Recent reviews by RoobyRoo

I've been thinking about this game a lot over the last several months, and I'm overdue to say some things. I have a lot of thoughts about it and I'm not particularly good at structured writing, so my thoughts are going to be all over the place, but feel free to take it as it is (or not).

(As a disclaimer: after playing through this game, I have since worked with the developer on releasing an item randomizer mod for this game through Archipelago. I do not have a neutral relationship with this developer, so measure my opinions accordingly. I don't feel like I held any punches in this review, though.)

In short, this game is an indie gem. It's a one-person pet project at the end of the day, and it's got all the benefits and drawbacks that comes with that. It's got some rough edges, but it's got a lot of places where it really shines, most obviously so in the meat-and-potatoes of the gameplay itself.

The core gameplay experience wears its inspirations on its sleeves. You've got Boomer Shooter-style gunplay attached to a metroidvania-style world exploration, blocked out with learn-or-die soulslike bosses. The end result is a gameplay loop that, as far as I know, doesn't really exist anywhere else. I think that's a great shame, because these mechanics work together in a way that is much greater than the sum of their parts, and Frogmonster puts it to full effect. I do find myself wishing that the game set itself up to allow more of the backtracking and "getting lost" that metroidvanias are known for, but I think that's a limitation of genre-fusion like this. You have to strike a balance between the features that can appeal to fans of both parent genres, so I don't fault Ben for this. Despite the obvious inspiration from Team Cherry's work in this game, please know going into it that you're not getting Hollow Knight With Guns when you pick this up; this game is trying to do something else.

That something else, in my opinion? It's the boss fights. It's what makes the game what is is. I think there's somewhere in the range of 40 of them as of time of writing, when I think any shooter game would be noteworthy if it had 5 of this caliber. Shooter games as a whole have historically struggled to create interesting setpieces and challenge fights that extend much beyond "shoot the thing until it dies". Frogmonster's focus on management of your movement options and ammo/mana creates an interesting back and forth dance that feels more at home in a Dark Souls game than it does in something in this genre, but it works beautifully. Each of the bosses is memorable, and most of them are genuine challenges that will force you to keep coming back until you figure them out. There's a couple of them that turn the rules on their head entirely and have "gimmicks" you have to solve like puzzles to beat them, if the more "Zelda" style bosses are more to your liking. There's so much variety with comparatively few tools and you're not gonna find that variety in other shooters. Oh, and yes, there IS a post-game boss rush mode. This game's got the Hollow Knight "Pantheons" thing going on, and it adds a lot of replay value to this game and gives you space to really master your movement. Technically a spoiler, but I don't care. That's a dealmaker for a lot of people, so I'm mentioning it.

The visual design is something else. The entire world is hand-crafted from the ground up out of these large, chunky voxels, and yet they've been sculpted out into these large, flowing shapes. The world is full of caves, rivers, trees, mushrooms, and other structures that all still feel impressively organic given the limitations of the medium. Ben has gone the deranged indie developer route of building his own game engine from scratch, and it pays off here in a lot of subtle ways that aren't obvious if you aren't familiar with the limitations of off-the-shelf engines. Of course, custom engine also means custom bugs. There are definitely some sticky geometry, performance hiccups, or weird graphical glitches here and there, especially around what I've since learned are the game's loading zones, but I hardly consider them a dealbreaker.

This game doesn't take itself too seriously, but I mean this in the best way possible. The game is extraordinarily goofy. Basically all of the sound effects in this game ultimately amount to Ben or some friend of his grunting into the microphone. The sound effects of your guns and spells are plosives and whistles from somebody's mouth. The NPCs you encounter babble nonsense at you in funny accents. Most of the enemy death/pain sound effects are just cries and screams pitched up or down to comic effect. And yet, it remains artistically cohesive. Combine this with the many goofy designs of friends and enemies alike (I will NEVER forget the wall-eyed stare of Yanoy as he lunges at me from across the room), and also combining it with the boss design (see above), and you have a very unserious but ultimately very charming package that you're not gonna experience anywhere else. You certainly would never get this from an established game studio, at the very least.

The storyline is... present. It's enough to justify the action of the gameplay, but that's the only real commendation I can give it. Again, the game doesn't take itself too seriously, you're here to get your ass kicked by a mastiff-sized screaming cicada with a gatling gun mounted on the back for 30 straight minutes.

I also have to talk about the music. I'm an audio guy, professionally speaking, so I'm going to be a lot more critical here than I think most people expect or want. The game is distributed with two separate soundtracks. There's the original soundtrack, which I believe was composed by Ben himself (EDIT: Nope, a college friend!), and then there's the "new" soundtrack, which was composed by Viho!. The classic soundtrack is a lot more minimalist and simple (as you would expect from solo dev music), and generally contributes a bit of a broodier atmosphere. The newer soundtrack, by contrast, has a lot more range in both the emotional and mechanical senses; it has much higher highs and much lower lows. There are several tracks which are individually excellent tracks, many of which provide a much-appreciated boost of energy to frantic, violent gunplay, and on average the soundtrack has a quirky and fun spirit that closer matches the tone of the rest of the game that the original lacked. However, there are a handful of places in the soundtrack where there are clear audio execution errors (miscut loops, audio pops) that I find very distracting, and a few individual tracks that are a bit disjointed from the adjacent tones/styles, or I otherwise am not sure I understand the vision on. But, hey, flipping between the two soundtracks is very easy, so if you want my recommendation for the best experience, switch to Classic when in the Lost Swamp (the first region) as well as Old Road and the areas immediately past it (Old Wood, Estate, Fog Garden, and the combats therein. Well and Thickness can stay New. ) (sorry Viho, I love a good polyrhythm but your inner pianist is showing. Those drums ain't it!). Switch to the New soundtrack for everything else.

All in all, Frogmonster has shaped up to be one of my favorite videogames of all time. I'm comfortable calling it my GOTY 2025. I've got enough issues with it that I think I can't comfortably call it a "masterpiece" by any real means, but the vision is absolutely there, and the bones of the game are strong. Ben Jungwirth has vision and a lot of other strengths which shine through in this game, and I would love to see what he could be able to do if had a small team of talent to shore up some of his weaker skills.

♥♥♥♥ this game

COVID-19 isolation gang rise up

pew pew pew pew

pew pew

Been playing the browser version for months on end before getting this.
Being a long time fan of party games such as Mafia (or Trickster, as my family liked to call it), this game was right up my alley. It's a game of deciet and cunningness, which requires planning ahead and often spur-of-the-moment lying and strategizing.
The only qualm I have with the game is the community. Unfortunately, people have been known to make racist or homophobic comments in-game (it is primarily chat-based, after all). However, the game is still in development, and the team has plans to implement a judgement/banning system and a rankings system relatively soon, so this won't be that big of a problem for much longer.
DEFINATELY recommend, depsite this, ESPECIALLY if you like games like Mafia or Werewolf.
(Also note: If you're a skeptic and don't wanna fork over the money for this game just yet, you can also turn to their free, browser-based version at blankmediagames (dot) com (slash) townofsalem . Good luck, Townies!)