Video Game / Frog Fractions

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You start as a frog sitting in a pond trying to keep bugs from eating your fruit. Eating bugs scores you points (which are expressed in fractions), and you have to collect the fruit when it ripens and falls off the vine (a tall order, since your character can't move back and forth right away). The fruit you do collect you can spend on power-ups (some of which are seemingly prohibitively expensive and sold in a currency you don't have), and as you do so you discover hints that there's more to this game beyond this little frog's pond.

"Discovery" is a big theme of the game, according to Word of God, and as you play you'll discover all sorts of nonsense we'll try not to spoil here.

Frog Fractions 2 was Kickstarted and turned into an ARG that spanned two years. In December 2016 it was finally released and discovered, included as a secret in a children's game by the name of Glittermitten Grove.

In August 2020, the first game was re-released on Steam as Frog Fractions: Game of the Decade Edition, alongside $10 cosmetic DLC... that's actually an entirely separate game taking place after the original Frog Fractions.

Tropes fractioned in the first game include:

• 420, Blaze It: One possible answer to a history question in the Pop Quiz is "420. I swear, they counted them twice, that's not just a pot joke." Like most of the other answers in this quiz, it doesn't make much more sense in context.
• Alien Animals: The inhabitants of Bug Mars look identical to ordinary Earth insects, but are able to talk and survive in space.
• Alliterative Title: Frog Fractions.
• All Just a Dream: The human segment turns out to be a dream.
• All That Glitters: In the end, the wealthy life on Bug Mars that Hop worked so hard to achieve was just as repetitive as life in the pond: a pointless loop of earning and spending. Tellingly, while Hop was saving up for a warp speed upgrade to escape the pond in the beginning, the upgrade he saves up for at the end is a swimming pool — the closest thing to a pond available.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Many of the characters who appear in the text boxes from the second chapter onward are talking objects.
• Art Shift: The human segment has Hop transformed from a cartoon frog to a photo-realistic man.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Hop and his dragon companion have no apparent issue staying alive while flying through space to Bug Mars. This is especially egregious for Hop, who shouldn’t be able to survive without moisture either. The bugs can also breathe in space, but this may be because they’re from another planet.
• Bookends:
  • The second-to-last chapter, just like the first, consists of a repetitive loop of earning and spending currency, even using the same upgrade menu. Both chapters end when the frog buys the most expensive upgrade currently available. These upgrades are also opposites: the warp drive allows Hop to escape the water, while the swimming pool allows him to return to it.
  • Hop starts and ends the game in a body of water, and the first major step towards reaching the end of the first chapter is the same as the action needed to end the final chapter: swimming downwards.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In a long dialogue as you enable and disable the lock-on upgrade, the two people arguing over whether or not the frog really needs the lock-on upgrade eventually question why the frog is still in the beginning stage of the game and whether they should force the frog to move on.
• Bullet Hell: After buying the dragon upgrade, the bugs start shooting massive numbers of projectiles at the frog.
• Button Mashing: One of the frog's companions suggests doing this during the rhythm game level.
• Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": Instead of hit points, the frog has “Indignity” points, which are gained when a fruit is fully eaten by insects. Gain five points of indignity, and it’s game over.
• Controllable Helplessness: The level where the frog is transformed into a human. You can try to catch bugs, but your tongue is much too short, so it's impossible to do anything but lose.
• Covers Always Lie: The frog depicted on the cover looks completely different from the one who stars in the game (with the exception of one cutscene), and the alligator in the background of the cover does not appear at all in the game.
• Deconstruction Game:
  • Edutainment games that don't actually require any grasp of the subject matter. Fractions occur throughout the game but having knowledge of fractions is in no way required or rewarded by the game nor is ignorance of them penalized.
  • Games that create false goals. In one segment of the game, you manage investments. It doesn't matter at all if you run a surplus or a deficit, and you can ultimately set all the investment values to zero and still complete the chapter by printing large amounts of money every round.
