It was only a few days ago when I was saying about playing baffling games, and, well, here’s another one! About An Elf is somewhere between a visual novel and an RPG, where you play an elf trying to rediscover Elftopia or something. The plot is nonsense and, frankly, not what you’re going to be focussing on if you play it because that art style.

Are the characters real people dressed up? Are they CGI? Models? Some combination of all three? Is Dam, the elf you play as, really a woman who wiggles back and forth, in PVC and with presumably very cold legs? Are the “magiballs” you attack with actually marbles or drawings of marbles? IS THAT A REAL CAT?

As you chat away, you have to fight ridiculous baddies like clowns and shark clowns and space clowns and some things which probably aren’t clowns, and this is done by discovering their elemental weakness and using the corresponding magiball on them. And how do you discover their weakness? Why, with a fish-eye lens affected bit of looping video of a dog having a wash or a sunset or something unrecognisably abstract of course! Of course. A cat’s nose? Why, that means attack with your water ball, obviously! Baffling.

Thankfully, it’s near impossible to fail, as if you chose the wrong one you lose a gummi bear and get to try again, and since there’s only a maximum of five possible balls to choose, and gummi bears are plentiful, you’re not going to die.

Look, I know this sounds like I’m describing a cheese dream, but that’s probably not far from how this thing got made in the first place. Is it good? No. Is it fun? No. Is it one of the most bizarre things you’re likely to ever play? Well, duh. Essential purchase.

Seems that “cosy” is an actual genre these days, and Time on Frog Island pretty much fits in that box – there’s no chance of death, no real time limits (a couple of A-B time trials aside), and seemingly no way to fail.

The story follows you, a sailor who, having lost his wife (her having turned into a plant or something?) has shipwrecked on Frog Island. So called, because of all the frogs wot live there. And a toad. And an axolotl. But mostly frogs.

Your boat is trashed, and in order to repair it you needs parts. However, in order to get parts you need to complete simple tasks for the local residents. Most of these tasks are essentially fetch quests, although because the only dialogue is via icons and images rather than actual text or voice, it’s not always completely clear what is being asked, and some of the “missions” are multi-step. Things are complicated a little by the fact you can only carry one item at a time, some areas of the island are inaccessible until you do certain tasks, and you need to rest each night by building a campfire.

I say complicated but actually, there’s not much in the way of complication here at all. Even the trickiest of puzzles, such that they are, are trivial to “solve”. Really, it’s all about the events and the interactions rather than the quests. Cosy, see.

Once completed, in terms of rebuilding my boat and setting sail, I returned to see if I missed anything. Which, of course, I had. Turns out there’s a whole bit where you can brew potions and gain “frog powers”, like a huge licking tongue (hilariously, if you lick the toad you pass out), a pointless frog jump, and a not very frog-like short-term speed boost. The latter is handy for those timed sections I mentioned earlier, but I’d already finished them by then. Tch. Oh yeah, and you can ask one of the frogs to build you a house, providing you slip him some money. Which you get from selling things, or from planting a money tree.

I think I’m done with it now, as I can’t find anything else to do, and I don’t see myself playing it again, but that isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it or it isn’t worth playing – just don’t expect any challenge or depth.