# Frogatto and Friends: a platformer that is a module inside the Anura engine > Frogatto and Friends is an open source action-adventure platformer whose code now lives as a module inside Anura, the 2D engine the same developers wrote. The repository holds the game, not the engine, and the split has a version boundary you need to respect if you build from source. **frogatto/frogatto** — Frogatto & Friends is an action-adventure game, starring a certain quixotic frog. - Repository: https://github.com/frogatto/frogatto - Website: http://www.frogatto.com/ - Stars: 709 · Forks: 126 - Language: Ruby - License: NOASSERTION - Published: 2026-10-21 · Updated: 2026-10-21 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/frogatto-frogatto ## A complete game, not a library, built to push pixel art further Frogatto and Friends is an action-adventure game starring, in the project's own words, a certain quixotic frog. The stated aim is to push 2D platforming, pixel art and music into uncharted territory. That framing tells you what kind of codebase you are looking at. This is not an engine, a physics library or a rendering demo. It is a whole game with levels, art, music and sound, released and playable, and its value to an engineer is that a finished game is a much more honest reference than a toy. You can read how a real production title structures its assets, how the levels are authored, and how the music is put together, in a project with a real player base rather than a demo scene. The site is frogatto.com, and the release badge points at version 4.0.0. ## The game is a module inside Anura, and the split has a version line The engine section of the README is where the engineering detail sits. Frogatto is driven by Anura, described as a very flexible, high-performance 2D game engine the same developers wrote, suitable for almost any 2D video game, with a few special features for the pixel art and graphical effects commonly seen in pixel-art titles. The engine has already been used to ship another complete game, Cube Trains, and several others are in the works, with Argentum Age named among them. The critical structural fact is this: the repository houses the Frogatto module for the Anura engine, and versions 1.3.1 of Frogatto and prior contain the engine as well and are incompatible with the Anura repository. So there is a boundary in the version history. Old checkouts are self-contained. Current ones are not, and a contributor who clones master and tries to build without the engine will hit that wall. ## The asset tree is a lesson in how a game ships content The top-level entries read like a checklist of everything a game needs, and they are the most instructive part of the repository for anyone learning game structure. There is a data directory, which in this engine's layout is where the game objects, level definitions and art live. There are parallel music and music_aac directories, and parallel sounds and sounds_wav directories, so each medium exists in a compressed shipping form and a higher fidelity source form. A locale directory and a po directory hold the translation files, and a .tx directory points to the Transifex setup for handling them across contributors. There are images, a utils directory, a master-config.cfg and a module.cfg. The cfg files are the engine's configuration, and the module.cfg in particular is what makes this directory a module rather than a plain game folder. ## Packaging for four platforms, and the installer scripts behind them Distribution is handled at the repository root, and the files tell you which platforms are being served. There is a FreeDesktop directory, which is the Linux desktop packaging, an iOS_APP_STORE_METADATA file and an iOS_CHANGELOG, and a MAC_APP_STORE_METADATA file for the Mac App Store. On Windows the packaging is done through frogatto-win-installer.iss, which is an Inno Setup script, the standard way to build a Windows installer. The user-facing path is different from the developer path. The README sends players to the Downloads page on the website for ready to use packages for their platform, and points developers to the INSTALL file for instructions on building from source. The project also keeps an ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md, a SECURITY.md, a CHANGELOG and a .editorconfig.cfg, so the repository follows the conventions of a project that expects outside contributions. ## Open source with a licence you have to go read The licensing is the one place where the README is deliberately unhelpful, and it points you at the right file instead. It says the game's source code licence can be found in the LICENSE file in the distribution. The repository carries a LICENSE file at its root, and GitHub reports the repository licence as a custom one it cannot classify, so the text of the file is the only reliable source. That is not unusual for a game with art, music and trademarks, where the code licence and the asset licence may differ, but it means you should read the file before you reuse anything, and pay attention to whether the art and music are covered by the same terms as the code. The project does not claim an open source licence in the README, so treat the label as a description of the intent rather than a statement of the terms. ## Ruby as the primary language, and a release that has gone quiet The primary language is listed as Ruby, which fits an engine whose data files and configuration are declarative and whose level authoring is scripted. That is a comfortable combination for a project that wants contributors to be able to change a level without learning a compiled language, and it also means the engine's own iteration loop is fast. The maintenance picture is mixed and worth stating plainly. The repository is not archived and the last push was on 2026-09-19, so commits are still landing. The only listed release is 4.0.0 from 2023-04-17, so there has been no tagged release in a long while even though the work continues on the default branch. For a player that does not matter much, since the website serves the builds. For a contributor it means the master branch, not a tag, is the thing to track, and that the changelog and the branch history are the only release history you have. ## Conclusion Frogatto and Friends suits someone who wants to read or extend a complete open source 2D game, and to a contributor who wants to work on pixel-art platforming, level content or the engine itself, since the engine and the game are separate projects with separate build paths. It does not suit a team looking for a modern production engine with a busier ecosystem, and it does not suit a fork of the game that assumes the engine is still bundled. Verify first which version you are taking, because 1.3.1 and earlier contain the engine while current versions do not, and read the LICENSE file in the distribution yourself, since GitHub cannot classify it and the licence terms are stated only there. ## FAQ ### What is Frogatto and Friends? It is an action-adventure game starring a quixotic frog, and the project describes its aim as pushing 2D platforming, pixel art and music into uncharted territory. The game is driven by the Anura 2D engine, and a trailer is linked from the README. ### What is the relationship between Frogatto and the Anura engine? The repository houses the Frogatto module for Anura. The README states that versions 1.3.1 of Frogatto and prior contain the engine as well and are incompatible with the Anura repository, so current versions depend on Anura being built separately. ### How do I build Frogatto from source? The README points to the INSTALL file in the repository for instructions on building from source, and separately to the Downloads page on frogatto.com for ready to use packages for your platform. The repository includes a FreeDesktop directory, iOS and Mac App Store metadata, and frogatto-win-installer.iss for the Windows installer. ### What licence does Frogatto and Friends use? The README says the game's source code licence can be found in the LICENSE file in the distribution. GitHub reports the repository licence as a custom one it cannot classify, so the file itself is the authority on the terms. ## Sources - [frogatto/frogatto on GitHub](https://github.com/frogatto/frogatto) - [Issues](https://github.com/frogatto/frogatto/issues) - [Project website](http://www.frogatto.com/) - [README](https://github.com/frogatto/frogatto/blob/master/README.md) - [Releases](https://github.com/frogatto/frogatto/releases) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/frogatto-frogatto