• Double-Meaning Title: The last chapter (the one consisting of Hop's break in the swimming pool, and ending when he swims downward) is called "Eyes Open". This could be an allusion to Hop's eyes being open to the truth that the wealthy life he worked so hard to achieve is an even more monotonous version of the repetitive cycle of earning and buying that he left behind when he left the pond. Swimming down in the pool is Hop's only escape from the Sisyphean cycle, just as it was in the pond. It also alludes to swimming in a pool with your eyes open.
• Edutainment Game: Starts as one, but in name only (fractions appear as the point values, but they don't affect the gameplay), and quickly goes off the rails.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: On the last typing segment before you can get at the underwater cache of "like a billion" fruit, amongst the words that appear are "dunk" and "stash."
• Foreshadowing: In the first chapter, when a fruit fully ripens, it falls. If you don't collect it, it falls into the pond and sinks. This happens a lot, especially before buying the turtle upgrades and during the typing rounds, when two out of three fruits are out of reach. Swimming down in the pond reveals a huge pile of "like a billion" fruits, presumably consisting of all the fruit that has fallen in the pond.
• Gameplay Roulette: Oh brother, and how. Starts as a Shallow Parody of edutainment games, then becomes a Bullet Hell shooter, followed by a Visual Novel segment, back to a parody edutainment game, then a maze game with art game aesthetics, a text adventure, a parody edutainment game yet again (as part of a Joke Level), a DanceDanceRevolution clone, and ends with a pastiche of Lemonade Stand/Hamurabi where you sell bug porn.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: When you Shoot The Core of the boss in the shmup level, it traps you.
• Humanity Ensues: The frog becomes human at one point. Fortunately, it's All Just a Dream.
• Hyperaffixation: During the citizenship exam on Bug Mars, it quickly becomes apparent that most of Bug Mars’ history, assuming the butterfly administering the quiz isn’t making it all up, is just Earth history (mostly United States history) with the word “bug” affixed to the beginning of everything.
• Interface Spoiler: The nature of the game as more than a simple edutainment game becomes apparent as early as the end of the first round level if you hover over the locked menu items. Not only do many of them cost extremely high numbers of both currencies, but some of them mention things like “bug porn” and the “bug president”.
• Little Known Facts: Segments of the Maze section of the game are narrated by a bogus history of boxing, which claims the sport originated in Portugal in the late seventeenth century and originally took the form of gentlemen trying to bore their opponent into unconsciousness with monotonous anecdotes.
• New Resource Midgame: The upgrade screen has several upgrades that require "zorkmids", a currency you will not get until late in the experience.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The dragon in the game resembles a Chinese dragon.
• Overly Long Gag: The Lock-On Targeting and Uninstall Lock-On Targeting upgrades, with new descriptions each time until the two go on a tangent about waffles, and then wonder why you're still turning it on and off.
• Pixellation: The "bug porn" in the credits consists of photographs of insects mating with their sex organs pixel-censored.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: When the frog collects the fruit from the stash at the bottom of the pond, the fruit counter quickly changes to "Like a billion" (a functionally infinite number of fruit that never depletes once achieved).
• Rhythm Game: One chapter is a fast-paced rhythm game level.
• Shout-Out:
  • To Star Fox 64 in most of the dialogue boxes.
  • To Radiant Silvergun in the intro to the boss fight ("WARNING; NO REFUGE BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS").
  • The credits that play right before The Big Chair chapter are a shout-out to The West Wing.
• Somewhere, a Herpetologist Is Crying: Though they're often depicted with long extendable tongues in media, actual frog tongues are much shorter, and can't reach bugs at a great distance. In real life, it's chameleons who can extend their tongue to catch faraway insects.
• Standard Snippet: Low-res snippets of public domain songs are used as musical stings for the weather reports during the Big Chair sequence. Stormy weather uses "Ride of the Valkyries", cloudy weather uses "Introduction" from Rite of Spring, hot and dry weather uses "La Cucaracha", and sunny weather uses Vivaldi's "Spring".
• Typing Game: The game will sometimes replace the standard rounds with Frog Fractions Teaches Typing, levels where insects are killed by typing the word they display. The varieties of letters used in the words is increased for every typing round until the entire alphabet is on the table.

