One of the more rewarding things when playing indie games, is when you play ones that sneak up on you a bit. With Dagger Froggy I’ll admit I got off to a less-than-thrilled start, as its pacing early on was a little slow for my tastes, and it took a few minutes to warm up. I could see some of the promise once I began getting to choose between upgrades, but it was also a challenge to know what would suit my play style the best, so it actually took me a few runs to really get into the groove. Once I did though, I was pleasantly surprised with the results.

Rather than going with what has become the all-too-common auto-fire, and trying to latch onto the success of the Vampire Survivors vibe, Dagger Froggy is very deliberately a twin-stick shooter, but one that’s paced more on the slow side. Rather than being all about intensity, and trying to weave your way through swarms of bullets, it focuses more on trying to plan your path in order to try to keep the mob at bay. 

In that regard it does feel a little more like an auto-fire title, but in particular because you can only shoot in 4 directions at a slower pace it also forces you to be more deliberate with your shots. In particular, depending on what upgrades you choose, you can do quick hit damage, trying to magnetically grab your daggers right after throwing them, or more long-range damage, opting to swing by to pick them up or be patient enough to have them return to you automatically. It’s these elements of nuance that you work through, as you try to determine which upgrades work best for you, that absolutely give the game its own flavor.

All that said, as a shooter that’s not fast and crazy enough to stand up to its twin-stick siblings, but is also a little more complicated to enjoy than the more dodging-focused auto-fire games, it may have a tougher time finding an audience. Certainly its budget price helps to ease concerns, as on a sale this would be easy to pick up as a steal I’d imagine, but depending on what sort of shooting action you prefer in your games it could still be a miss. Regardless, I do give it props for charting out a path of its own, feeling like it straddles more than one type of play to at least do something uncommon among its peers.