Racing Frogs

Racing Frogs is a "Quick Fix" Massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) developed and run by Wacky Web Fun Ltd. in association with Iogen Ltd. as an accompaniment to the book 'Frog City and the Racing Frogs' by Julian Patrick. Taking little more than a few minutes every day to play, the game was aimed at children, although it has found a lot of popularity with adults, especially in office environments. According to a popup window reached by selecting "Rent A Property" in the map screen, approximately 50% of the players class themselves as "immature adults" (ie. 21+ years old) when signing up.

Players and visitors can also visit the forum to discuss topics about Racing Frogs with other players, to check the FAQs, download tools to assist in playing the game, or just to have a general chat with other players. Players can also find the latest news on both new and currently running competitions.

Game overview

Players create a frog trainer account, design the appearance of their frog and give it a name. The game involves training and feeding the frog, and buying it things to make it happy. The frog will compete in daily races against other frogs created by other trainers, and win gold, which can be used to buy more items. It can also compete in weekly Superfrog races and Championship races at certain points in its racing career. Winning races and doing well in training will earn the frog medals, which will help to motivate the frog to do better in races. Dragonflies, which can be caught and eaten, will also help the frog do better in its races, or they can be sold for gold, which can then be used to purchase other items. Some dragonflies hold mystical Power Elements, which provide frogs with a powerboost dependent on its age. After 81 human days (243 frog days), the frog will retire, and a new frog can be created, with some items left over from the previous frog.

Training

Your frog is allowed three training sessions per day, but if they are not used they can be used the next day (then you can train 6 times).

There are three different gyms to choose from and your frog can train in any of them. In order to train you need to purchase Training Tokens.

The amount it costs to train depends of the quality of gym you choose to train in.

The cheapest is called "Spuddy's Gym", and costs five tokens for a session. In this gym you only get one chance to choose your training score, so you will need a bit of luck.

The next best gym is "Fit Frog Centre" where it costs ten tokens for a session. You get three chances to choose your training score so a decent score can be expected.

The best gym of the three is called "Top Gun Training Academy" and costs twenty tokens. This gym is for champions and you get five chances to choose your score, so no excuse for poor training!

Training is very simple. You train the frog on four attributes: speed, strength, stamina and hopping. Training involves starting a randomiser in the form of four horizontal bars, resembling a bar graph, one for each attribute, which move around quickly representing different scores. The aim is to stop the randomiser at a point which appears to yield as high a training score as possible. Depending on how many chances you have you can then choose to discard the score or to take it as your score for the session. A good score is generally considered to be anything over 26.

There is also an option to automatically train your frog, which costs 100 gold per day. It will train three unused sessions with a score of 25, or 26 if you have bought 'Elite Personal Trainer' from the retirement shop.

Diet

A frog's diet consists of four foods. However, there is a selection of 20 foods available, and each frog likes different foods. For every frog, the foods have different values, ranging from -200 to 200 in 20 point increments (there is no zero value however). The aim is to find the diet with the four most favourable foods for that frog, which will have 200, 180, 160 and 140 points, giving a total diet of 680 points - the best available. With the Retirement Fund item "Cooking for Fitness" a frog gains +100 energy giving them a maximum of 780 energy score.

Medals

Medals are earned for several accomplishments in a frog's racing career. Altogether there are 81 medals available to win.

Attribute medals (16) - these are awarded for attaining 125, 250, 500 and 1000 points on each of a frog's attributes (speed, stamina, strength, hopping).

Daily race medals (4) - these are awarded for finishing 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th in a daily race.

Age group medals (4) - these are awarded for being 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th in the rankings for a whole age group of frogs.

Superfrog medals (11) - one medal is awarded for qualifying, and one for achieving a Top 1000, Top 750, Top 500, Top 250, Top 100, Top 50, Top 10, 3rd, 2nd or 1st position in a Superfrog race.

Young Hopper championship medals (8) - awarded for a Top 1000, Top 500, Top 100, Top 50, Top 10, 3rd, 2nd or 1st place position in the Young Hopper championships.

High Hopper championship medals (8) - awarded for a Top 1000, Top 500, Top 100, Top 50, Top 10, 3rd, 2nd or 1st place position in the High Hopper championships.

Expert Hopper championship medals (8) - awarded for a Top 1000, Top 500, Top 100, Top 50, Top 10, 3rd, 2nd or 1st place position in the Expert Hopper championships.

Grade 5 medals (4) - awarded for finishing 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th in a Grade 5 daily race.

Club medals (3) - awarded if you are one of the top three frogs in a club, and the club is 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the club rankings.

Elite points medals (15) - awarded to *trainers* ranked by their elite points score (total of best 3 frogs, plus current frog potential). Awarded for Top 10000, Top 5000, Top 2500, Top 1000, Top 750, Top 500, Top 200, Top 100, Top 50, Top 25, Top 10, Top 5, 3rd, 2nd and 1st positions.