Tropes fractioned in Frog Fractions 2 include:

• Alliterative Title: Glittermitten Grove fits, just as the first game's title did.
• All Just a Dream: Once the player unlocks the alarm clock, it will reset everything everytime it's alarm goes off, making it feel like a dream. Repeatly unless it's turned off.
• Alternate Reality Game:
  • A major part of Frog Fractions 2 was the two ARGs that got people all around the world cooperating to figure out what the game really was.
  • A series of puzzles and enigmas involving a time travel plot and a threat known as the "Decay" that would be unleashed with the release of this game.
  • A mysterious symbol known as the Eye Sigil was placed on several indie games since 2014 with Kingdom of Loathing. This symbol would in some way reveal a series of pieces to a map which pointed towards a connection with the main Frog Fractions 2 ARG.
• Artifact Title: Contains no fractions, and the only frogs are one in a totally optional hidden minigame (an LCD version of Frog Fractions) and one near the end of the game, and it's the third game, not the second.
• Award-Bait Song: "My Heart Divided" which plays over the end credits.
• Batman Gambit: The ARG relied on the player’s choosing to share the game with the world to ensure it was even released.
• Conlang: The room with the frog is based on a fairly simple one, where every glyph you've collected stands for a different word or phrase. In a couple cases, the glyph is the same as the in-game symbol for what it means.
• Exposition Fairy: Your assistant in Glittermitten Grove. She sticks around once it becomes TXT World.
• Gainax Ending: The final Korn fact is that Korn was the dying dream of the last mammal on the planet after a disastrous asteroid impact. Then there's a massive quake, the world starts falling apart, and you make a mad dash for the final mindstone... smash to Glittermitten Grove, followed by the credits. Once the credits finish, Glittermitten Grove accelerates to ludicrous speed (filling the screen with butterflies) until hitting Year 0000000000, where that world has, evidently, been engulfed by its sun and your fairy guide saying your trees didn't survived before cutting to the Sound Test.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The glyphs scattered through the world. There's two of each — collecting the first one gets you the yellow version, collecting both gets you the purple version.
• Guide Dang It!: Some of the glyphs can be very tricky to find or access without looking them up. Probably the worst offenders are the Eye glyph near the shack, which can only be accessed from Bomb Hell, and both the Up Arrow glyphs, one of which only seems to show up on not just solving the puzzle but then exiting and re-entering the room (possibly because it's blocked by the giant "go right" arrow that appears, and the other of which is received by repeatedly talking to the guard on the second screen.
  • While thankfully they do provide a copy of Dante's Inferno in the game, Inferno Investigation still requires knowing at least most of it, especially since the game will try and trip you up by mixing up infomation from it.
• Inventory Management Puzzle: There are a few of them, mainly revolving around how holding certain items will occasionally be detrimental (the sword will take up space and prevent you from taking certain tight corners, gems become impassible if you collect too many, and in one area of the game having a particular key makes you unable to progress). All your items are placed in storage every time you reload the game, so you have to remember not to pick up the ones that will block you.
