Great game. Mostly made this review so other people are aware. There is a THROWING mechanic. If you hold down the pickup button for a second or two you will throw the item your holding. Either I missed the memo or something but as far as I can tell the game doesn't tell you how to do this not even in the Controls menu either where you think something like this would be displayed.

Note: The throwing mechanic isn't required to beat the game but is required to do the one of the achievements if your going for 100%.

It is a cute looking game but I expected more based on the trailers.

Its a fetch quest game, you get x item and give it to x person. It was roughly only 1.2 hours of game play for me to beat the game. I wouldnt recommend the game personally due to some of the weird controls along with the game play time. For example, the talk/ interact button are the same which ultimately mean you throw your item in the water or break them which means you have to run back and grab them again and pray you dont yeet them ...again. I would maybe suggest grabbing it during a sale but I expected a experience similar to animal crossing based on the trailers and discussion around this game. If youre into short, cute fetch quest games then I would recommend it.

Bought the game for $15 on launch day. Beat it in 1.8 hours, but I didn't go for every achievement or complete every one of the frog's requests. Mainly because I didn't feel an incentive to do so. Game was cute but very lacking, especially since they're charging $20 for a full price. Entirety of the puzzles were just grab the right item that is scattered throughout the island.

Fetch Quest the game, skip this one.

Why Time on Frog Island is a barebone frustrating chore of a game:
1) You run around the Island slowly without fast travel options.
2) You have no inventory, you can hold only 1 item at a time.
3) There is no map of the island & the camera is fixed in one direction so being lost is a common problem.
4) There is a day/night cycle but for some reason daytime barely lasts 10 minutes while nighttime will last until you go to bed, which you have to run back to the nearest fire pit and place 3 onto the fireplace every single time.
5) NPC interactions and quests are only available in the daytime. At night you can only run around, grab and throw stuff or get some achievements out of the way. You still have to go to bed if you want daytime to come.
6) NPCs only talk in symbols, sometimes they're understandable other times you guess wrong, waste a day, go to bed, look up the answer online and then finish their quest before the day is over.
7) The controls are unreliable. Besides movements, there's A button for jump that doesn't always reach it's mark, Y button to interact with what you're holding no problem there and then the X button for talking to NPCs, picking up items, putting them down, throwing them and giving items to NPCs, problem there is that the X button doesn't respond appropriately meaning sometimes you throw away a precious breakable item when you meant to give it to an NPC.
8) There are some bugs in the game. The common one is completing a quest but an NPC acts like you didn't do anything so you have to quit to the menu and reload the game.
9) Everything in the game are fetch quests and the 8 problems I mentioned makes the fetch quests detestable stress inducing time wasting chores.

The game itself is at most 3 hours long but I spent nearly 10 hours because I keep getting lost and unfairly made mistakes that forces me to wait for another day to do it again and then I had to resort to walkthroughs because I didn't want to waste another 10 hours of my time and just finish the stupid game. Also because of those limitations I mentioned the game is really really boring. I wouldn't even buy this for a kid because of how restrictive, empty and boring it is. The game offers nothing but fetch quests but made more inconvenient, harder, primitive and annoying to stretch out gameplay and to justify the steep price
Don't bother with this game. Just stick with the Prologue if you're still interested at least that one is free.

My Playtime: 7.3h (100% achievement, finished the game twice)
My First Playthrough: 6.2h
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (27 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.

Time on Frog Island is an adventure game where you do a series of fetch quests while traveling through the vast island. The game allows you to explore and finish any quest that you want right off the bat, with some events only triggered after a certain amount of day has passed.

Pros:
- Unique and easy-to-pick up gameplay where you have to find an item based on images, not words
- A vast area to explore
- A lot of side quests to do, some are tricky to finish

Cons:
- Picked-up items disappear if you exit the game
- Bugs on two quests that might force some people to restart if they don't know the workaround
- Saving is unclear if done in the daytime

Specs
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

Yes.
If you are looking for a relaxing adventure game and don't mind the bugs, buy this game at a sale.

