While Amazing Frog? QMMT (Quest for the Magical Mystery Toilet) is about to leave Early Access after 10 years, Amazing Frog? 2 which we feel has so much more scope for the future is, lets face it just getting started.

Hey everyone, it's Hal again with an update on what I've been working on for the next release of
Amazing Frog? 2.
Lately, my focus has been on finalising a more streamlined and stable version of the Swindonshire
world. This involves implementing new technology and pipelines from QMMT to handle plant and
grass placement and rendering, along with resolving some lingering issues—like fixing sunlight
leaking into the rail tunnels.

As I’ve mentioned before, many of these systems will now be powered by Houdini, allowing us to
place assets more intelligently and add new features faster. While building assets for AF2 takes
longer due to our goal of higher graphical fidelity, these new tools, alongside the engine
improvements Gaz is working on, should speed up content creation and variation in the long run.

This past week, I’ve been refining the terrain under the town. Some areas needed to be lowered to
accommodate basement levels, while others had to align perfectly with roads and sidewalks.
Although the process seems straightforward, moving everything into Houdini for better control has
added some complexity. I sculpt the terrain in Unity, convert it into a mesh, and then use that
mesh like a stamp to transfer the details back into Houdini’s heightfield. While more tedious, this
workflow ensures the world remains adaptable and saves time in the long run, especially when
making large-scale changes or adding new plant types.

I’ve also been refining the trees and the tools I’ve built to generate them. I’ve developed a tool in
Houdini where I can ‘design’ a tree and have it generate multiple variations (so that they don’t all
look exactly the same). The system also generates all necessary LOD (Level of Detail) and
collision meshes for different viewing distances.
We now have four LOD stages for our trees:
• The closest LOD uses a shader that distorts the surface by scaling the vertex positions. This
adds a "fluffy" appearance without relying on too much geometry, keeping rendering efficient.
• The next two LODs are simplified versions of the trunk and foliage, using non-transparent
materials for better performance.
• The farthest LOD is an "imposter"—a flat quad that displays a baked image of the tree,
drastically reducing the cost of rendering forests, as distant trees are just billboards.

One of the perks of using Houdini for tree generation is the ability to add creative touches without
spending extra time. For example, I baked vertex colour noise into the foliage meshes and
projected it onto lower LODs. This allows the shaders to apply subtle colour variations to the
leaves, ensuring consistency across different LOD levels. We’ve also implemented crossfading
between LODs, reducing the visual “popping” that often occurs when transitioning between levels
of detail.

Looking ahead to next week, I’ll be tackling one of the more exciting tasks. Now that Gaz has
migrated the codebase from QMMT, we can better utilise physics zones and populate the world
with more frogs and content. Expect AF2 to feature more frogs than ever before, each with
distinct roles and purposes!

I wanted to share what I’ve been working on over the last few weeks.

Ever since we first started building the ‘next’ Amazing frog? with higher fidelity graphics, the terrain has undergone several reworks and phases.

Initially, the terrain was crafted and imported into Unity from a separate software, and piece by piece the elements were assembled together in the Unity3D game engine. Any alterations to the landscape required a back and forth between software, making adjustments labour-intensive and time-consuming.


While I had already made several Houdini tools for ‘Amazing Frog?' such as fencing, electric pylons and fairy lights it was while remastering the world for 'Quest for the Magical Mystery Toilet' I seized the opportunity to delve deeper into creating tools that were more intertwined. This not only helped streamline the workflow but also enhanced the richness of our environments.

I’m now beginning to rework the world of AF2 in the same way. This entails migrating the whole terrain and its features into Houdini, leveraging the power of Houdini Engine within Unity3D to generate the landscape and its additional elements all at once. This shift gives us unprecedented control and flexibility, allowing different data sources to blend and influence additional details. For instance, the erosion simulations that shape the island can drive natural rock placement. The position of trees in Houdini can create raised mounds around their roots. While their coverage can dictate the density of grass growing underneath. I can specify areas that are suitable for trees to grow and have areas that are not. Other data such as the roads can then feed into these ‘masks’ and Houdini can cleverly scatter them. This fosters greater iteration and refinement possibilities.

In the past, our roads were modelled in Maya and imported into Unity, making any adjustments or additions cumbersome. In our new framework, roads are generated within Houdini using simple hand drawn splines. These splines are projected onto the terrain surface, shaping the landscape to conform to their placement. Additionally these splines can be marked with other data that can drive additional details about how they are generated, such as there width or what road markings they have.

In previous versions of the terrain splat maps which dictate material placement (like rock and sand) were controlled and generated procedurally at a shader level. While this approach enabled us to quickly create expansive landscapes with a reduced memory overhead, it also restricted our ability to tailor specific details. In this new iteration of the world the terrain is split into 16 chunks each with their own set of image based splat maps. This means again other elements such as buildings and roads can drive the materials around them. All being updated automatically when elements are repositioned or added.

