Seafrog Review

Bailing on the high seas

Don’t let the cutesy art and cheerful tunes fool you — Seafrog is brutal. A hybrid platformer and skateboarding game, Seafrog lures you in with its intuitive controls and fun animations, then hooks you by making sure there’s always just one more thing to collect. Using your trusty wrench to ollie your way across gaps and grind your way over spikes, the crux of the game lies in collecting objects to advance the story and repair your ship. 

Publisher: OhMyMe Games

Developer: OhMyMe Games

Platform: Played on PC (Steam)

Availability: Releasing on April 15, 2025 on Steam.

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While the basic mechanics are simple, with only a single button used to skate or perform tricks, the real challenge comes from navigating the levels using the tools available to you. Levels, separated by ships and broken down into sublevels or rooms, get progressively harder and more intricate as you advance through the game, with many challenges or sub-objectives available for you to participate in as you play. While the first few levels may only include a ramp and a rail to navigate, you’ll soon find yourself under threat of sawblades, freezing temps, and acid pits — forcing you to get creative in how you traverse the landscape. These platforming puzzles are brutally difficult at times, requiring split-second precision and specific gear to conquer. 

The frustration can be exacerbated by the game's checkpoint system, which sees you returned all the way to your main ship upon death. Failing a task could set you back minutes at a time depending upon what you have unlocked or where you are trying to get back to — and that’s just getting to your destination. Still, despite any frustration, the level and puzzle design is great overall. I found myself admiring the ways in which I could use my various tools or gear to navigate sections in myriad ways. For example, a room may look like you need a specific tool to advance, but smart use of boosts or rail-grinding can deliver you safely to your destination.

That creativity is aided by the availability of upgrade pathways (chips) provided to you. These chips can serve as flat stat boosters (extra health, boost speed or fuel, and even increased trick points) or provide the necessary function of being able to utilize specific environmental pieces (mag walls, bumpers, etc). You can mix and match these chips to give you whatever specific boosts you might need in any given moment, although many are either outclassed by other available options, or rendered obsolete when you finish a ship. It feels a bit like the Mega Man games, in some respects.

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If the level design and puzzles are the peaks of Seafrog, the progression is the valley. There’s an absurd amount of backtracking to be done within the game in order to progress or collect many of the items. With four main ships (themed zones with specific gimmicks), you will progress part way through one at a time, hopping through several (or all of them) before ever being able to complete any individual ship. In order to finish the first ship in its entirety, you’ll need equipment and items from the second and third ships, which you won’t know until you arrive in a room you do not have the tools for. This ship-hopping takes away from an otherwise arresting rhythm of tricks and ollies that are so much fun to pull off. The game’s fast travel or navigation systems make this more of a slog than a joy, as you’ll need to travel to specific rooms in order to teleport back to your main ship. Once there, you can choose to change your next destination to various limited other rooms on each ship. 

Seafrog’s unexpected difficulty is heavily contrasted by the playful and whimsical vibes of the story, dialogue, and music. So much of the text is joking and tongue-in-cheek wordplay, all while the characters are vocalizing complete gibberish. Chipper tunes blare in the background as you splatter rats or exorcise ghosts; each animation from your frog is cute and stylized, enhanced by the vibrant pixel-style graphics. It’s family friendly in all the ways that matter, and it’s a joy to play most of the time. While the story is sparse and by no means laugh-out-loud funny, it’s worth a smile. 

Despite the seeming identity crisis, Seafrog is undeniably fun. Doing trick combos is entertaining, even if extremely simple, navigating the ships through inventive application of your abilities is rewarding, and I can skateboard on top of rats to extend my combos. Which is where the disappointment comes in for the fast travel system, I suppose. When I turn on Seafrog, I just want to keep playing it, and sometimes the game seems like it doesn’t really want me to.

Verdict

Surprisingly difficult, Seafrog is at times a joyous experience and at others a bit of a bore. Creative level design lends itself to navigating through inventive use of your abilities, but failure is punishing in all the wrong ways. Contrasting that brutal difficulty with such cheeky dialogue and light tunes is, in a way, a bit of a laugh.

Image Credits: Taylor Rioux

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from the publisher.