Terminal Frog

This is my review of "Terminal Frog", a 2D action platformer game from my imagination as a 10-year old kid. The game only exists as some sketches on wide-ruled notebook paper, but we can fill in the blanks by comparing it to similar games of the time.

Inspired by Vectorman

Terminal frog is a 2D platformer game inspired by "Vectorman" (Sega Genesis 1995). Unfortunately I couldn't find a detailed drawing of the titular "Terminal Frog" but I assume they would have been a little green frog dude made of 3d-rendered balls like Vectorman.

Vectorman standing on the SEGA logo

Vectorman gameplay on youtube

Game Play

We don't have any drawings of levels, but we can get an idea of how the game would play by looking at the controls and options.

Controls

Views and Power Ups

It appears the gameplay consists mostly of jumping and ramming into enemies. There's also a 'snatch' move which I assume is a long sticky tongue like Yoshi from Super Mario World. There's a dedicated button to rear back and do a super jump, which must be useful somehow. And at the risk of including too many actions, there are additional buttons to deploy a shield, pick up and throw objects.

Interestingly, I don't know of any game controller that has a "D" button, so it's entirely possible this game was designed to be played on a futuristic game console that had not yet been invented. 🤓

There's a list of views in the options:

Jump Range Indicator: an accessability option?
Foreground: disable the background (why?)
Thermal Vision: see heat signatures behind walls
Radar Vision: detect invisible platforms

Could there be secret passages or hidden platforms that are only detectable with thermal or radar? Who can say? But it would be pretty cool to see thermal vision in a 16-bit era game.

Lastly we have 4 power ups, which seem to just boost the power of existing abilities.

Jump Booster
Ram Booster
Energy Booster
Life Booster

Levels

The game has a total of 7 levels, but we only have drawings for a few of them.

The chart below shows storyboards for the beginning of the game. It looks like a giant lizard is wreaking havoc on the city 🏫🦖, but in a surprising twist, the lizard is being mind controlled by a giant robot or something! 🤖 Then Terminal Frog jumps out of a pond and springs into action!

After that we see a list of enemy designs for the first 5 levels.

Level storyboards

Unfinished chart with storyboards for the beginning, middle, and end of each level. Only the first two rows are filled in.

Level 1 Enemies (Sunshine Valley)

A walking drone robot, a small biting mouse, and bush that contains an 'invertant buzz saw.' (Sounds scary! 😬)

Level 2 Enemies (Skyscraper)

A wall spider, a flying Bomber Beetle and another walking drone. The boss is big spider that shoots venom from a gun.

Level 3 Enemies (Aircraft)

The Foul Falcon is the only new enemy here. It flies and shoots 2 bombs and 2 lasers. The drone has a jetpack now.

Level 4 Enemies (Underwater)

A torpedo shark, a puffer fish with a laser, and a really cool looking robotic octopus named 'Octo-Major'.

Level 5 Enemies (Coastline?)

The torpedo shark returns, along with the normal drone, and a new walking spear cannon. The boss is a hovering airplane.

I have to give my 10 year old self credit for consistency here. Every enemy has the same stat block of "Name, Danger, Transportation, and Speed". This gives a way to compare the speed and armaments of every enemy and shows a trend towards increasing firepower in the later levels. Interestingly, several enemies appear to have a limited supply of ammunition which makes me wonder what happens when they run out.

The use of a consistent stat block has the side effect that some of the stats are filled in with ridiculously obvious things like the drone having "transportation: legs" or the mouse having "danger: bite".

Most of the levels have a unique theme, and the enemies change to reflect that. The drone (spelled "droan") appears in every level with slight modifications to adapt to the environment. For example the drone in 'Aircraft' has a jetpack and it's speed is listed as 'Medium, Fast, or M/S', which I can only assume means that it is fast while flying but still medium slow while walking. The drone in the water level has fins so that it can swim.

The bosses of the game are all robotic and have multiple weapons. The boss spider has a venom gun and missiles, while the octopus 'Octo-Major' has 8 tentacles and a laser. Several bosses appear to be multi-stage, with the hovering airplane explicitly requiring hits on each wing, then 10 on the body, and 3 on the guy (I guess there's a guy inside).

This last boss may have been inspired by the VTOL Boss from the first level of Vectorman.

The VTOL boss from vectorman

Conclusion

I think Terminal Frog would have been a fun game. Even though we don't have a picture of the frog, I can imagine this little green dude ramming their way through armies of cartoonish robotic enemies. It's a shame we don't know more about the "snatch" move listed in the controls, as I can see that adding a new layer of gameplay similar to Yoshi's tongue-grab from Super Mario World.

My main criticism is that the game may suffer from some balance issues with the enemies. There doesn't seem to be a clear escalation of difficulty between levels, and in one case we see enemies reverting back to an easier version seen in a previous level. Some enemies have limited ammunition, which would make them defenseless after they've run out of shots; however this might actually be a good thing because terminal frog doesn't appear to have any ranged attacks (with the possible exception of the "snatch" move).

We only see 3 bosses, but the ones we do see actually look pretty cool. The spider and the octopus would be quite menacing to see full-screen, and battling them as a tiny frog would be a harrowing experience.

In conclusion, I think the game design is good, although incomplete. I would have liked to see some actual level designs that show how terminal frog gets to use some of the cool abilities that are hinted at in the options menu.

Rating

Terminal Frog: 7/10