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A jam submission

Froggotten RecipesView game page

You're making cocktails for a frog, but you forgot the recipes - PlayJam 5 Entry
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Froggotten Recipes's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
use of console#14.8824.882
Overall#24.1964.196
creativity#24.1764.176
fun#43.5293.529

Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Pre-made assets (Optional)
All code and assets are handcrafted, aside from the font.
We copied a bit of code from PlayJam4 as a starting point/template.

Font: Diamond12 from https://github.com/BleuLlama/Playdate-Stuff/blob/main/Fonts/Fnt/README.md

Source code (Optional)
https://github.com/britalmeida/project_loose

Explanation (Optional)
Welcome to our magical cocktail simulator!

We had fun putting this game (nearly) together.
We're a handful of people of varying previous experience and we took 3 crazy days where programmers made art and nobody did the sound until the last 10 minutes.
Most people were first time jamming and using the playdate, but the 2nd jam for some of us. So... we didn't spend half our time reading the playdate API and 1-bit art manual and we got totally over ambitious 🙈

The game can be played in the simulator, but we do not recommend that as a nice experience. You'll need to master the use of the accelerometer and crank widgets while holding 'S' and it's just not as satisfying.

BUG: the 3 magic rune symbols are moving down when they should move up and vice-versa 😭


The game is meant as a discovery experience, so go play and don't read on!
... but if it's confusing (what?!)
... ... and the game isn't making any sense (impossible!!), here's how it works:

-----------
SPOILER!!!

1) Choose a cocktail to brew for the Froggo. You forgot the recipe...
2) You can bring up the cocktail goal during gameplay with the ⬅️ to look at it for clues. They *are* different. (and yes, we have 10 more recipes in postits that didn't make it in... and you were supposed to unlock them and get the frog's approval with beautiful art)
3) If you're stuck:
i) Ask the Frog with (B) button. He'll tell you what's off. Keep pressing, he'll be more specific.
ii) Bring up the controls with ➡️.
iii) Bring up the goal with ⬅️ and look for clues.
4) The Froggo will explain about the fire and adding ingredients, but only if you haven't done that yet. Restart the cocktail and press (B) to see help you might have missed out on.

EVEN MORE SPOILER!!!
1) Blowing up the **FIRE** shows how good the ingredients are.
i) Blow onto the mic at the bottom of the playdate to see flames going up.
ii) The glow on the bottom of the cauldron and bubbles in the liquid show that the fire is going and glow should show on the 3 symbols... if they are correct.

2) STIR to get the potion **COLOR**.
i) Stir one direction to make it brighter, the other direction for darker.
ii) Speed doesn't matter, but do notice our very nice "fluid simulation" tech xD
iii) The color goes from fully black to white. It should match the cocktail picture and the frog will say when it's too bright or dark and by how much.

3) Add **INGREDIENTS** to get the 3 SYMBOLS right.
i) To add an ingredient: tilt the playdate so the cursor is over something. Hold (A) to grab, tilt to put the ingredient over the cauldron. Release (A): the thing should be snapped above the cauldron (or go back to the shelve). Now shake the playdate to get things from the jars onto the cauldron, you should see them fall. The more you shake, the more you add.
ii) Don't forget the fire so you can see glow on the symbols.
iii) The 3 magic properties of a potion are shown with the symbols love, doom and weeds (left to right)
iv) Different ingredients add to love, or subtract from love. (always the same way)
v) The frog will say if it's "too much love", then, pick an ingredient to make the love go down. With the right ingredient, the heart symbol (and the others) should go up/down and become brighter when it is more correct. We have a bug here! The symbols are going in the reverse direction (so: heart goes down when a lovely ingredient is added). Sorry :(
vi) Look for ingredient clues in the cocktail mission.
vii) The spiderweb is an ingredient too. They're 9 ingredients.
viii) Ingredients: Peppermints, Perfume, Mushrooms, Peanut Butter, Toenails, Salt, Garlic, Spiderweb, Snail Shells (no animal cruelty!).

4) That **FROG** should be helpful!
i) He'll look happy or disapproving when the brew gets closer to target.
ii) If you press (B) he'll say what's off from the target (color or 3 symbols).
iii) Keep pressing (B) for the frog to get more specific.
iv) At some point, he'll stop complaining and drink it. It means you won! Congratulations!!

END OF SPOILER
----

We'd love if you'd let us know what worked nicely and what you've missed out on until reading the explanation above.
Let us know if you managed to make a cocktail, it's possible! and if it's fun! 🐸

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Such a cute game, and I love the frog theming, and the pun title 🐸💚

The accelerometer controls work beautifully, and I hope more games try that type of control for cursors. It works so well, and kind of reminds me of Wii remotes in a way haha

Very charming game!!!

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for the appreciation! 🐸💚

Submitted(+1)

That’s quite the demanding frog!

