Early AccessAttract Mode
10 / wfmag.ccEarly AccessAttract Mode
We talk to developer AJ Norman about his
deceptively deep adventure of loss and acceptanceor Minneapolis-based developer AJ
Norman, A Frog’s Tale didn’t begin
with a design document, or a slab
of code, but a piece of music about
his cat, Roy. A DJ and electronic
musician intent on breaking into the games
industry, Norman started work on a portfolio of
music for an imaginary game – and being a fan of
16-bit era role-players like Super Mario RPG and
Chrono Trigger, he started writing “big, romantic
melodies” in the vein of a Super Nintendo game.
“When you’re writing songs you have to
come up with, ‘What does this song sound like?
It sounds like a desert level or something’,”
Norman says. “So having to come up with a
context or use for these songs was like a world-
building project. I had to come up with a bunch
of ideas to fill in the gaps. You have stuff like
character themes, recurring melodies. It was like
the game was starting to come together without
me even knowing it.”From those songs and story ideas, A Frog’s
Tale gradually coalesced: a top-down Zelda-like
about an amphibian hero and his adventures in
a cosy fantasy world. In many ways, the project’s
the realisation of a childhood ambition; as a
nine-year-old, Norman would spend hours
tinkering with GameMaker and trying to make
his own Zelda homage. “It’s like my whole life, I’ve
been trying to make a game,” he says. “But I’m
not a super-talented programmer – I reach this
ceiling where I can’t wrap my head around the
programming I need to accomplish the ideas I
have in my head.”
Over the course of the past two years, A Frog’s
Tale has gradually evolved into a full-blown
commercial project; with Norman in the role
of creative director and composer, the game
has artists in France working on the pastel-
shaded pixel art, and Quebec-based studio
Cathar Games working on the programming and
implementation side of things.
Although still in its early stages – Norman
hopes to have a playable demo ready later
this year – A Frog’s Tale is already shaping
up to be something more than just another
retro throwback. It’s a deeply personal project
for Norman, not just because of his youthful
affection for top-down adventures, but because
he’s using it as a means of communicating
the emotions he felt when his father tragically
passed away in early 2019. “The game may look
like your typical RPG fare, where you’re trying
to find the special item and save the world or
whatever, but underneath that, there’s a lot of
personal struggle,” Norman says. “The charactersA Frog’s Tale
F
GENRE
Zelda-like
FORMAT
TBC
DEVELOPER
AJ Norman /
Cathar Games
PUBLISHER
TBC
RELEASE
TBCInfo
A frog’s favourite website? Reddit.