Hungry Frog German Language Software - Advanced Options

The Player Menu Advanced Options item lets you change a lot of different parameters regermang to game difficulty settings, how statistical data is collected for the German words and German phrases you are learning and how that data is used during game play to reinforce learning the German vocabulary words in your German lesson, how the Hungry Frog German software program interacts with internet, and how the Hungry frog software game displays on your computer. Many Advanced Options parameters are modified when a user changes the Basic Options settings slider, so if you have a special Advanced Options configuration you particularly like you should Save it to recall again if it is changed when the Basic Options Slider is changed.

IMPORTANT: If you try to make the German language game or any other Hungry Frog game absurdly easy by having very very few bugs on screen at any time, you may find that while play is very easy you get virtually no score and the game always ends early before you get through many levels of game play. Remember you need to keep your tadpoles alive to move from one game level to the next, so if you make the game have so few bugs on screen at a time that you can't keep any tadpoles alive you will not play a very long game! If you wish to play an easy game change a setting like the Animation Speed setting to a very slow setting. This will give you plenty of time to think, but still let you play a normal game. Again - experiment!

Player Menu | Advanced Options



Select the Advanced Options menu item and the Advanced Options dialog is presented.The Advanced Options dialog is a tabbed display with many different parameters presented for you to modify. It also includes a tab giving you the opportunity to save and to restore any number of advanced options parameter sets. Each of the advanced options dialog tab pages is described here in sequence. Settings are not specific to only Hungry Frog German language software, but apply to all the Hungry Frog software series games. To move within this manual page, click on the links in the navigation table below to jump to each of the tabs in the Advanced Options dialog:

Hungry Frog German Language Software Program | Game Advanced Options Dialog

Four main dialog buttons which appear on the bottom of the window are common to all tabbed pages.

Reset All resets all the advanced options parameters to their default values.

Cancel exits and does not make any changes (note that some changes are applied instantaneously, however).

OK makes changes and exits.

Apply applies changes and does not exit.

Keep on reading for the first Advanced Options tab description...

Hungry Frog German Language Software Program | Game Difficulty Options Tab

Player Menu | Advanced Options | Difficulty

The four sliders in the Difficulty tab page broadly change game difficulty settings regermang the basic concept of game play - frogs eating bugs. In the case of Hungry Frog German language software program, bugs are the English language defitions of the German vocabulary words of the frogs. Other Hungry Frog language vocabulary games are similar. Each frog (German word or German phrase) can have any number of English language definitions (the bugs) according to the German lesson created from the currently used German Dictionary created in the German Dictionary manager which sets the German vocabulary from which the German lessons are created using the German lesson manager.

The Maximum Number of Frogs Slider sets the maximum number of German language vocabulary frogs that will appear in any given level at once time as you learn the German vocabulary defined in the selected German lesson. As game play progresses upwards through harder levels of difficulty more frogs are added at higher and higher levels and different German lesson words and definitions are pulled from the German lesson file according to parameters you can change here. This setting will over-ride the normal number of frogs presented at high game levels. If the game is too hard at high levels because there are too many frogs on screen at one time, try moving this slider to the left to reduce the number of frogs at the higher game levels.

The Starting Number of Frogs Slider sets the number of frogs which start you out at the first level of game play (or when the game is reset). The starting number of frogs can't be less than two because you always want to have a choice of which frog to select as the hungry frog which is active, and the starting number can't be more than the maximum number of frogs you set with the 'Maximum Number of Frogs' slider. If the game is too easy at early levels but then gets better as you move up in level, increase this slider. You can keep the starting number and the maximum number the same, and then you will always have the same number of frogs. That is one style of play some people prefer to use. If the game is too easy because you know all of the German words in the currently selected German lesson, just choose a German lesson with words you don't know or create a new German lesson from the German dictionary and use that new set of German vocabulary for your learning German word list.

The Maximum number of Bugs slider sets the maximum number of bugs which will appear on screen at once. While this slider setting generally controls the maximum bug number in most circumstances, depending upon your game display window size (meaning exactly how big your computer monitor is and how much of it you are using for the game window), you may or may not see all the possible bugs at one time on screen. For example, if you are playing on a very small screen or in a very small Hungry Frog game window on a larger screen and this slider is set high, you likely will not see as many bugs on screen at one time as if you were playing with the identical 'Maximum number of Bugs' slider setting while playing with a large game display window size on a large computer monitor (many pixels).