Here are a some of the changes I’ve made to the area around flight school, now we have this flexibility (All very much work in progress).
Due to changes in the terrain scale and world position the runway needed shifting. There wont be any successful flights taking place here!

I started out by making a more suitable plateau to accommodate the existing runway.

With all this extra space I decided to extend the runway and make it more suitable for larger and more varied aircraft in the future. I also added fences and a few car parks to flesh out the area. Additional details are still needed like lights signs and airport ‘stuff’, all of which will be added later in the process.

Other areas such as the dam and road bridge are receiving a similar treatment. Bringing them to a basepoint that we can detail and flesh out more as we progress.

I’ll be back to update you all again with more progress when things have moved further along.

Happy Froggin’ Easter! Or Spring... how ever you want to look at it.
Tis the season of Bunnies and Chocolate Eggs! During this Event you can get unlock the bunny outfits.

Pick up a leaflet outside the hideout to find the Easter Egg locations ...find them and smash them!

Egg Hunter Helicopters have been made available for the Event.

The eggs are pretty big , but they may be hard to find.

Smash all the eggs to unlock 2 complete colour sets of the happy bunny outfit.

A bunny suited Frog lives in each egg. If you decide to attack every bunny located at each egg you will collect 2 sets of the dead bunny outfit.

Are you feeling evil? Ready to boil some bunnies?

However, be warned.. I basically set out to do the Egg Hunt to show how it works, but an hour later i realized I had just been messing about on the BMX and moped, it happens, sorry.

Finish your Outfit
If you’ve played the event on previous years but haven't completed your bunny suit it’s the perfect time to come and finish it.


The Bunny event ends on April 30th so don’t miss out

I thought the easter bunny egg hunt would just be there. Nope. So we ran over the bunny outfit challenge added a few helicopters etc etc. I'll post an event later to explain the "Egg Hunt".


The development of Amazing Frog? 2 is always moving forward. I cannot stress that enough. Every now and then its nice to do a progressive update that will give you a few extra things to play with.

As the mechanics evolve so do things which have been there before. When I was testing this update the bunny outfit frogs that spawn in the giant eggs started kicking back after I shot one with an arrow....then i collected the arrow towerfall style.

and then of course its now possible to take their skulls...


We just try and keep moving forward be it enhancing the Frog intelligence (FI) or evolving mechanics, improving the rendering, adding new content there is no shortage of things to do.

For the past week or so, I have just been at GDC in San Francisco, being a "game dev" and exploring our future .. I had the chance to reflect a bit on Amazing Frog? as a whole while I demo-ed it and talked where we want to go ( and about why we are still working on it lol). I got the chance to play with Sandbox and it opened my eyes to the possibilities for the future of Amazing Frog? 2.

We really enjoyed the Dragon update this year and have been ooking at how we can integrate the "Dragon system" as a permanent feature of Amazing Frog ? 2 especially as Hal develops the underwater part of Swindonshire.

For now I am going to go set up a Steam Event so that you guys know how long you have to get the 4 bunny outfits... and make some little videos of the footage I just took, although it may be a bit BMX heavy I got distracted trying to land a flip in the skate park.... Happy Spring Holidays!

The Dragon will only be around for a Limited time, During the Year of the Dragon Event

If you want to get the dragon goodies you need to get in there quick and collect those golden Dragon Scales,

Go Double Dragon on it! Remote Play Together and collect those Golden Scales quicker.

Its an Update ! so obviously, we have also been trying to fix some things in since Sandbox. Thanks for all the support so far on Amazing Frog? 2

A new category in the menu System called Sandbox.

Yeah, its literally a Giant Sandbox.

If you know what a F.A.P.S. ( Fairly Accurate Placement System ) Desk then you will be familiar with how this works in Amazing Frog? 2.

The F.A.P.S. Desk came about because we had been developing so many different types of Vehicle, creatures, accessories, weapons etc etc, that we needed to be able to gameplay test them rapidly making different combination.

And while you know we love our unlocks in Amazing Frog? by finding F.A.P.S. Disks often its nice to just have access to a bunch of content and just place them next to each other and see what happens.

Sometime in Development the F..A.P.S. Desk has been so helpful... but also really addictive, weird and fun. I have often lost too much time just experimenting with different combos... but I do have all the Disks.
Apart from the giant Sandbox we also have Winter island where the F.A.P.S. desk has a bunch of festive FAPS Disks.

With these two Sandbox worlds, we have also been creating other worlds for Amazing Frog?2 (Its all part of a larger development plan.) Winter Island is one of these.



We have a whole bunch of other worlds to come too.

What about Swindon shire?
Well it may run better for many players The main reason I didn't call this a "Major" update in that I know Swindonshire needs more attention and we are very close to a world refresh for Swindonshire in AF?2 but its not quite ready, but we really wanted you to share in the sandbox ness these Holidays. There have had been some pretty fundamental physics updates that should help, but we haven't had bunches of time to test so be warned some strange things may well happen in this update.

