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Ribbit King
The best round of frolf you’ll ever play
Tiger Woods may be king
of the golfing games but
he’s rubbish at frolf. Frolf is
golf played with a frog instead of
a ball and while the basic premise
of getting a ball, or in this case
frog, into the hole in the least
number of shots possible remains
the same, getting it there is a
completely different matter.
Obviously it’s just a matter of
lining up your shot and filling the
power bar. But when your frog
lands, it doesn’t just roll to a stop
like a boring ball would. Instead
it hops a few times and if it lands
on a trampoline, or gets attacked
by a snake, or sucked up by an
elephant, or swims through
some water, it goes flying off
again. All these hazards give
you points and if you’re lucky
your frog will bounce around the
course for a while, racking up a
big score. Sometimes you think
it has stopped though, only for a
fly to appear and frogs love flies,
so it jumps after it and continues
your run.
The randomness is part of
Ribbit King’s genius. It’s one of
those games that when you have
friends over and it’s getting late,
you’re all a bit wasted and have
no skills left to play with so out
comes Ribbit King. It’s fun to
watch the different playing styles:
some people just whack it at the
hole, others try to set up a route
for the frog to gain more points,
and other people just hit it at
anything in the hope something
cool will happen. Sometimes it
does and even hitting the frog
behind you can, if you’re lucky,
actually get you closer to the
pin than hitting it forwards. The
complete random nature of the
courses on Ribbit King means
that it’s always a surprise when
your frog goes off on a journey
until it finally comes to a halt.
Actually it even more of a surprise
when your frog just lands and
doesn’t do anything; it’s a bit
disappointing too.
One of the other highlights is
when the round finishes and the
commentator, a black slug-thing
called Sluggy, announces the
winner. "The winner is…" slurs
Sluggy, building the suspense to
unbelievable proportions before
finally continuing, "…this player!"
It’s so wonderfully lax, he doesn’t
say "Player 1" or anything, just
a general announcement and
leaves the rest up to the icon on
the result screen.
Ribbit King has carved its
own niche in the novelty golf
genre, and it’s unlikely that it’ll be
usurped any time soon.
Ribbit King didn’t sell that
well and thus it’s pretty rare
nowadays. On eBay it has
a Buy It Now price ranging
from £4.99 to £18.99, and on
Amazon the price for a new
copy will set you back anything
from £20 to £30. Froggin’ heck! |
