisms to gain sparkles, dig with fireworks to get diamonds, fertilise plants to get fruit then you spend those resources building up a little town.

Dig down to get Frog Fractions 2.

Yeah, i'm trying, but I DESPISE games like this. I'd rather have to play a text adventure in Spanish or something than have to keep playing this. I'm digging and digging but run out of food and all my faries go away in the Winter and I run out of light to keep seeing where I am digging
 

Nonentity

Member
Okay, I've gotten to
TXT WORLD! but I can't figure out how to get past the room with all the gems on it, I fill up before I'm able to make it to the area up top. I'm stuck.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out.
In the area where you pick up the Autocorrect Skates, you push the boxes into the river on the other side to go that way, and it seems there's a spot you use gems or something
 
I'm waiting for folks to get through it to see if I'll buy it. If it gets to a point where the whole internet is searching for a solution I'll pass.
 
I'm stuck, which is completely sucking all the fun out of the game for me. The original was all about pushing forward and not spending time on any single thing for too long. This is just frustrating.
 

Big Nikus

Member
Spoilers for joke I found a few minutes after unlocking the "real" game.
Import Mass Effect 2 save and what it does had me in tears,
this was already worth the 20 bucks.

Just going to play the damn thing now but off to a good start.

I won't have time to play this but i want to know ! :eek:
 

DashReindeer

Lead Community Manager, Outpost Games
TheJonTerp said:
I kinda just want this to be over.

Yeah, it seems like things are not shaping up too great with this Frog Fractions 2. It's too obtuse, too obscure, not quite funny enough, and maybe too much of a real game to hit the same notes that the original did. It also includes a bunch of
game jam games
, which doesn't really add to the appeal. The streamers already seem completely tired of it, and I have no desire to purchase it after watching for a while. I have a feeling that there is going to be a lot of backlash against this game by the people who backed it on Kickstarter. The first title was a laugh riot, not an
ascii adventure puzzler with game jam mini games.
Oh well, you can't win em all I suppose. Pony Island continues to be the best Frog Fractions 2.
 

sheaaaa

Member
Yeah, it seems like things are not shaping up too great with this Frog Fractions 2. It's too obtuse, too obscure, not quite funny enough, and maybe too much of a real game to hit the same notes that the original did. It also includes a bunch of
game jam games
, which doesn't really add to the appeal. The streamers already seem completely tired of it, and I have no desire to purchase it after watching for a while. I have a feeling that there is going to be a lot of backlash against this game by the people who backed it on Kickstarter. The first title was a laugh riot, not an
ascii adventure puzzler with game jam mini games.
Oh well, you can't win em all I suppose. Pony Island continues to be the best Frog Fractions 2.


This seems a bit premature considering it's been out for what, hours, you haven't played it yourself, and you're spoiling the surprises by watching streams?
 

DashReindeer

Lead Community Manager, Outpost Games
This seems a bit premature considering it's been out for what, hours, you haven't played it yourself, and you're spoiling the surprises by watching streams?

I mean, while that may be. The first game I watched someone play through in its entirety before I did myself and still found a ton of enjoyment there. This game seems to be a lot more...gamey, which the creator acknowledged as a potential downside in the podcast and is something that I am bringing up here as there's nothing presented so far that even passes for fun. Again, unless you like vague,
difficult ascii adventure games
. The entire reason I was watching the stream was to see if the game might be worth the $20 price tag versus the first game being a free webgame. At this point, I can't say that's the case.

This does seem like a pretty good streamer's game though. The obtuse puzzle solving lends itself well to crowd sourcing and the usage of references as punchlines appeals to a certain crowd.
 

TheXbox

Member
The entirety of Dante's Inferno is contained in this game.
That's neat. I'm not too stoked too hear that a lot of this is game jam stuff, though.

What exactly is "game jam stuff" and how is that different than the original frog fractions? Does that just mean the content isn't good or what? FF1 is all 10-15 minute minigames too.
Not a reflection of quality. My hope is that for $20 the game is largely original content. Which it sounds like it is.
 
I'll agree that as I've continued to play it's beginning to wear it's welcome. The mechanics of moving with the
sword
are incredibly annoying and there's zero connection or thread between any of the games where at least in the first you had the frog going on silly adventures of a sort.

Main problem is there's too much time and obtuse searching between them which is very different from the quickfire approach of the first. Have chuckled at and enjoyed most of them though.
 
What exactly is "game jam stuff" and how is that different than the original frog fractions? Does that just mean the content isn't good or what? FF1 is all 10-15 minute minigames too.
 

