Cozy Game Reviews was given a complimentary game code for Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge, courtesy of the Stride PR team. Our game reviews are always objective and honest; read more about our transparency policy.
- Buy Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge on Steam
- Buy Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge on Nintendo Switch
- Buy Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge on Xbox
Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge is a charming idle clicker with cozy pastel artwork, all about building out the perfect conservation space for an assortment of adorable frogs. Players will decorate their outdoor spaces, customize furniture, balance biodiversity needs, earn coins via simple minigames, breed new types of frogs, and even unlock additional wetlands as their conservation project grows.
If you’ve played “clicker” style cozy games on mobile like Sumikko Farm (Google | Apple), Cats & Soup (Google | Apple), and My Oasis (Google | Apple), you’ll get the gist of the gameplay. You start with an empty space and a mission: fill your wetland with flora like berry bushes, reeds, and cattails to attract insects and, ultimately, a series of colorful and silly frogs. By curating a balance of biodiversity—between ponds, plants, and bugs—you can attract and breed different colors and patterns of frogs and slowly fill out your “frogdex,” which can log 500+ distinct amphibians.
Different areas and activities will continue to unlock as you level up and progress, like a new wetland biome, a breeding facility, different shops, and various crafting areas—but you’ll see all you need to see to understand the bulk of the game in under an hour. Then, it’s just up to you if leveling up your wetland and filling your frogdex is worth the continued grind.
The most dynamic and interesting mechanics in the game are probably the customization and decoration of your space. You can craft items to sell at the shop and, with your hard-won proceeds in hand, buy blueprints and merchandise for all sorts of exterior decorating fun. Eventually, you’ll unlock a dyeing station so you can switch up the colors of certain items like birdhouses, beds, and chairs. Players will balance portions of red, blue, and green dye to strike it rich with new color varieties and even save the ones you like best to your palette.
You can also buy more land for your conservation homebase and continue to decorate as you expand. You can place paths and fences, too, so you can really make every nook and cranny of the space your own. The more furniture you have, the more places froggies have to lounge and relax. You can use photo mode to capture them in their different states of leisure, from slumping over a gnarled log to snoozing in the bath. Photos will be added to your frogdex and journal, where you can keep up to 4 unique images per frog variety.
Psst. If you have any cool wetland designs to share, tag @cozygamereview and I’ll post them on my page!
The crux of the game, of course, is filling up your frogdex with every froggie variety by crafting a tempting wetland habitat, taming frogs with snacks (bugs), and photographing them for your journal. As your wetland expands, bug will start to congregate, and by catching them (manually or hiring help), you can provide tasty treats to convince new frogs to keep coming back. Frogs that are particularly hard to find can also be bred with a simple tic-tac-toe type game where you can subtly influence the patterns and colors of new frogs with the perfect balance of strategy and luck.
One thing the game does really well (other than the breathtakingly adorable artwork) is weaving themes of nature conservation and environmentalism into the core story of the game. Players will be challenged to foster biodiversity with the perfect balance of water and vegetation, and can even track their wetland’s carbon capture rate and bioscore. I love to see positive messaging like this woven into any cozy game.
And, I mean, just look at those adorable frogs. I adore all things cute and froggy so I stuck around longer than I would have just to fill out that ‘dex a bit and see all the cute combinations of patterns and colors.
Kamaeru is a cute time-waster that plays easily in bite-sized chunks: on the bus to work, a few minutes before bed, or a quick lunch break gaming session. The leisurely pacing and casual play would make for a great mobile game, either free with ads or a few bucks to unlock ad-free. However, compared to other indie building/decor games on PC, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox, Kamaeru feels vastly underwhelming for the price.
The addictive mechanisms of “idle clicker” don’t carry over that well to console, where the button mapping and menuing feels clunky and cumbersome. The “wait in real-time” components also don’t translate well, as PC and console gaming doesn’t have the same one-foot-in-one-foot-out level of casual gaming that mobile play does. Most people expect to have something to do constantly when they boot up a game on Switch or Xbox, and waiting for berries to spawn isn’t it.
Don’t get me wrong, the game is extraordinarily cute. I would happily pay a couple bucks for it to have an ad-free experience on Google or Apple devices. I could genuinely see myself max leveling my wetlands as I tap and click my time away on transit, in shopping queues, and while my trash reality TV shows aren’t dishing enough weekly drama for my liking. But knowing that you can claim more fully realized games like Wylde Flowers—with a twisting narrative, complex characters, and fully voice acted cast—for only a couple dollars more doesn’t make sense to me.
With so many killer deals on cozy games (many of them even free), folks will have trouble justifying to price for what they get for an idle clicker like Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge. Even if it is adorable and filled with frogs (one of my favorite animals ever).
My spidey sense is telling me that Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge will go free (or cheap) to play one day and maybe even make its way onto mobile. If and when that happens, I’d happily recommend it to anyone who like casual, simple, mindless fun on a portable device. Filling out the frogdex will absolutely scratch the collectathoner’s itch for some people and buying and dyeing furniture will appeal to anyone who loves the decorating mechanics of games like Animal Crossing.
Summary
TLDR, am I right? Here is the takeaway from this review:
Pros
- Cute, eye-catching graphics
- Easy, casual pace
- Champions nature preservation and biodiversity
Cons
- Quite pricey compared to similar games
- Would be a better fit on mobile
- Gets redundant quickly
Conclusion
Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge is a cute, casual game about protecting nature and collecting frogs. The silly, colorful amphibians stole my heart and totally made it worthwhile to dip my toe into this relaxing, pastel idle clicker—however, I feel like most players will be disappointed in what they get for the cost. When similar games are being given away for free or sold for a couple bucks on the app store, I think most cozy gamers will have trouble justifying the price tag (especially when fully realized games like Stardew Valley are selling for half as much).
I’d suggest waiting for a steep sale before picking up Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge—or waiting to see if it comes to mobile at a lower cost later.
Who Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge is for…
- Idle clicker fans
- Frog lovers
- Collectathon fans
Who Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge is not for…
- Those wanting fully realized stories and characters
- Folks who dislike mobile “clicker” games
Stay cozy, gamers!