When we published a storybook, we had no idea of the number of covers we would need for it!

Here is how the latest one developed.

As it turns out, it is not good enough to have a Privacy page hidden away in the About pages.  Oh no!  It must be in the Main Menu.

Because the Main Menu is already small for little fingers to press the buttons on a phone screen, we put our new Privacy button off to the side.

Here is Frog, waving to us to show us where the button is!

Did you know that game developers have their own conferences?  Well, they do!

Kathy had a wonderful opportunity to speak with producers, designers, artists and programmers from around Australia last last week.  (It has taken a week to get the energy to write this post!)

Many thanks to IGEA, the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association which supports the game development industry in Australia,  and runs GCAP amongst its many other activities.

Well, somebody has to do it.

Making a game in Australia has shown the studio how poorly games are supported in Australia.  Kathy Smart Game Design Pty Ltd lodged a 17-page document showing many, many ways the government could support the videogame industry.  It is up at https://www.arts.gov.au/sites/default/files/submissions/ncp0513-kathy-smart-game-design-pty-ltd.pdf and if you would like a screen-readable version, contact us at [email protected].

There is no date stamp to show it was lodged at 3:50am on a working Monday, the day it was due!

Soldiers celebrate as the trees turn green and the bewitched animals all turn back into their natural forms.  Most of the transformations are easy to spot but those squirrels ... !!!!

We have made a video behind the scenes with red dots showing where the squirrels are moving in the trees.

Frog’s Princess debuted in Lachy Norman’s Year 3 classroom in June 2022 where it was used as a start off example for Narrative Writing.

Students completed mood matching tests before and after gameplay in an attempt to determine whether Frog’s Princess had affected their empathy for strangers.

Fun was had by all, and students raced through their exercises for the reward of extra gameplay.  Thanks to Lachy for being an innovative creative teacher!

Here is an example of a mood matching test.
Students were asked to draw lines connecting the prince and frog characters they thought might match.
How well will YOU do?
(The correct matches are shown half way down the How To Play page.)

As you know, the Family Videogame Data Base includes Frog's Princess amongst its other 1,924 games from around the world.

Here is a snapshot of all their games.

Can you find Frog's Princess?

Hint: this is the picture you are looking for.

And we have an update!  The images have been sorted into overall colour.

So our game designer Kathy moonlights making other games!  Well, helping students make games.

She was honoured to do 2 game design talks at Mitcham Primary School where 15 3-4 year students and 12 5-6 year students are making games at school.

They worked through a (very simplified) Game Design Document and Production Plan Document to get the students moving on their projects.

In the frantic pre-launch days of November and December, we had a small army of testers checking for bugs on the iOS, Android and PC platforms.  Most had already worked on Frog's Princess before, and had already graced the pages of this website.

Louise Lawrence was new to Frog's Princess.  A software engineer and a mixed-reality game developer in her own right, she provided valuable feedback and even discovered one bug which Kathy is sure no one else could have found.

After some high-quality nagging, Louise has provided her photo which we are posting here and on the Testing page.

Thank you, Louise!

March will be a very slow month for Frog's Princess!  Kathy will be working full time and she has also been tempted into working on a YA novel on the bus commute.

However, all is not lost, as we have a new programmer working to improve the blind accessibility feature.  So far, he is being shy, but we are sure we will succeed in obtaining permission to publish his photo and introduce him soon.

In the meantime, Kathy has been fortunate to see the fabulous Eliane Morel performing at the Adelaide Fringe Festival.  She had our imaginations in a whirl as she reenvisaged fairy tales, frequently from the point of view of well-known, but minor, characters.  And her wicked sense of humour!  And her beautiful voice!  And her fabulous figure!  The show was outstanding.