Amazing Frog? News

We have a much better pipeline now with V3, so moving forward it should be easier to submit fixes.



Thanks for catching this one and letting me know, balloons should now spawn from the Helium cannisters in V3. Unlike the balloon Jetpack they are limited by how many balloons they can inflate. Also, you can try sitting on some objects and spawning balloons too.

Thanks for your patience, the Updates start now, with something dark to take us into the winter months. Well, it might seem a little bit violent at points, but it was intended for a halloween special, we just got delayed and perhaps this was also how we responded to being officially rejected by Frog Con this year.



Having said that its been a lot of fun for us playing Amazing Frog? again. This is the first update to Amazing Frog? since the beginning of the year. It may seem like we had disappeared… this could not be further from the truth. We have been committed to building Amazing Frog? A better and more expandable Amazing Frog?    This new version comes and will continue its development in two parts - The V3 Beta and V2 remastered. 

[h3]To be clear -  There are no Sharks in this update. V2 or V3...[/h3]


This is not a misdirection. I know we have been guilty of misdirection in the past… but in this beta there are NO Sharks in V2 or V3…they are just not ready yet. Aquatic life will make its way back into Amazing Frog in due corse. This is one of the main reasons this update is currently only available on the public beta. If you came for sharks… come back in a week or so. If you like Frogs, balloons, guns, knives, baseball bats and dynamite and methane… then you are good to go :)





Pop Pop, There are a bunch of new items available in this V3 update. We have begun to categorise them too, toys, weapons, sport equipment etc… this helps when we are organising F.A.P.S 



F.A.P.S. has seen some significant improvements, you can now remove stuff as well as add stuff. Although in typical “Fayju" Style we forgot to put the instructions in for this… But when the Gizmo is red you can hit “reload” and it will remove items in the range of the gizmo that you have placed.



Among some of my favourite improvements in this update is the driving. The cars have been improved. Different cars drive differently. Also they are more stable. For journeys to Swindon On Sea or The Stone Clock the cars are much more reliable. I can actually stay on the roads and I’m not a particularly great driver. I don’t think there were mobility scooters in the last V3 update ? but they have also been improved and BMXs are back pack compatible.



As well as developing the vehicles, toys and instruments of death, we have also been continuing the refinement of Swindonshire. We began construction of a Dam in order to separate the fresh and salted water. More on this soon because as I said earlier… there are no sharks yet! But if you feel like sight seeing its a nice place to visit.



We hadn’t really tried much remote play in Amazing Frog? until recently and we were really pleased at how well it ran split screen over a network, so thanks Steam! This doesn’t mean we are not still working on online multiplayer, but remote play certainly helped Hal and I test the game remotely. Even if most of the time even if we set out to build something it always ends up with Hal sneaking up on me unaware with some weapon.



But then I can be a bit of a back seat driver when we are testing stuff out.





So what is V2 Remastered? - Good question, Gaz thanks!  We have been working on V2 built from V3 and we call it "V2 Remastered". In a nutshell we are effectively rebuilding V2 in the V3 code base. As I mentioned before, to build V3 we had to literally start from scratch. In many ways we should have just started building Amazing Frog? 2, but since we never really finished V2 we never really thought that was fair on you guys and Originally our plan was to just update Amazing Frog? We never expected a divide to emerge between V3 and V2.



This remastered version of V2 does not have as many locations as the existing V2. We have put up information in the town planning centre, please check it out. We have seen some significant performance improvements. Since V2 remastered is build from the V3 code base that means what we add to v3 can also work in V2 remastered and as we recreate all the content from the original V2 this content can manifest in v3… Make sense? Its OK if it doesn’t. I started writing a Dev blogs multiple times this year trying to explain this… but always figured it would be best if it could just be played. 



You will see many core features of V2 have been "taped off”  while they are in development. As we begin to remove this tape we will put V2 Remastered and V3 onto the default branch instead of beta.



It is worth noting that not all things will return in the same way. Obviously, some things are a given, The Giant Toilet, The moon, grapple hooks, Sharks Ants etc But everything is being rebuilt always with improvement in mind.



This Update is a huge milestone for us. Genuinely. And I can’t tell you enough about how excited we are about the next steps. Thanks for keeping up with us this far. On the 22nd of November it will be 7 years we have been on Steam. We should probably take Amazing Frog? Out of early access.

