If you are a big fan of Grasshopper, you might know that you NEVER know what to expect from their games. This is exactly what happened here. Frog Minutes is absolutely different from anything you would expect from them.

This time, the creators of Killer 7, and No More Heroes took a different route away from the extremely stylish violence, to the world of relaxing nature simulation.

Frog Minutes (iPhone [reviewed!], iPad)
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture
Released: March 30, 2011
Price: $0.99

Grasshopper Manufacture released this quirky little app for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPad for charity tonight to support the Red Cross for aiding the Nippon in the middle of disaster.

Instead of a crazy violent game with barrels of style painted everywhere, this is an interesting nature simulation where the main objective is to collect, that’s right, frogs.

The mechanic of Frog Minutes is simple enough. You tap the screen collecting insects frogs like to eat, and then you try capturing the frogs by feeding them with the insects they want. Once you capture a frog, some informaion will be stored about them on a tiny encyclopedia with some facts about their species. However, you gotta be fast doing it, or else the frogs will escape from your sight!

But it is not enough by just catching one specimen of frogs at the time, they also vary in weight and size, and if you encounter a large one, it will require you more insects to satisfy them and capture.



Yeah, so it’s almost like the Safari Zone from Pokemon with frogs and using insects as bait. I like the concept. In fact, what Suda and his team seem to have made here is a virtual form of Satoshi Tajiri's childhood hobby which inspired him to create Pokemon in first place.

There is this announcer that talks very often as earning achievements is easy, and you could lose sight of the frogs easily. If she annoys you, you can always turn that off; or even change the language to Japanese if that is your sort of thing.



I would have liked at least different scenes. Even though I still haven’t reached 100% (currently 32%) of completion, it seems like you can consume this game pretty fast. Anyhow, for 99 cents, you can eat a chocolate bar faster anyway.

No actual problems here! I really like this nice little game. You cannot go wrong as it’s for charity too. Win-win, everyone.

Score: 9 -- Superb (9s are a hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage to what is a supreme title.)