Mario Fans Have A New Platforming Hero To Watch This Fall

Nintendo’s latest Direct passed without a Mario reveal, leaving room for a fresh platforming hero to emerge this fall. The Prince Frog from Woodrunner Games’ debut title Croak is expected to arrive before year’s end, offering players a precision-based platformer built around a core tongue-grapple mechanic. The game’s hand-drawn 2D animation and elastic movement mechanics were refined through extensive playtesting, with developers prioritizing accessibility over punishing difficulty. Early demos impressed players with their fluid design and intuitive controls, positioning Croak as a standout in a crowded fall season.

Croak’s development began with pixel art and 3D prototypes before the team pivoted to hand-drawn animation after meeting animator Tina Nawrocki, known for her work on Cuphead. The game’s protagonist started as a duck named Quack, but the tongue-grapple mechanic led to a redesign as a frog prince, embracing a fairy-tale aesthetic. Nawrocki, who ultimately animated 99% of the game’s sequences, drew inspiration from 1930s cartoons and Looney Tunes, favoring round, squash-and-stretch characters that evolved into the game’s visual identity.

The core mechanic centers on a tongue-based grapple that allows the Prince Frog to latch onto nearby objects and objects, with the ability to gobble and spit items to solve puzzles. This mechanic replaced an earlier dash-based system used during the duckling prototype, with the frog’s chubby design influencing the pinball-like animations that define its movement. Developers avoided power-ups entirely, focusing instead on refining a single, polished mechanic to maximize player satisfaction without punishing setbacks.

The game’s story and visual design became intertwined as round characters inspired a narrative centered on food, while the mechanics evolved alongside the art. Early concepts included a visual tell where the frog would swell when carrying objects, but this was scrapped in favor of a consistently round and fluffy design. The team embraced iterative experimentation, allowing the art and mechanics to shape each other rather than adhering strictly to an initial plan.