• Little Known Facts: A running gag, this time about the bogus history of the Nu Metal band Korn.
• New Resource Midgame: The upgrade screen has several upgrades that require "Zorkmids", a currency you will not get until late in the experience.
• Non Sequitur Environment: All over the place. At one point you climb up into the sky, enter the front door of a blimp, and find yourself in an underground sewers level. Lampshaded by your Exposition Fairy, who provides a ridiculous Hand Wave for it.
• Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Released under the name Glittermitten Grove to hide its connection to the first game.
• Old Save Bonus: The game uses saves from Mass Effect 2 for one puzzle and a few jokes. Yes, really.
• Overly Long Gag: The credits start off normal until you see the phrase Assistant Director. This is where every backer is named in the credits like in your average kickstarter game. This game does that but adds on Assistant to the Assistant Director and then Assistant to the Assistant to the Assistant Director and then Assistant to the Assistant to the Assistant for all the remaining backers even going as far as to occasionally pop up a Netflix prompt asking if you're still watching Frog Fractions 3.
• Shout-Out: Virtually every bit of the game. But a few to start with:
  • The main interface of TXT World resembles ZZT.
  • One room features the blinking text "Created by Warren Robinett". The bridge from the same game is also a crucial and similarly game-breaking item.
  • You can import a Mass Effect 2 save game, and if you do, you can find a digression much later in the game involving some of the characters from Mass Effect 2. If you want to find the Super Soapstone, pay close attention to which characters are mentioned in the digression about donuts when choosing your Mass Effect 2 save file...
  • Aside from the obvious segment that crosses Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? with Dante's Inferno, the music for that part is Rockapella from the Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? TV series mixed with Gregorian Chant.
• Stealth Pun:
  • One of the minigames consists of chasing a thief through the nine circles of Dante's Inferno. If you pay attention to the interface, and are familiar with the original incarnations of the series in question, you'll realize you're playing Where the Hell is Carmen Sandiego?
  • Meanwhile, another game has you teeing off your Xenomorph roommate. In other words, Alien: Irritation.
• Stealth Sequel: In probably one of the most nonsensical ways imaginable, Frog Fractions 2 was stated from the beginning of its Kickstarter campaign to not have a "normal" release, with the game intended to not have any elements hinting at it being a sequel. The insane Alternate Reality Game that ensued, in which players connected various real-world incidents to pieces of online paper trails, had the end-goal of revealing the "location" of Frog Fractions 2; the TXT World game hidden in Glittermitten Grove, a game released by a completely different developer unrelated to Twinbeard, was revealed to be where the sequel was... except Twinbeard confirmed the two games to not be Frog Fractions 2, but Frog Fractions 3. The ARG itself, with its own insane running plotline, was the true Frog Fractions 2, revealing Glittermitten Grove to be a Stealth Sequel to a Stealth Sequel, in an absurd, real-life example of It's the Journey That Counts.

