Most Well Kept Video Game Secret, Developer Wants Return To The 80s

“Frog Fractions” was a cult hit when it was launched on Steam back in 2012, featuring a frog character that goes through some of the most bizarre and interesting adventures in gaming history; and that’s saying something. It didn’t really take off like some of its indie competitors such as “Firewatch,” but it gained enough dedicated fans to merit a sequel in the form of “Frog Fractions 2.” In order to keep the title a secret, however, the developer went as far as to create another game to hide it in.

The game in question is “Glittermitten Grove,” which is a game about managing aspects in a particular fairy’s life, Kotaku reports. It released on Steam in the middle of December, but it didn’t take long for enterprising sleuths to discover its hidden secrets. Incidentally, this is exactly the sort of over-inquisitive nature of the current gaming industry that the game’s developer, Jim Crawford has come to regret.

The existence of “Frog Fractions 2” inside “Glittermitten Grove” was first discovered by Game Detectives, which is a collective of anonymous enthusiasts. Many within the community have been hunting for this sequel for over two years and now it’s over.

According to Crawford, this secrecy is something that he really had to work at in order to achieve. He says that it was better back in the 80s when games were afforded more mystery. Then again, the gaming industry at the time wasn’t as popular and hadn’t entered the mainstream consciousness as deeply as it has now.

“One thing that’s been lost about games since the ‘80s is that they’re no longer particularly mysterious, because of marketing, because they’re cheap or free, because there are always let’s-plays or FAQs or super-fans with decompilers doing nitty gritty breakdowns if you wonder about something,” Crawford said. “In the ‘80s, games got secrets for free. For a game to have secrets nowadays, you have to really work at it.”