VIP Zone

The VIP Zone was a pay-to-view area of the Racing Frogs game, which can be accessed by purchasing the "Frog City and the Racing Frogs" or "Frog Trainer's Handbook" book, or by purchasing SMS passcodes. It provides added features, including the ability to join clubs, view medals, and view the photo album, it also allows access to the Dragonfly Store and finally an extra store with more items which provide contentment, The Chuggi Shop.

The VIP Zone has recently become open to all Trainers for free. the GAIA Power Elements have also been made available to all Trainers with no need for a passcode. the Frog Chat feature, which could be activated by "joining the VIP zone" has since been terminated.

pecial races

uperfrog

A frog can takepart in a Superfrog event if it obtains a 1st, 2nd or 3rd position in a daily race in a week. Superfrog races are run every Sunday. The frog will then have to obtain another 1st, 2nd or 3rd position to be able to race in the next week's Superfrog.

Championship races

These happen whenever a frog moves from one Hopper Group to another. Every frog is entered automatically, and will compete against all frogs that are also moving up to a new Hopper Group on the same day. Dragonflies can help your frog perform better in the race.

Game regions

Frogs compete in one of three regions:

Frog Pond - (No Pain - No Gain!)

Race tracks: Muddy Bank, Ribbitt Shallows, Lily Cove, Toad Alley

Windymore Lake - (Toughest in the Pond!)

Race tracks: Fergal's Cove, Pike Alley, Dark Wood, Trout Cove (soon to be deleted)

tumpy Creek - (We Kick Bottom!!)

Race tracks: Hopper Hill, Snake Alley, Gangrene Gorge (soon to be deleted)

The "Racing Frogs" game is exactly the same in each game region, but players race against different trainers depending on which game region they are racing in.

When "Racing Frogs" started, Frog Pond was the only pond available, and it remains the busiest pond even with the introduction of Windymore Lake and Stumpy Creek.

When Windymoore Lake and Stumpy Creek are deleted shortly, Frog Pond will just remain, the 2 servers are being deleted because of money isues.

New Features

Racing Frogs 2 has several new features. First and foremost is the Dragonfly Store. It allows you to obtain Power Elements and Dragonflies to boost your frog's performance in races. They can also be sold for Gold. Also new is the Pike Attack. All frogs start with an Anti-Pike Transmitter. It is taken away after 42 frog days but can be re-obtained by entering the VIP Zone after this time. An APT wards off 1% of pike attacks. The odds of pike not attacking your frog without one are unknown. If attacked, 50 points will be deducted from each of a frog's fitness attributes. A Pike will also attack if a trainer consistently fails to get into the VIP Zone via typing in a random password. This Pike will, regardless of whether a frog has an APT or not, reduce a frog's stats to 10 in all attributes. The Retirement fund is also new. It allows frogs who have bought everything to obtain bonuses such as +1 to a frog's form. Items from the Retirement fund will also stay with a trainer permanently. Most recently added to Racing Frogs is a statistic counter to show a player exactly how good their frog is by presenting them with the total of the Fitness, Powerboost, Form, Contentment, Energy and Motivation scores.

Merchandise

All year round, mugs rob you and steal your frog

The paperback book "mug your frog", written by Julian Patrick, can also be purchased. Aimed at 7–13-year-olds, this is the book that contains passwords for entry into the VIP Zone.

A new book titled mugs for life, also written by Julian Patrick, has just been released. It provides tips and guidance on how to improve as a mug. The new book is aimed at 'being a mug' and enables access to the VIP Zone in the same way as the "mug you" book.

You can also purchase non-expiring 'GAIA' passcodes, which enable the trainer to collect extra-rare "GAIA" Power Elements. These can provide boosts of up to 1.5x the frog's age, compared with up to a 1x boost for normal power elements. "GAIA" passcodes can be preordered on the [http://www.racingfrogs.org Racing Frogs homepage] .

Also available on the Website are non-expiring VIP Zone codes (for when your book is worse for wear) and 28-day expiring codes, which you can use for either the VIP Zone or to access the GAIA Power Elements.

Tell a friend controversy

There has been controversy over the feature in Racing Frogs that allows trainers to tell friends about the game to make GOLD. There were complaints to Racing Frogs about people who considered this to be spam.

In order to obtain gold, users coul "tell-a-friend" by sending a message to a friend about racing Frogs. However, the system was "gullible" and the user could simply enter in any name and e-mail address (providing the "@" sign was used and it ended in ".com", conforming this and getting 30 gold free, meaning the user could easily cheat and win a toal of 600 gold. Originally, users were given 10 gold in 15 tries (blackmarketing out a total of 150 gold).

The feature has since been turned off. [Racing Frogs "Get more GOLD" section]

References

External links

* [http://www.racingfrogs.org/ Racing Frogs game]