The Maximum Bug Speed Slider sets how far the bugs move in each animation cycle. Making the bugs move on screen very very slowly can make the game easier, and making them move very fast can make game play more difficult. Most settings in between are just personal preferences and do not change difficulty a great deal. Slowing down this parameter as well as the Animation Speed can make the game easier if you are having problems with the German lesson because the German vocabulary is new to you. and you are just starting learning the German words and German phrases in that lesson.

Hungry Frog German Language Software Program | Display Settings

Player Menu | Advanced Options | Display

The parameters available to change in the Display tab alter how the game appears on screen. Adjusting some of these parameters can influence game difficulty indirectly, while they are not strictly speaking 'difficulty settings' sliders.

The Animation Speed Slider which appears in the advanced option tab page shown above (scroll up if it does not display in your browser window) defines how fast game animation cycles occur. If you have quite an old computer, you may find that moving this slider to the right eventually does not make any difference because your computer processor can't keep up. The default setting is designed to be good for most computers, but you can try different settings yourself. When you elect to use an animation speed increase this change gives an overall increase to the game speed and makes the game harder, as well as simply making the bugs wiggle faster and frogs hop faster. On the other hand, when you change the animation speed slider to slow down the speed of the game it makes the game overall easier without you having to change other settings. If the German vocabulary words in the German lesson you are learning are new to you and you are having problems learning them, then this can be a very simple way to make the game easier to play while changing no other parameters and while keeping your German lesson settings unchanged. Setting the animation speed to a very slow setting effectively slows many things about the game down considerably. This is not unique to the Hungry Frog German language program, but is common to all the Hungry Frog games.

The Bug Density Slider is designed to enable you to regulate the number of bugs on screen at any time independently of the other game difficulty and display settings. The specific purpose of this control parameter is to allow you to keep the game display area from becoming totally overflowing with bugs if you need to or prefer to play the game within a small game window or have only a very small computer monitor. Changing this parameter also indirectly changes overall game difficulty, because if it is very low, the game is easier simply because it forces there to be fewer bugs on screen at any given time. If it is very to a very high position, the game proceeds normally on large screens but can be very hard to play when it is being squeezed into very tiny game window sizes or on very small computer display screens. You can also run into trouble if you try to set too few bugs on screen at a time and do not have a large enough bug density to let you keep your tadpole count high (remember moving from level to level requires that sufficient tadpoles be alive when you complete a level).

The Autohide Main Menu option is the same as the 'Autohide Me!' menu item which is available from the main game menu.This checkbox or menu check item turns on or off the automatic hiding of the main game menu. To bring the menu up when it is hidden, move the mouse cursor over to the very top or very bottom of the screen or to the upper left screen region under the regions where the game menu appears when unhidden.

The Stretch Background Images to Maximum Width check setting turns on or off automatic stretching of background images. The Hungry Frog German language program is a lot more fun and challenging to play if this option is left off. This stretches both the regular game images used as background images and any image files you have placed in your private folder in your 'HungryFrog/myFiles/myImages/backgrounds' folder in your 'My Documents' folder on your computer. Using tal and narrow background images makes the game harder unless you stretch them, but it is a lot more fun to play the game when images vary a lot in image aspect ratios. If you use your own images, try mixing in some very tall vertical aspect images with various boxy images and some mixed flat landscapes. It makes game play much more fun to play with this variety and this option off. Wider images let the game by default handle longer German language words and German phrases without mandatory stretching. On very small computer displays or very small game windows, this option is turned on automatically.

NOTE: Background images may still appear slightly stretched horizontally at higher game levels when there are a lot of frogs and your German lesson has German vocabulary words or German phrases that are long - EVEN IF THIS SETTING IS OFF. This is because when you have a lot of frogs the game always makes the background images wide enough to display the German word text of all the frogs comfortably. This rather practical requirement will always take precedence over stretching settings. However, it will only stretch the minimum required to accomodate all the frogs given the combined width of the German vocabulary in the current frog set.

The Look in myImages folder for Background Images option is turned on by default. It means that the game will automatically mix into the game any of your own background images which you have placed in your 'backgrounds' folder located in your 'My Documents' folder in your 'HungryFrog/myFiles/myImages/backgrounds' folder on your computer. You must use '.jp', '.gif', or '.bmp' image formats for the to be recognized by the Hungry Frog software program. Simply place any image file you want into your 'HungryFrog/myFiles/myImages/backgrounds' folder and the game will randomly select them as backgrounds to use in the game displayed along with the regular background images. You can use photographs or computer generated art or any other kinds of images you create. They do not have to large files, as the game will scale them to fit the play window according to the game display area size. The game also will periodically check for new image content to download and give you new backgrounds.