---

Characters look cute and the color palette makes it relaxing for the eye. Add the slow, relaxing background music to that and you'll feel at home.

There isn't much in the story. Since the game doesn't use words, it tells the story through a series of images, and it is overly simplified, to the point that there is nothing else that you can tell apart from the game's premise.

Gameplay
Time on Frog Island is set on a vast island. It took me some time to map where everything is, and those who are bad with directions might even get lost. Moreover, there is no in-game map, so you need to remember the locations and unique objects on your own.

The game is focused on questing. You need to fix your boat, and most villagers have the items you need. They are not giving their items for free, though. You have to barter it with another item. All of this is explained with just images, which might or might not confuse you. It took me some time to figure out what they meant at first, but I ended up liking it. It adds another layer of puzzle to the game and forces you to pay attention to items that look special.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2834275498

The most difficult part in finishing quests is to figure out how to get what the quest giver wants, and this might not be clear enough due to the lack of words given during the explanation. Also, it's not like you'll automatically solve the quest once you figure out what they want either - you still need to find them. It's gonna be like finding a needle in a haystack since the quest giver won't give you any hints, although luckily, they usually stand out. You might even notice that they are important before you get the quest.

What I liked the most in the game is how you can explore and finish the quests however and anytime you want. There are several villagers on the island and you are free to talk to whoever first. They all won't give a quest right away though - some of them will only do it when a certain condition is reached. Moreover, there is a day and night system in place, and you won't be able to talk to most people at nighttime. It forces you to prioritize which one to take care of first.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3136924836

Despite the day and night system, there is no penalty for staying up late. This makes it easier to explore the whole island and do other things that don't require talking to people whenever it's nighttime. You can try to optimize your playthrough and finish it in fewer days this way. The game allows you to finish the game as early as the fourth day.

Sadly, some things don't seem to be explained in the game. I'm not sure whether it's because I'm missing a quest or not, but I didn't know some mechanics related to picking up other items before I looked it up online. Moreover, some of these mechanics are required for some achievements, which might cost you greatly if you don't know how to.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2890953752

Length and Difficulty
I finished the game at 6.2h with all but two achievements. I replayed the game again, skipping most optional contents that I found, and finished it in 7.3h. Yes, the game is short.

Difficulty-wise, it's still manageable. Those who are bad at directions might have issues navigating the island, but most objects needed for the quests aren't that hard to figure out.

Issues
Sadly, the game is plagued with bugs. Two bugs will prevent you from finishing the game unless you do a certain workaround. Moreover, the game seems not to save the objects you placed on the ground. I had several objects laid on the ground to make them easier to access, but they all disappear if I closed the game. Speaking of saving, it's not guaranteed that the game will be saved if you do it during the daytime.

Time on Frog Island is such a relaxing game. It's mostly just a series of quests that you have to finish. You'll backtrack a lot, running back and forth just to finish the quests. However, the bugs might make the game not to be enjoyable. I had to reset the game more than 3 times because I encountered a bug and didn't know there was a workaround for it. If you don't mind the bugs, it's actually a nice game for casual gamers.

While being visual pleasing, Time on Frog Island is mostly composed of pain, annoyance and baffling design decisions.

Trying to play this game has to be one of the most annoying experiences I've had in a long while. Here's the list of interactions avaliable to you in Time on Frog Island:

1. Pick up things and bring them somewhere else.
2. Run and jump.
3. Sleep at camps to begin the next day.

As you can see, there just isn't that much to do. The way these interactions work makes them completly boring and unfun.

