Frog Fractions 2 brings absurdist humour, wonder to Kickstarter

UPDATE 07/04/2014: Frog Fractions 2's Kickstarter campaign has succeeded its $60K goal over the weekend.

Its current tally lies at $63,689, with another 48 hours to go.

In the time since the campaign launched, Frog Fractions creator Jim Crawford released Kickstarter Simulator 2015, an FMV mini-game about creating a crowdfunding campaign for Frog Fractions 2.

Crawford also just released a 17 minute talk he gave at GDC entitled "Preserving a Sense of Discovery in the Age of Spoilers."

Now all it needs is another $199,936,311 and developer Twinbeard can attempt to buy Oculus back from Facebook.

ORIGINAL STORY 10/03/2014: Remember Frog Fractions, Jim Crawford's demented free game that posed as a piece of edutainment when it was really host to a smorgeboard of hilariously insane nonsequitors? Well it's getting a sequel with Frog Fractions 2, now on Kickstarter. Long live the new fractions!

This sequel promises to be even more deranged than its predecessor, as you can tell from its pitch that it will teach the newly discovered ancient art of "Fractions 2".

"Discovered by 16th-century Portuguese mathematician Pedro Nunes, these 'extra-fractional' fractions are twice as powerful and twice as confusing. Without Fractions 2, your children will never master recipes requiring 1/16/4rds of a cup of sodium demicarbonate, nor will they be able to buy the Frog Fractions 2 soundtrack for only a quarter hapenny!"

While the Kickstarter page is smothered in bizarre gags and little actual information, Crawford did break character to give us a little actual info about this ambitiously silly project. "Most Kickstarters are very detailed about what you're paying for, but the nature of this one is that you're paying for a surprise," the developer explained. "I created Frog Fractions explicitly to evoke the air of mystery that all video games held in the 1980s, before the era of endless preview coverage and official strategy guides took that feeling away from us, seemingly permanently."

"Frog Fractions 2 will evoke that same feeling even more strongly," he added. "I can't describe what I'm going to make in detail, but I can tell you that I've been thinking about how to properly follow up Frog Fractions for the past year, and I believe I can make something genuinely awesome."

Crawford is so dedicated to this "surprise" aspect that he's not even telling us what the Frog Fractions' sequel will actually be called or when it will be out. Figuring out what the game actually is will be a spoiler in itself, bringing a whole meta-game to the project. Of course, backers will want the game at launch, so Crawford is going to stealthily release the Frog Fractions sequel and only when "the jig is up" and the game has been outed in the press will the codes go out. However, observant fans will receive the game before then if they privately e-mail Crawford and correctly deduce the sequel's secret identity.

Elsewhere, Crawford noted that this sequel "will be considerably larger in scope than Frog Fractions, containing multiple levels of secrets that will take you many play sessions to discover. As such, it will be a downloadable title and will cost money. It will initially be available for PC, with Mac and Linux ports to come soon after."

Backers who pledge $15 will be able to get the game once they correctly identify it or "the jig is up" - whichever comes first - while pledges of $20 comes with the soundtrack too, with music by such artists as Disasterpeace, DannyB, Ben Prunty, Shnabubula and more.

Crawford is looking to raise $60,000 by 9th April. In two hours, he's already accumulated $6,956 which bodes well for the project.

And if you haven't played the first game, what are you waiting for? You can play Frog Fractions for free, so go and get your learn on!

Frog Fractions 2 - or whatever it will be called - will be out sometime in the 21st century. We'll keep our eyes peeled for anything that could be it.