Use your 'HungryFrog/myFiles/myImages/backgrounds' folder to mix in highly vertical images and landscape images together to give the game more variety. More vertically oriented images make any given game level harder when they come up in the course of game play and using these kinds of backgrounds will help to spice up the game play significantly whether you are playing Hungry Frog German game or any other Hungry Frog software program.

Hungry Frog German Language Software Program | Sounds Options

layer Menu | Advanced Options | Sounds

The Sounds tabbed advanced options page does not change game difficulty significantly, but using the Hungry Frog German language spoken words can make the game 'easier' in the sense that it is more clear what frogs are what terms or words. It will help you with your German pronunciation as well as you hear the words repeated. This option should always be left on, as it greatly improves learning German vocabulary in the Hungry Frog German language program to hear the German words spoken aloud.

The Play Frog and Bug Sounds checkbox determines if the frogs croak and bugs mew. These are generally speaking non-essential game sounds, but they make playing the game a lot more fun.

The Play Spoken Word Sounds checkbox determines if the game speaks the German word frog names aloud. This is STRONGLY suggested to be left on.

The Play Sounds in mySound Folder works similarly to the Display tab's Look in myImages folder for Background Images option setting. This parameter is on by default. Having this parameter on means that the game will automatically use sounds you place as .wav files in your 'mySounds' folder located in your 'My Documents' folder in your 'HungryFrog/mySounds' folder on your computer. You must use '.wav' as the sound file format for your recordings. These sound files, if they have the same name (e.g. the Hungry Frog German dictionary word 'orbis.wav') as a German dictionary entry sound file will play in preference to the German dictionary entry sound file for the built in sounds. This is an easy way to make a new sound play for an existing German dictionary entry without changing the german dictionary entry itself. See the Teacher Menu and the German Dictionary Manager for more details on this feature.

Hungry Frog German Language Software Program | Frog Controls

Player Menu | Advanced Options | Frog Options

The Frog Options tabbed page relates to game frog settings which are game settings un-related to bug spawning. Both relate to how much statistical analysis emphasis is placed upon German words missed or correctly matched according to the German dictionary and repeating problem frogs vs. randomly selecting new frogs from the current German lesson at each new level.

The first frog parameter slider, 'frog recurrence' slider, sets the emphasis on repeating missed frogs vs. randomly selecting brand new frogs independent of their correct / incorrect German word match accuracy histories. A part of the real-time statistical data that the program is tracking is lifetime and current statistical information for the current player for all the words in the selected German lesson for the current game. This keeps the game from getting boring as it monitors correct and incorrect attempts for frogs to eat bugs. If this slider is moved very very far to the left, then frogs are essentially randomly chosen from the German lesson's available frogs when a new set of frogs is chosen at the start of a new game play level. If the recurrence slider is far to the right, then much more emphasis is placed on 1) repeating problem frogs and 2) avoiding known frogs. You will always see some random frogs in a lesson, independent of the setting of this slider. This means that you will often see English definitions appearing on bugs which arise from German words or German phrases from the current lesson which are not German words on any of the frogs of that given level.

The second frog parameter slider, 'degree of error' slider, sets the degree of error required for a given frog to be considered a 'problem frog' when statistical data is examined in order to generate a set of new frogs for a new game play level. If you set this parameter slider at a very low setting, then the threshold is low. If you set this slider far to the right, then the threshold is high. Default settings should be a good compromise for most purposes.

NOTE: Review the my Statistics and Student Statistics discussions about some of the game statistics accessible to the players / teachers.

Hungry Frog German Language Software Program | Bug Options Tab Page

Player Menu | Advanced Options | Bug Options

The Bug Options tab is the most complicated. For the Hungry Frog German Language software program and every other Hungry Frog software program, experimentation with all settings is recommended as the best way to learn the game features. The game default settings are designed to work for the average user. If you want to change, please go ahead. You may want to modify them one at a time to see how they each alter game play and/or game difficulty.

The Bug Spawning set of sliders relates to how often new bugs appear on within the game world display window during any given level (new bugs are contantly being spawned throughout most of every game level up until the very end if you have done well in the level), and how the bugs that do spawn are derived from statistical analysis and game parameters. During the course of a given level, most strongly at the early stages of all levels, new bugs are continously being generated (spawned - hence 'Bug Spawning') based upon real-time statistical analsis of ongoing game play.