1. Fetching things around the map in this game is not what anyone could call fun gameplay loop. You can hold only one item at a time. Your items can easily fall somewhere inaccessible, which means restarting the game to respawn it. Half the time you have no idea what the NPCs even want from you. "Hey, bring me the... CIRCLE please. Hey, bring me the BUG please. Oh, you brought me a bug? What do you mean?" (He wanted a slightly blue bug, instead of a white-ish bug.) Even if you recognise the item, there's no guarantee that you'll ever find it in the unnecessarily large map. Or that the NPC will still be where you found them last.
2. Movement is extremely basic and joyless. Some plants scattered completly randomly around the map make you run faster for like 3 seconds or let you glide for a while. That's it. Running around across the entire island just to get one random thing was never enojayble in any way. The map wasn't designed very well, which means you're often lost or you have to go the long way around terrain obstacles.
3. Pretty much every time you complete some request, you're required to sleep at a camp to progress to the next day. It's a completly pointless mechanic that only exists to show you a slideshow of a backstory and/or waste your time. Passage of time makes it harder to actually play the game, as the NPCs move around and completly despawn at night.

Playing this game brings only frustration and questions without answers. Why is nothing providing you any feedback? Why do things that do provide feedback are only for decoration? Has anyone playtested this? Who would want to waste their time running back and forth around the island for no reason? I know the answer to that last one: not me, that's for sure.
Don't be lured in by the cute visuals and stay away!

edit: After 100% the game I am baffled even more. There's so much in this game that is without any purpose. You can unlock permanent upgrades like frog tongue or frog jump, except it's never specified anywhere and they're not necessary for anything. There are disc golf targets scattered around the island, but there's not a single disc to be found. Things like the time trial challanges or the 3 frog statues give only achievements and nothing else. You cannot start certain events and quests unless something completly random happens first. (For example, the knight frog will not give you the love letter quest until you ask the fisherman frog for the rope.) You can fish, but the fish you catch have no use. The 2-way teleporter device is pretty much useless, because you cannot take any items with you. Also, I've found a really weird bug: if you use the frog tongue on the pope looking frog, the day resets while he dissappears off the face of Earth. Cool.

I'm getting mixed feeling about this games, i love the puzzle, love the cute artstyle, love the cozy bgm & huge world you can explore but there lot thing i feel lacking too, like a quest feel really unrewarded, the world feel empty, lack of detail about quest (like there's no quest/request item list, so we can't manage to do list).

in first or two hours this game maybe it's still feel fun but after that's you may feel started boring, i hope the dev. add more features, like add dialogue, add story, add bond system with npc, add more quest, in next update.

Rate : 60/100 (Not bad but need more improvement)

This game had a combination of issues for me, even when it was on sale.

Firstly, the game screenshots showed a completely different game, they showed concepts that were never introduced, they made the game seem like it had more content than it did, by showing only NPCs, despite 80% of the game being empty, along with this it's just full of cheap assets.

Secondly, the game is too difficult, it's way too hard to know where you are going, because the island is huge and there is no map to look at, so you just walk around in empty spaces for so long to find something that barely lasts anytime. The game is so empty, and it's so hard to find anything of value because the game didn't put any dialogue or instructions, despite being labelled as a relaxed simple game. It is not relaxing or simple, and it is actually very difficult.

Third and Finally, it just isn't fun. The game was tagged and marketed as a super relaxing game. In the trailer it shows reviews from popular magazines, and the game itself even says it is a fun, relaxing, simple experience that is "full of life", despite the fact that it is mostly boring environments with barely any gameplay. There basically isn't anything to do and it's just simply annoying to find out where you are going, and the quests are even more confusing at times which leads the game to interpretation, which would be fun, but isn't due to how empty the island still is. The game is incorrectly marketed as a fun to play, relaxing game, full of happy life, but it is really a slugfest, with no depth or really any gameplay at all.

I mean, other relaxing games like "Animal Crossing" or "Lil Gator Game", are one, way more true to there marketing of being relaxing, two, way easier to understand, three, much more engaging gameplay that actually feel like it works and adds to the experience, and finally, those games have way more fleshed out environments with way more things to do, "Animal Crossing" achieves this by having a WAY smaller map, so it can easily fill it, along with the endless possibility of exploring new islands to find new villagers. "Lil Gator Game" even achieves this by still having a huge island, but makes areas look completely unique to one another so you always know where you are, along with this there is a map, and the island itself is fully fleshed out to where every area has something unique, tons of charming cardboard cutouts of enemies so you can have more to spend, encounters with potential friends, and certain areas are fun to explore once you get certain items, and those areas look completely new, unlike "Time on Frog Island". I mean, even games like "A Short Hike" achieve the relaxing and fun feeling by having a smaller island, but with more vertical challenge, so it requires an progression system, but still captures a relaxing feeling by having really unique areas, a lot of characters to meet and do quests for, that are very easily understood, funner gameplay with better unlockables, and just all around more focused and better.

