09/20/2022: Pocket Frogs - The Froggening

I've gotten really into a new game called Pocket Frogs! It's a game where you collect and breed frogs that you collect in order to fill up a Frogdex, similar to a Pokedex in Pokemon. The frogs have three traits: Body Color, Marking Style, and Marking Color. Every frog is able to breed with any other frog, so long as both of them are tamed, adult frogs. I'm assuming that this means that all of the frogs are the same species with a lot of variants, similar to ball python morphs. I used to own a "Normal" (read: same color as in the wild) morph ball python named Monty. He was my pride and joy, but I had to give him up after 2020 due to not being able to afford a big enough terrarium to keep him happy. I had to choose between keeping him and letting him be happy. As much as I miss him, I'd make the same choice again.

But, back to the frogs.

Pocket Frogs - The Goal

One thing that I love about Pocket Frogs is that there's not much of a stated goal. You're given two starting frogs, a Frogdex, and a pond to tame the frogs by feeding it with dragonflies. You then breed your frogs to get new and fun color combinations, and while you're hopping around the pond, you may find another frog with an exciting, different body color, marking type, or marking color! It's a simple game, but it's very casual and it lends itself to makining your own goals.

My goal is to complete all 368 color combinations of the basic Anura pattern (solid body color with cheek markings). As of the time of writing this, I have 139 out of 368, which is approximately 38% completion. I'm playing with a friend who has the same goal, but we're not competing. In fact, we're actively sharing resources and gifting each other excess frogs! I like this aspect of the game because it allows me to share progress with other people. This friend gifted me a rare Chroma frog, which has its marking colors slowly shift through the rainbow. It's a cute touch, and I'm happy to share with my friend!

Pocket Frogs - Gameplay

Pocket Frogs is a very brain-off kind of game. For the sheer volume of different color combinations, the process of getting new ones is fairly simple. As stated above, you can breed any two frogs together and get results. For example, let's say that I breed a Maroon Tingo Anura (maroon body color with red cheeks) with a Purple Picea Anura (purple body color with black cheeks). Because they have the same marking type (Anura), then the resulting froglets will also be Anura. However, they can range from Maroon Tingo (same as parent A), Purple Picea (same as parent B), Maroon Picea (parent A's body color with parent B's marking color), to Purple Tingo (parent B's body color with parent A's marking color).

You start off with a Nursery and one Habitat. Mature frogs can be placed in both, but eggs will only appear in the Nursery unless you buy a VIP pass. For the sake of this walkthrough, we will assume that you do not have a VIP pass. That is how I'm experiencing the game, so I cannot comment on the other experience. Anyway, up to 8 frogs / eggs can be stored in each. If you have 6 mature frogs in the nursery, you would only be able to breed out two more eggs from frogs in any location. This makes space a valuable resource, but there's ways to recover space.

You can sell eggs, froglets, and mature frogs, though it is recommended to only sell mature frogs, as 80% of their value comes from their maturity level, while the remaining 20% comes from their happiness level. You can increase a frog's happiness by feeding it dragonflies at the pond or by giving them a potion. Potions can also be used to instantly mature a frog or hatch an egg. Selling a frog will give you coins, which can be used to buy more frogs, more habitats, and decorations for your habitats. You also need coins in order to breed frogs in the first place, but they will sell for more than it takes to breed them, so you'll generally at least break even.

That's the general gist of the game. All further details are mostly just specifics, like how much a given frog sells for, how to get a specific body color, marking type, or marking color, and how to be the very best like no one ever was.

Pocket Frogs - Strategies

If you remember your Punnet Squares from Biology 101, you'll be able to see the general crossbreeds that are possible. It doesn't appear that basic genetics are at play; there's no dominant nor recessive allels, and it appears to just be a straight inheritance from one parent or the other. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't special factors at play. The Glass body color and the Chroma marking color are both mutations that arise when breeding parents with specific body and marking colors. The respective pages linked include tables that show what parents are necessary to obtain these special traits. Note that you can breed a Glass or Chroma frog with another frog without those traits, and the Glass and Chroma traits will be inherited like other traits; it appears that their only special quirk is how to obtain them.

My current strategy for collecting every frog is to have one of each body color and one of each marking color (Maroon Tingo, Red Carota, etc.) and then breeding them to Dex each combination (Maroon Tingo, Maroon Carota, etc.). I have a spreadsheet to keep track of what all I do have and what all I need, and then I breed frogs accordingly. If you're playing with a friend, I would recommend sharing any Breedjects that your friend needs with them! They will return the favor. This setup requires quite some space in your habitats, but it's one of the more efficient ways to breed frogs.

Today's Final Thoughts:

Frogs are cool! There won't be a big lesson at the end of every one of these, but I want to keep it for now. It's a nice little formula, and it lets me wrap up my thoughts. I do enjoy rambling, so if you're reading this, thank you for listening! :)