Anyway, while the time you have with jam-games usually is short, it nevertheless felt like an entire journey from being frustrated that nothing you do seems to work (that is to the point you even have to learn the controls) to feeling that you understand at least the basics, to being comfortable with the game-loop. – So while I may have been frustrated in the beginning, once it became clear that the fun of the game is finding out the controls & the ‘rhythm’ of the game, well, let’s just say I’m quite glad I only found out there was a detailed guide here later on.

In a field of games where the polish is on average very high (seriously, I don’t think I’ve played any game this time around that didn’t have some sort of polish – besides my own bare-bones effort that it), this one still manages to stand out.

The music is repetitive, but quite well done, and doesn’t really become grating.

I wonder if there’s some way to keep the ‘find out’ gameplay without the frustration in the beginning – it seemed to take forever to finish the 1st cocktail.

Also, you seem to have given every feature of the Playdate its fair shake (sometimes literally…), most notably the two most underused features, the accelerometer and the mike – and used them in a way that doesn’t really feel tacked on. (While for most of them the action could just have been a button, given the thematics, the feeling would not have been the same.)

Developer(+1)

Thank you for your comment and for putting in the effort to figure out the controls. I’m glad it feels right ^^
We hope the gameplay would be discoverable with some more polish. We had some ideas that didn’t make it such as “when selecting the cocktail from the menu, we transition to gameplay with a smooth animation where the cocktail image tucks to the left”, so that would be more discoverable that it’s at the left arrow. The frog dialog logic also could be much improved so he says more helpful things at the right moment. We wanted to add heart/skull/leaf symbols to the frog dialog, etc… lots of polish that would just connect the different aspects together.

We’re looking into an updated jam version that is a little less confusing/frustrating, but makes the frog no less demanding! 🐸💜

Submitted(+1)

All the capacity of the playdate are in use ! Loving the drag and drop and accelerometer use ! 
BTW how use the mic with the simulator?
Overall sound and look well ! Great entry !

Developer

Thank you!!!!
The simulator will pic up the laptop’s microphone or the headset… depending on your computer setup :)  The accelerometer is a bit challenging to use in the simulator, tho.

Submitted(+1)

Love the artstyle, music, the use of the playdate's feature, all of it! Very well done!

Developer

Thank you so much!! 💜 🐸

Submitted(+1)

Uh, WOW. Gorgeous, so much character. The depth of the cauldron works so well and I like the accelerometer controls.

The art for the drinks themselves have such a fun style to them and I loved having to visually figure out and guess the recipe

Developer

Thankyouu very much!  🙏 🐸

(+1)

Everything here is fantastic, I love the art style and the play to discover nature of the game. Thank you for adding a detailed explanation of what exactly is going on with different game mechanics, particularly what the fire does. I really hope we get a full version of this one, it would be a day one buy from me!

Developer(+1)

Really? Thank you so much, that's nice encouragement 🙏🐸

Submitted(+1)

i LOVE the vibe of this one, kinda reminds me of "spellcorked" in season one but the whole cauldron brewing aspect might be biasing me haha. the art is great and i really really love the use of the playdate's features in this game: i'm honestly surprised how well that cursor controls with the gyro. though, i'm definitely appreciative of the spoiler guide (as well as the controls screen on the side), the goal did not click with me till then hahah

amazing work all around, folks!!

Developer(+1)

Thankyuu! Appreciate the feedback.
It took two smart programmers to "recalibrate gravity" for the gyro so that it adapts over time to the way people hold their playdate. Without it, we kept having the cursor going into the bottom corner unless we held the playdate perfectly flat which becomes annoying. With this trick, people can play with the playdate horizontal or vertical, or laying down belly up in the sofa if they feel like :))

Submitted(+1)

The use of all the playdate's features makes this so, so fun! I'm not sure I've played any others that have you using all types of inputs as fully/simultaneously as this, it's really great. Also very cute art and animations!

Developer

Ty soo much! 💜 🐸

Submitted(+1)

Very cool idea and usage of the Playdate, I like it but without the written help it’s very hard :D

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing! 🐸

Submitted(+2)

All I can say is damn. I couldnt figure out how to make a recipe, but I had a big stupid grin after stoking the fire and trying. Fantastic use of all the playdate features, on top of that great graphics and killer music. Well done!

Developer

🔥🤩
We just added detailed instructions to this page to help figuring out the game, if you'd like to give it another go!

Submitted(+1)

Wow! Great music, beautiful art, using every part of the console effectively. I couldn't figure out how to successfully make any potions after 5 minutes or so 😅

Developer

That seems to be the common experience 😝
We added instructions to this page! does that help?

Submitted(+1)

This is the best use of the playdate's controls i've ever seen! although it is pretty hard to play on the simulator, which is kinda the only way I can play rn

Developer(+1)

aww, ty! 🐸💜
Indeed, in the simulator you'll need to master a vulkan grip of holding 'S' and the accelerometer widget at the same time, which isn't great.
Gotta say that developing this game looked like a room of crazy people making diverse sounds and holding the playdate upside down to debug various things 😅
We added instructions to this page, btw!