Tropes contained in Hop's Iconic Cap:

• Adventure Archaeologist: Hattie's profession, though she only wears the associated outfit for Hop.
• Anti-Frustration Features: During the visual novel segments, most of the dialogue options are marked with a bullet point, but the options that will end the conversation early or otherwise advance the plot are marked with a "fast forward" symbol—making it much easier for players to see all the dialogue in one playthrough, if they want.
• Art Shift: The digging mini-game turns Hop into a pixel version of himself. The post-game version does the same for Draggy and Toby.
• Art-Style Clash: Hop looks the same as he did in the original game, his wife is a pixel art cat, and October (AKA "Toby") is drawn in a cartoony manner similar to the frog on the title screen.
• Chekhov's Gun: From the start of the mode, there's a "Smell Diary" listed in the bottom-right corner that lists smelly things Hop interacts with, like "algae" and "lily". You're eventually asked to remember what the villain smells like to bypass his security, though you can just pick randomly until you select four minerals.
• Brown Note: The villain's plan is hitting Hop with "Spoiler Orbs", or "SpoilOrbs", that have this effect, in the hope that one will eventually reveal an exciting twist in Hop's own future.
• Bumbling Dad: Hop is rather out-of-touch with his daughter, Toby. They reconnect as the mode goes on.
• Call-Back: The Museum that Hop takes his daughter Toby to references both the court case and the boxing monologue from the main game.
• Cosmetic Award: The hat appears to be nothing more than this. But when you start playing with it on...
• Cut the Juice: The digging segment to find specific ores and bypass the villain's smell-gates abruptly ends when Hop hits a power line and the security system completely shuts down.
• Ditch the Bodyguards: The point and click adventure game section is about sneaking out past curfew set by your bodyguard.
• Embedded Precursor: Inverted; the game was released as DLC for the re-release of the original Frog Fractions.
• Irony: In Hattie's first scene, she insists that she may dress like Indiana Jones (because Hop asked her to), but real archeology is nothing like what you'd see in an Indy movie. Then her expedition unseals the Demiurge, and the team has to fight off hordes of zombies and eventually confront the Demiurge himself.
• Happy Ending Override: In the Big Chair segment of the original game, there didn't seem to be any consequences for screwing up Bug Mars' economy. This game reveals that you're no longer the president because Bug Mars eventually got fed up with your antics and impeached you.
• Hero of Another Story: While Hop is spending time with his daughter, Hattie inadvertently awakens, defeats, and usurps a Demiurge, and in the post-game, she must perform other grand feats, such as climbing a World Tree, to get time off to spend with her family.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The villain is defeated when Phil's limit break aggravates every single Hop clone, leading to a stampede that tramples him as well.
• Interspecies Romance: Hop (frog) married Hattie (cat) and had a daughter, Toby (different species of frog).
• Jerkass: Phil. Just one sentence is as irritating as losing a fruit.
• Over 100% Completion: Beating both the main story, and the expanded version of the digging mini-game that takes place after, leads to a 200% complete save file.
• Playing Games at Work: Draggy plays a version of solitaire with Uno and Magic: The Gathering cards mixed in, with the cards spilling out of the monitor once he wins.
• Proscenium Reveal: The mode starts out almost identical to the default game (the only differences being a hat, and smell list). But when "Draggy" appears, he's obviously just a puppet. And then a heckler called Phil interrupts the Bullet Hell segment to complain about your hat, which continues until Hop gets irritated enough to break character and argue with him. The camera pull back to reveal the stage, just as Hop leaps into the audience. The whole opening scene was just a performance based on Hop's past adventure.
• Prisoner's Dilemma: Not shown, but referenced off-hand. Hattie usurps Ialdabaoth as the Demiurge by beating him at a game of "Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma," which is a version of the game where the Prisoner's Dilemma is played in multiple rounds, with the "score" of each round being held over.
• Red Herring:
  • Peter Molyneux's bones can be obtained in a special room during the digging section, but obtaining them only adds an additional line of dialogue later.
  • Whatever word/phrase you create in the anagram segment that Hop theorizes is going to be an important passcode later; it pops up in one dialogue option during a later stealth section, but is absolutely useless in actually progressing through the villain's headquarters.
• Show Within a Show: Hop now plays as himself in a stage play based on his past adventures. The first few levels of this game are actually one of those shows, initially presented as if it were actually happening.
• Smoke Out: During the conversation with the theater manager, you're given the option to throw a smoke bomb and leave at multiple points. If you stick with the conversation until the end, eventually all of your options are to throw a smoke bomb, and your only choice is what you say before throwing it. And then you forget which door is the way out, so you're still there when the smoke clears.
• Starving Artist: Implied by Hattie to be what's become of Hop after the events of the original game, endlessly performing a theatrical adaptation of his adventures for dwindling audiences.
• Stealth Sequel: Thought the "Hop's Iconic Cap" DLC in the rerelease was just a cosmetic? Turns out, it's its own tale entirely.
• Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: The main villain of the game is revealed to be the original Hop, when October finds his original work visa on his person.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave:
  • Hop's opinion of Carl, his Secret Service agent, particularly since he's not even the president anymore.
  • Phil is also considered to be this, though he ends up being Killed Off for Real in the final battle.
• Time Skip: This mode takes place months after the original Frog Fractions; most notably, Hop is married, has a child, and is no longer President of Bug Mars, though he still has a live-in Secret Service agent watching over his family.
• You Are Worth Hell: The post-game is about Hop and Toby trying to dig to the underworld and reunite with Hattie, while also sending her schematics to help her scheme to get less working hours.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: Hattie accidentally becomes the Demiurge after an archaeological expedition uncovers its tomb and she kills it.