Bugs are spawned generally four complementary ways:

1. Bugs spawn from frogs in the level

2. Bugs spawn from frogs in the lesson

3. Bugs spawn from bugs missed in the lesson

4. Bugs spawn as bonus bugs

When a new bug spawns from frogs in the level, then it is guaranteed that it can be eaten by one of the frogs in that level. In the Hungry Frog German language software program, for example, at the start of a new level a new set of German words is obtained from the current German lesson you are learning (which German lesson may derived from the current German dictionary OR a mix of other German dictionaries which may have been loaded at one time), and these German vocabulary words are assigned to the new set of frogs which will populate that level with their German words and provide the matching English definitions on the corresponding bugs for that level. Hence, every German definition appearing on a bug derived from a German dictionary entry of one of these level frogs is guaranteed to have a frog at that level which can eat it. Which level frog spawns a bug depends upon the first slider, but the spawned bug spawning by this slider setting will always have a frog which can eat it - because every German dictionary entry corresponding to that frog frog appears in the frog set in the level (every German word of this set is assigned to a level frog).

When a new bug spawns from a frog in the German lesson (not restricted only to the German words of the level frogs - but open to the entire German lesson word set), it may not always have be a valid English definition with any of the German words of current frogs in the level being played. This requires thinking on the part of the player, as it means that not always will every bug have a corresponding frog and wild guessing is not always a good idea when compared to careful thought.

Finally, bugs which spawn from directly from other bugs arise when a frog (German dictionary entry and German word) makes a mistake and the mistaken bug (mistaken English definition to the German word or German phrase on the frog) gets placed on a queue to be repeated at a later date. You can adjust the size of this queue and how often it spawns a bug as well as how likely it is that a bug will be placed on the queue in the first place when a mistake occurs as determined by the German dictionary.

Bearing that all in mind, here is what the individual parameter sliders do to modify the above game algorithmic settings and how it will influence game play.

The first Bug Spawning | Bug Spawn Rate slider, 'missed frog' slider, sets the chance that when a new bug does spawn into the game during a play level it will derive from the set of bugs that belong as English definitions to the German words of the frogs with which the player has had the most difficulty. If you set this to the right, then there if more emphasis placed on repeating English definitions of frogs (German words) which have presented problems according to real-time statistical analysis of ongoing game play. (See my Statistics and Student Statistics discussions). If you set this parameter slider far to the left, then when a new bug is spawned from the set of level frogs, it will most likely just be a random definition from any frog which is part of the current level frog set and not particularly one from frogs which are troublesome. If you feel that you are seeing far too many English definitions of German words for which you have made mistakes, then try reducing this setting to emphasize more randomness and less analysis.

The second parameter Bug Spawning | Bug Spawn Rate slider, 'missed bugs queue' slider, sets the chance that a new bug will be spawned off of the missed bugs queue. This queue is the queue of bugs (English definitions) which the player has wrongly tried to eat from an incorrect frog (a frog which for which that bug is not a valid English definition from the German dictionary of the words in the German lesson you are learning). If you set this parameter high, then you emphasize more the repetition of exactly the same bugs (the exact English definitions) which the player is getting wrong. This is different from emphasizing the 'missed frog' slider, which will emphasize ALL definitions for problem frogs. If the German dictionary for a given 'missed frog' German word has 5 English definitions, then the bug queue emphasizes more the definition missed in particular over missed German word definitions in general for that level. In the case of a frog with just one definition, this may make little difference. However, in the case when several frogs have the same definitions as bugs, then these two sliders the 'missed frog' slider and the 'missed bug' slider will NOT have the same result even if all German word frogs have only a single English definition.

The third Bug Spawning | Bug Spawn Rate slider, 'overall chance' slider, sets the overall chance that a new bug will be spawned during a level. This is the simplest slider of all the bug spawning sliders. If you move this all the way to the left, you will see very few bugs newly appearing throughout a given level, but you may not get enough bugs eaten to keep your tadpole count high enough to progress from one level up to the next. If this starts to happen, move this slider more to the right and adjust other settings to make the game easier to play while keeping the bug count higher (for example, a good way to change difficulty related to play is to change the Animation Speed setting in the Advanced Options Display tab).

The fourth Bug Spawning | Bug Spawn Rate slider, 'lesson bug' slider, sets the overall chance that a new bug will be spawned during an ongoing level where the bug (English definition) derives not just from the currently playing bugs derived from German word frogs in that game level, but from any German word frogs in the entire German lesson from which the level frogs are picked as a subset. This can result in bugs (English definitions) which have no frogs (German words) in the current level to eat them (none of the German words of the frogs contain the English definition of the bug at all). These bugs will not stay permanently in the level, however. This means that more thought must be given before wild guessing, because it may be that a bug is from outside the set of frogs of the current level. This is true not only in the German language software, but in all the Hungry Frog language games, and is very important. Currently it does not take place in the two player game.

