Haha the blue flower was definitely a little evil of me. >:) I was trying to put it somewhere that had blue surrounding it, which ended up being the castle..
Although the frog placement was not entirely deliberate, you definitely were playing the game in the most efficient way! The game becomes infinitely easier if you don't try and look for a specific item for too long, since you'll end up finding it when you're trying to find something else. I could definitely see the castle being overlooked, maybe I should have added some more visible items up there. Although, I think the extra challenge definitely makes the scenes much more rewarding so it worked out in the end.
Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked the art, making pixels look sexy was definitely a challenge.. (the witch is my favorite as well btw <3)