Game: Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure, Strategy, RPG
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows))
Developer | Publisher: Bonte Avond | offbrand games
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $16.99 | UK £12.49 | EU € 15,49
Release Date: March 16th, 2026
Review code used, with many thanks to Press Engine.
From the developers of Once Upon A Jester, Bonte Avond bring us Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime.
Will I jump for joy, or feel a bit grizzly?
Falling Through Space
Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime starts in a night sky, with a little ‘give it a go’ of moving frogs on a Frogtime board. You then descend to the world of Bonnie Bear and continue playing Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime as the titular character: a bear who wears a frog costume!
It’s Bonnie’s birthday bearday! And his friends have gathered at midnight to celebrate, giving him a present of a toad bag. They also bought themselves toad bags, so they can all play Frogtime. You play your first full game against Ann, competently guided through the rules by Hoot (who amusingly gets out the manual to read). You continue to play Ann until you win.
Not long after, Rik Spek, the local bully-like character, appears. He eats Bonnie’s cake, steals the pink shell (a mysterious present Bonnie received), and challenges Bonnie to a game of Frogtime to win the shell back (although you’ll have to defeat Rik’s gang first)
The little pink shell holds the key to the mystery and adventure which Bonnie goes on. The Frogtime battles are interspersed with songs and music, some of which Bonnie can join in with. However, I wish there were a skip button, because sometimes I just didn’t want to participate. There are also a couple of other little games and puzzles to enjoy, with a bonus challenge once you’ve completed Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime and 20 achievements to gain.
Let’s Play Frogtime
Playing Frogtime is the main way of achieving anything in Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime. Need a boat? Win a game of Frogtime against the captain. Need some pumpkin juice? Defeat Pump Man at Frogtime.
Frogtime has vibes of draughts (or checkers), but with a more battling aspect. Instead of counters, you use frogs, with players having a toad bag containing a maximum of 8 frogs. Three frogs are selected to start a game, with more being drawn to ensure each player always has three on the board. Each frog has a damage value, and when they reach the other side of the playing area, they will cause that much damage to their opponent’s scoreboard. The game is over once one of the scoreboards reaches zero.
Each frog has a distinct movement pattern: some can jump, some can dash after moving; others can move frogs by blowing on them or licking them. There are so many different moves! At the end of a winning match, Bonnie earns some cocoduds (the local currency) and self-worth points.
Bonnie starts with just four frogs, but with Momma Bear’s gift of a frog token, Bonnie can increase their collection straight away. There are shops at the key locations, each selling different types of booster eggs. It’s a lucky dip as to the frog you’ll receive, but it will be one of the types explained at the stand. For collectors, there is the challenge of buying each of the frog types available.
You can only have a maximum of 8 frogs, so you’ll need to discard the extra. It’s a difficult decision to know which frogs to keep or discard, but this adds another layer of strategy to Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime. Discarding a frog will gain a frog ticket, three of which can be exchanged for a random hat.
You’re Having A Laugh!
All the characters are fully voiced by the developers, their friends and a couple of special guests, with some of the mistakes left in. There is a lot of humour in Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime; some laugh out loud, some slapstick, and some which missed the mark for me. However, the pun on the word “bear” did make me smile!
Playing Frogtime is the highlight of Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. I needed to play several battles multiple times to win, but there is no replay option at the end of the match if you lose. So you have to go through the whole cutscene or conversation again to get to play, and believe me, the jokes and laughs lose their humour on the tenth time of hearing.
Gameplay
The first Frogtime match is well explained, and various controls appear on screen. However, some controls aren’t clear, like pressing A to open the presents and eggs. Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime plays well in docked (via Switch 2) and handheld mode (both Switch 2 and Switch Lite), although the text size of the frog information is slightly too small to be comfortably read on the Switch Lite screen. There is no touchscreen functionality.
Some conversations can be skipped, others can’t, and sometimes they overlap, which looks too busy on screen. I did get stuck in the scenery once, but as Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime autosaves, this wasn’t a major problem.
There is no time as such, although a night and day cycle can happen to progress the storyline. It’s difficult to give an overall gameplay time, as it depends on how many times you need to redo a Frogtime battle, and whether you want a completionist run. An expert Frogtime player could probably complete Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime within 5 hours, but if the frogs don’t jump in your favour, or you want to collect all the achievements, then you could easily spend 9+ hours.
Conclusion
There is a lot to enjoy in Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime; the Frogtime game is the absolute highlight. It’s clear the developers had lots of fun creating the game, doing the voices, and creating all the songs.
For me, a quick replay option for the Frogtime battles and the ability to skip through the conversation or songs would have elevated the enjoyment of Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime. However, I’ll be humming the Rik Spek theme tune for a long while, and that’s not a bad thing!
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot 
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