Just loking to test water in a build

testing the cardboard cars

[h3]!********** NOTE **********![/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1559680
[h3]Amazing Frog? V3 continues it development on this separate app and remains free for owners of Amazing Frog?[/h3]
[h3]!!********END NOTE ********!![/h3]

Happy new year! Long time since I wrote one of these... Here is the short version:

On Xmas Day we put a new Amazing Frog? "V3" update out. This was a MASSIVE milestone for us and one that we wish we could have reached sooner. Also, just now, we put another update out with some more UI options better train and car impacts and a bunch of bug fixes.



Now the longer version..



It's taken much more time that we had hoped to get comfortable with "V3" - Or as I now like to call it "Amazing Frog?®" We had worked with V2 ( "Legacy" ) for many years and as some of you may know it was build in a very old version of Unity. We tried for many years to bring the Amazing Frog? Legacy version into newer technologies, alas we never felt we could recapture the essence of the Amazing Frog? gameplay. We came close last year with the "halloween V3 beta" but while preparing the next update for last New Year we just felt there were too many holes and neither Hal or I was comfortable with how it played. So throughout 2020 we started again. (When I say started again Its never really from scratch, but we rebuild and restructure)



We wanted to get the core systems more reliable and scalable and maybe I will talk about that in a future blog like the why of F.A.P.S. Our goal has always been for Amazing Frog? To be an online multiplayer game, but for this to happen the underlying structures of the game needed to support this. It will not be too evident yet how the new underlying systems work in this new version of Amazing Frog? , but it is going to help us massively in further development. The bottom line is that you will now begin to see much more frequent updates as we begin 2021. With more updates I expect I will find more time to write more Blogs (unlike now when it is about to strike midnight at the end of 2020 and I am putting this blog together on my Mac in the kitchen )

So rather than go into too much detail about the how and what of Amazing Frog? I'll just try and answer some of the questions that have come our way.


[h3]What about V2 content and save files?[/h3]
We really had to think of them as separate, the beta last year shared save data with V2 and it just caused too many headaches and issues. These were mainly development problems, but ultimately the biggest reason why they will remain separate is because the saved data historically has been one of the most difficult obstacles to over come when adding new content or more specifically new systems. The way the "skins" work in V2 is not how frog customisation works in the new version where we have items of physical clothing. Also by retaining and supporting legacy saved data from 6 years ago it can impact progressive gameplay in a way that is extremely restrictive to how we can develop new gameplay systems in the future. This is one of the main reasons why they are separate.
[h3] What will be the frequency of Updates?[/h3]
They should be more frequent now. If you have played the xmas update this year then you will know that although the world is newer many Amazing Frog? "Usuals" are not present yes, there are only the VROG cars no sharks or alligators, no guns. Basically many of the features we need to redesign, rebuild etc. I would say though, just because there are no sharks today doesn't mean they won't be there very soon. So watch out! We really wanted to put something out at Xmas and many things we held back as they require just a bit more work or need more consideration on how we integrate them to gameplay. I will try and announce updates better this year as now we have this first version we can be more organised about it. Sometimes we may just put a small update out, but there will be big updates like flight school or the sewers which I will try and make a song and dance about and other which will be just about items and expansions.
[h3] Are you still going to update V2?[/h3]
Most likely, yes. We had a bunch of stuff we started for V2 last year and I would like to finish it off.We even had some new costumes but had not completely decided on how you could unlock them, But from this point forward V2 (or Legacy) will not be as high priority as the new version.


[h3]Whats the news of other platforms?[/h3]
I am sorry that I have not made the Mac version yet. I will make one tomorrow and see if it's stable and upload it as soon as possible. After I do this blog hopefully I will be reacquainted with how the Steam Dev portal system works and find a way to post smaller announcements about updates. I haven't had the time yet. Its been annoying how Legacy has not been working on the new OSX software, but Steam Mac version is high on my list. IOS and Android. We get a lot of requests for Android and I did have a version from Legacy back in April, but I could only get it to run in 32bit which made if inferior to the iOS version. I am pretty certain I can pull a mobile device version from what we are working on now, but I need more time as my focus right now is to flood the Steam version with more content and updates. Consoles and whatever - yeah one day but it's a bit out of our reach at the moment as we are still actively developing.


[h3]Will There be multiplayer?[/h3]
Yes Ok? Yes... but not before it's ready and its taking me a me quite some time. We also have lots of other things to implement. It's worth noting, that one of the main reasons for the complete code rewrite this past year was to facilitate Multiplayer at the core. I hate how long its taking me but there you go.


[h3]Where is the Day night cycle?[/h3]


Honestly surprised no one found that.. was doubting we should put it in the game because the zombies were not ready yet.

Happy new year all.  Thanks for being a part of Amazing Frog?