Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge (2024)

Kamaeru is a management simulator involving cute frogs. You buy furniture using money to attract frogs, tame them using bug food, restore a wetland to find said bugs, and sell farm products to make money. It's an interlocking set of mechanics, and the overall goal of the game is to fill your directory of frog species.

The issue with the game is amount of randomization and waiting involved. Frog types spawn randomly, and even the breeding mechanic involves a certain amount of randomness. Bugs appear slowly, and crop harvest takes time. All of this adds to a lot of random clicking and waiting around.

The ambience of the game is great though. The artwork is cute, and the frogs are cute as well (they're all palette swaps of the same design). The soundtrack is also very relaxed, and there's a chill vibe to the whole experience. Unfortunately the shallowness of the gameplay and the lack of agency detract from the experience, to the point that I couldn't enjoy it.

Played: 5-1-2025

Playtime: 1,5 hours

Context: I like cosy games but i hate clickers

Intro

Kamaeru consists of 2 locations that you move between by clicking a button - every PC/NPC is static. On one screen you buy and place furniture to attract frogs so you can feed & photograph them. You can also breed frogs to get new varieties. On the second screen you place plants, ponds and insect/bee hives. You turn the plants into products for money through a very basic minigame. Here you also capture insects to feed frogs (and thus tame them). Initially you have to catch them yourself, later on people can do it for you.

The Good

• It looks beautiful.
• Positive message.
• It's kinda cute.
• Mostly relaxing.

The Bad

• It crashed both times i closed it and one time i had to Alt+F4 to close it.
• The "minigames" are bad, just a punch of pointless clicks.
• Non-retroactive quests. Twice i got a "tame/photograph new frogs" quest.
• Extremely sparse dialogue.
• Weak automation. Two guys capture bugs for you but you have to give an order for each 5 bugs and collect them when they're done, which isn't indicated in any way too.
• No text speed option.
• It tells you you can merge specific pools but that info is only shown once so good luck remembering the specific combinations.
• Undiscovered frogs aren't indicated somehow.
• There are dozens and dozens of boring frog varieties. E.g "double silver" "peach silver" "peach banana".

The Ugly

The main draw of this game is building a frog sanctuary and a wetlands area. You can't zoom while placing objects on the microscopic grid. But you can zoom before placing/moving. But it will interact with objects you mouse over while scrolling the screen. When buying a new object there is a very noticeable delay before it is placed. When moving an object you have to select it and then click it again to move it. Building and moving both require clicking a checkmark to confirm placement.

Conclusion

I really liked the idea of Kamaeru but the execution leaves a ton to be desired. There is just not much here. Barely a story, boring frog varieties, useless minigames and the actual building is beyond tedious. And on top of that it's unstable. Shame.