LordHuffnPuff

Neo Member
I mean, while that may be. The first game I watched someone play through in its entirety before I did myself and still found a ton of enjoyment there. This game seems to be a lot more...gamey, which the creator acknowledged as a potential downside in the podcast and is something that I am bringing up here as there's nothing presented so far that even passes for fun. Again, unless you like vague, difficult ascii adventure games. The entire reason I was watching the stream was to see if the game might be worth the $20 price tag versus the first game being a free webgame. At this point, I can't say that's the case.

This does seem like a pretty good streamer's game though. The obtuse puzzle solving lends itself well to puzzle solving and the usage of references as punchlines appeals to a certain crowd.

Hey, thanks for playing our ga-oh wait, you didn't. Well either way, I'll offer some thoughts on your critiques and hopefully give you some insight into why the game is the way it is.

Your contention that it's full of "game jam games" may be technically correct [the best sort of correct] in that a few of the minigame ideas started at game jams, but that doesn't mean that they're not fully developed - and they comprise a relatively small percentage even then. The two segments that began as Jam ideas actually have proven to be our most popular parts! I think "hey this idea was originally part of a game jam" is a weird thing to criticize though - lots of good ideas begin at jams, and nothing in the game is still in its original jam state as it was produced at the time.

You expressed concern that this is a "vague, difficult ascii adventure game" - fair enough! I'd disagree, given that within a few hours of the first people to find it the entire game had been completed, but difficulty is a tricky beast, and we spent a lot of time tuning it to be challenging but certainly not impossible. The game was, for a long time, even more obscure and vaguer, but that was dissatisfying. The autocorrect boots used to not be doffable, for example! That said, this game is definitely not for everybody - and neither was Frog Fractions. The idea was that we wanted to make something that WASN'T a sequel to the original in the way that most people would conceive of such, and that was stated up-front in our Kickstarter pitch.

I'm sorry the game hasn't clicked with you. Luckily there are a lot of other games out there that I bet you'll enjoy. We knew going into this that we couldn't please everybody and we're still seeing a really positive response. If you really liked the original but haven't found this game to your liking, hopefully you'll like one of the things we make next :)

Hopefully this helps address some of the things in your post!
 

DNAbro

Member
They really really needed music throughout it. After watching a stream for awhile it just seems exhausting and kind of tiresome, especially when trying to figure out what to do.
 

mrqs

Member
I did everything i could do, literally. What do i do to "start the game"?

Can someone tell me? I can't do any digging anymore, i just don't have anything else to do.
 

DashReindeer

Lead Community Manager, Outpost Games
Hey, thanks for playing our ga-oh wait, you didn't. Well either way, I'll offer some thoughts on your critiques and hopefully give you some insight into why the game is the way it is.

Your contention that it's full of "game jam games" may be technically correct [the best sort of correct] in that a few of the minigame ideas started at game jams, but that doesn't mean that they're not fully developed - and they comprise a relatively small percentage even then. The two segments that began as Jam ideas actually have proven to be our most popular parts!

You expressed concern that this is a "vague, difficult ascii adventure game" - fair enough! I'd disagree, given that within a few hours of the first people to find it the entire game had been completed, but difficulty is a tricky beast, and we spent a lot of time tuning it to be challenging but certainly not impossible. The game was, for a long time, even more obscure and vaguer, but that was dissatisfying. The autocorrect boots used to not be doffable, for example! That said, this game is definitely not for everybody - and neither was Frog Fractions. The idea was that we wanted to make something that WASN'T a sequel to the original in the way that most people would conceive of such, and that was stated up-front in our Kickstarter pitch.

I'm sorry the game hasn't clicked with you. Luckily there are a lot of other games out there that I bet you'll enjoy. We knew going into this that we couldn't please everybody and we're still seeing a really positive response. If you really liked the original but haven't found this game to your liking, hopefully you'll like one of the things we make next :)

Hopefully this helps address some of the things in your post!

Hey, man. No offense intended. I think it's awesome that you guys are pushing the boundaries of what is even considered a game, and find the ARG stuff you've done leading up to this...admirable to say the least. In the end though --and I believe Jim likely knows this-- this time around you're selling a retail product that should ultimately feel worth the investment by the people who purchase it. Unfortunately, for me that's not gonna be the case. I would have loved to have given you my money for this title without batting an eye, but right now I'd be doing it because I enjoyed the first game and because the Kickstarter "pitch" video was pretty hilarious and well put together.

It's cool of you to be lurking this thread though because I am sure some people are going to like what they find here. I really don't want to turn people off from the game, but rather want to address some issues that already seem to be cropping up in the streams I have watched, which seem to have only gotten halfway through the game at most. I do hope this works out for your team in the end because I feel like there needs to be more experimental and humor-driven titles like the first game, but sadly this game doesn't look like it will scratch that same itch for me.
 
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