I think there's something inherently heartfelt about snarky parody that pays homage to its source material. I imagine this as being similar to the Weird Al Yankovich song 'Dare to Be Stupid', this love letter to something already so wondrous and silly yet established enough for the humor to seep through. It's stuffy but sincere, much like a hug from that sibling that you always get into really petty debates about at the kitchen table.

The variance is also something to note, as every new section has something to add: The facade at the beginning is a super casual and almost idle-ish game, The visual novel segments in Bug Mars, the old-school text adventure filtered through black-and-orange CRT filter, the DDR segment. It all contributes to this wonderful dive into the insight of a development team who truly enjoy the variety of genres and experiences. There's even a really weird business management game implied to be made in ZZT, which is something really nerdy and fascinating to me.

You can chock up a lot of the humor to 'lol randem xD' bits, but a lot of it comes from natural thoughts one would have while playing a game. The underwater section on bug mars leaves a lot of silence and contemplation whilst the brain auto-pilots on finding a way out of the maze and, naturally, a nonsensical mental narration begins to take shape. Jurisdiction in Bug Mars is modeled rather completely after the foundations of American law and war, much as one might stand to compare Ace Attorney's judiciary system to the player's residing country. You can constantly remove and re-add an add-on whose flavor text on the upgrade screen follows a debate between two outside parties, much like the banter between two gamers while playing a video game.

The pattern here is poignant: Video games are media that inherently evoke a sense of wonder and curiosity. This is apparent in most games, linear or otherwise, but Frog Fractions makes it most apparent in an extremely short run-time and with unorthodox panache and wit. This is a game designed by those who wonder about sudden possibilities and switch-ups, a frog upgrade game about 'fractions' suddenly becoming a visual novel, then an exploration game, then a text adventure, and then DDR.

Just like, do what'cha want, man. Everything goes here.

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
You didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know