And more to follow very soon.

Hey FAPpy Holidays !

We have some exciting news for Amazing Frog? 2.
A Major Update, the Sandbox Update will be available soon.

Recently, we dropped "V3" from the name in favour of "Amazing Frog? 2". A bit of rebranding as we give Amazing Frog? 2 its independence. I actually wrote a few blog posts that I never posted attempting to explain this, but in the end I felt it was self explanatory.

So, if you bought Amazing Frog? or Amazing Frog? 2 before today nothing will change and you will continue own both apps in your library, but from today we will be selling Amazing Frog? and Amazing Frog? 2 separately ( or in a bundle, I guess).

Amazing Frog? 2 began its development with every intention to become an iterative "update" to Amazing Frog? Things change... the scope changed, software changed, possibilities changed and we ended up working on two projects moving in different directions.
We now have two games:

Amazing Frog? 2

and

Amazing Frog? (the Quest for the Magical Mystery Toilet)


I don't like "Road Maps" It makes me feel super uncomfortable to state what we are going to do as things change in development and we often need the flexibility to adapt. But I can outline a simple top line Road Map for both projects.

Has become our more Experimental development environment. In the Sandbox update we are opening up a series of new environments and giving you access to more unlocked FAPS disk items to use in the new "Everything Sandbox" mode. We will give access to the Swindon Games island, Winter Island, Tiny Islands and a couple of emerging environments with tentative starting names the Toy room and Zombie Land.

Sandbox

Toy Room

Zombie Land

Tiny Islands

has evolved to be a kind of open world free roaming adventure game and will leave early Access very soon. We are building for other platforms since it is now in a highly portable state. We will continue to update Amazing Frog? QMMT especially here on Steam, complete the Legacy Remastering process, flight school, magic toilet etc and of course continue to introduce more activities, a bunch of new vehicles, new beasts and Amazing Frog? QMMT part 3 is next... You can find out more about QMMT here:

https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/app/332570

So far this year the Updates for Amazing Frog?2 have been "seasonal" Easter, Valentines and lunar new year...(Really looking forward to year of the Dragon....) We wanted to implement a perpetual season system within Swindonshire. Meaning that the bunny outfits would become available every easter, Pumpkins for October, Santa Heads and crazy elf frogs in the Holiday season. Looking at where we are at, I can't believe the last update was easter!
It has been a major advantage being small allowing us to continue to develop in perpetuity, but the down side of being a small developer is that things take time.

Update coming very soon.

The All new Grapple Hook is now available in V3. Check out this video that we just made for info about the update.

The Easter challenge has been extended too (...take a gun with you)

(Little Dev note : I really like these pamphlets. We made them initially to help promote tourism, but they help us distribute information about jobs and missions. They will someday be available from the job centre and other places to share other tasks and things to do. For now the seasonal event systems of easter, halloween, xmas etc have been really helpful in allowing us to share some of the mechanics that we have been working on for V3. For more of the mechanics to become available we still need to finalise the core systems some more. )

Oh Dev..

I won't lie, It's been a lot of work trying to keep on top of V2 and V3, but we are making progress. Really excited for the High Definition Render Pipeline ( HDRP ) version of V3, but also frustrating we cannot make it available yet. While it is looking encouraging for running better, unfortunately it's not quite ready yet. Sometimes you just have to roll with technology and we did not want to get left behind like we did with legacy. Remastered has also been moved to a newer Universal Rendering system ( hence its delay ) That will be ready soon. I would like to begin to call Remastered - Amazing Frog? (Definitive) and I would like to start officially calling V3 - "Amazing Frog? 2". We'll see...

For now Enjoy the Grapple hook.

I found some screenshots Hal put on the shared drive...(its 3am here)... I think he pinned all the purge frogs to the court...

And then killed them :: - bit dark...

but to be honest I was really shocked with the new grapple hook, it was a lot of fun.

Is Love in the air? Its up to you.

Valentines Content Available for a limited time - until the end of Feb ! We have upgraded the Valentines content from last year and we are aiming to solidify these timed events as permanent seasonal content for V3.

This Valentines update brings the balloon Gun to Amazing Frog? V3. Use special heart shaped balloons for this loved up Update.

During Valentines, take Love to the air in the sexy pink biplanes available in the Swindon play ground.

Don't Worry if flying planes is complicated we have made available a couple of dev test rooms that we use to refine and test our vehicles.

Also push your driving skills to the limit if out Car testing room.

Let us know if you like these Test Rooms.

And obviously during February there is loads of new gear to unlock for the Love/Hate Valentines challenge.

There are also other ongoing updates and fixes to the world. While this is not the major render pipeline update we have been working on its not far away and you can tell from the video we had a lot of fun playing around with the balloon guns.