I find the main problem with "Time on Frog Island" is its ambition, so many other relaxing games are simpler. at first, I liked where this game was headed with the trailers, but the actual gameplay doesn't feel relaxing, fun, or even charming at the very least, it just feels like a boring game I was forced to play due to the "Mostly Positive" reviews. The game fails at doing what it set out to do by being too complex for me, by forgetting simple solutions that would've made the game better.

It may seem like I'm being very harsh, and it seems like a lot considering I never give bad reviews, as the only game I've given a bad review was due to constant crashes despite having the recommended hardware. I don't normally give bad reviews for gameplay reasons, but I felt like I had to for this game. I mean, I can't imagine getting this game at the full price of $20, I got it on sale for $7, and still felt it wasn't worth it. I still felt like it was lacking the basics of what this game was trying to be, I mean, many other games trying to go for the exact same feeling just do it way better, like the games I mentioned earlier, specifically being "Lil Gator Game" and "A Short Hike", as the Animal Crossing comparison may be quite unfair. Obviously it may be unfair to compare games at ALL, because every game is trying to be different, but this game fails at what it wants to be at it's core, in my opinion. I would recommend you get "Lil Gator Game", and it's only slightly more expensive as it's on sale right now, and the same price normally. Along with this, "A Short Hike" is an incredibly cheap, but better option.

Now, I don't wanna conclude on a bad note, that feels unfair, and very harsh, so I want to give the game some credit for what it's worth. The art-style and art direction is quite good, so if you don't care about the gameplay being fun, and all you need is cute graphics to have a good time, then yeah, this game is a good choice. The art-style is really cute and charming, and same with the chracters, but as mentioned before, the gameplay ruins that. Again though, if you only need cute art for a game to be fun, it'll work, but I would still recommend to at least wait for a sale, as it still isn't worth the normal $20, and as mentioned, the gameplay makes it feel like a waste still, even while on sale. Along with this, I have to give credit to the sound design, the music is nice too, but the sound of picking items up, talking to the little amount of NPCs, getting an achievement, are quite good, and is one of the only really good things I can say about this game.

All around, if you are just looking for a game with cute graphics, then this could be for you on sale, but if you don't wanna deal with the lack-luster gameplay, I recommend a different, more charming, relaxing, and fun game like "Lil Gator Game" or "A Short Hike". All around, I like where the developers were headed, and I don't mean to be too harsh, but I still can't recommend it from my personal experience. I still look forward to what the developers might make in the future!

I suggest play the prologue first, a free demo before considering buying the game.

I like the way you solve the puzzles in Time on Frog Island, with just enough of hints, and without any unnecessary game features such as quest logs, inventory, etc. I find it refreshing.

However, the game is way too short. I only wish there were more puzzles to solve or at least some hidden secrets which basically non-existent.

*Anyway, I'm glad I finally got to know why that funny-looking dude care so much for his plants!*

Do not pay £16 for this game. I completed the main quest in approx 40 mins. It's basically a fetch quest game with no story. Frog wants a feather. Feather is owned by another frog. Give him the item he wants in exchange for feather. That is the entire gameplay loop. There is no text, only pictures to show what the frogs want, and you can only carry one item at a time which is super frustrating, because it means walking back and forth a lot. There is no map to refer to, so much of the time you're wandering around aimlessly. I don't really understand the achievements - there's clearly more to do in the game but after repairing my boat I had no inclination to continue playing, I'd walked around enough. Some people might find it cosy, I found it super dull and boring.