The Bugs per level Modifier slider is the simplest of all. Sliding to the right simply means there will be more bugs at any given level of play. Sliding to the right means that there will be fewer bugs at any given level of play. As for other game parameters that influence the overall number of bugs for a level, be careful not to make the number so small that there are not enough tadpoles alive to progress from one level of difficulty to the next. If you see this problem occuring, try other settings to make the game easier but keep the bug count higher (such as changing the Animation Speed setting in the Advanced Options Display tab).

The Missed Bugs Queue Length slider is also very simple. It just determines how many bugs at most at any one time can be queued for repeat to be added back gradually into the game according to the 'missed bugs queue' slider described above. More bugs totally available in the queue means that more emphasis is placed on repeating exactly the bugs (English definitions) that were missed, rather than basing repeat bugs solely on frog (missed German words according the the German dictionary definitions) statistical analysis. For the average player you may not see a big difference in game play unless you move this slider far to the left.

The Missed Bug Queueing Change slider determines how likely that when a frog attempts to eat an incorrect bug (the German word of the hungry frog which attempted to eat the bug did not contain an English definition of that German word according to the game German dictionary from which the German lesson was derived for that set of frogs) that bug will be placed on the 'missed bugs queue' in the first place. If you move this slider to the left, then many missed attempts for any given bug will be required to populate the missed bug queue with that bug. If you move it to the right, then you will easily fill the missed bugs queue with bugs as fast as they are mistakenly 'eaten' by an incorrect frog.

Hungry Frog German Language Software Program | Saving Options Parameter Sets

Player Menu | Advanced Options | Save / Restore Options Sets

This tabbed page allows you to manage the various Advanced Options settings parameter profiles that you have created. For example, you may desire to make one setting that is very easy, one setting that is very hard. Different classes or different students may want their own settings. You mauy want different settings for different German lessons. Perhaps one German lesson has a lot of difficult German words and German phrases, and you want to make the game play easier for the more difficult German vocabulary or visa versa. You may just want to save settings for reference.

Whatever your reasons, if you use the Advanced Options settings dialog instead of or in addition to the Basic Options dialog then you should make it a practice to save your favorite Advanced Options profiles so that you do not have to recreate them later if you change settings and do not remember your original ones. You can update saved sets or delete them easily, so don't be sparing with saving your sets.

Use Selected Options Set changes the Advanced Options settings to those of the selected saved set in the list (click once in the list to selet a set and the click the 'Use Selected Options Set' button.

Update Selected Set updates the settings of the set selected in the list of previously saved sets to contain the setting you have currently active in the Advanced Options tabs.

Save Current as New set creates a brand new saved set using the currently active Advanced Options tabs.

Delete Selected Set deletes the selected saved set.

Hungry Frog German Language Software Program | Internet Settings

Player Menu | Advanced Options | Internet Options

The Internet Options tabbed page allows you to change settings for how and when the game connects to the internet to check for new game content updates and/or new software updates.

If you have an internet connection it is highly recommended that you leave these options at their default settings. It will not slow down game play, and it is the easiest way to know that your software is always the most current. If new additions are made to the built-in German dictionary, or new images for backgrounds are available, you will get them fastest through the automated update process. There is an enforced maximum download time at the start of the program for content checks, so new content updates should not delay game start too much as in some other program. The Hungry Frog German language software program checks every few weeks for new content at startup if 'Periodically check for new game content' is checked and for new program upgrades if the 'Periodically check for software updates' option is checked. The game will check about a few times a year to look for new software version availablity. You can turn off program auto-checking at startup with the 'Do not auto-check version at program start' option turned on.

As stated in the dialog - NO DATA OR INFORMATION IS TRANSFERED FROM YOUR COMPUTER.

THE PROGRAM DOES NOT SEND INFORMATION TO THE SERVER ABOUT YOUR COMPUTER OR YOUR SOFTWARE. IT IS REQUESTING INFORMATION FROM THE SERVER - NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION TO THE SERVER. LEAVING THESE OPTIONS AT THE DEFAULT SETTINGS ARE NOT SECURITY RISKS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION OR YOUR COMPUTER INFORMATION.

You can always check for available software updates from the main file menu Check for Updates menu item or you can visit hungryfrog.com directly to check for new sofware availablity and upgrade information. Checking for updates will also check for new content if you use this menu item.

Hungry Frog German Language Software Program | Image gallery

Game settings are also always modified by the game play Level state. Here are some representative german dictionary games at Level 9 play level.

Settings set for few bugs and generally easy play on a medium sized display windows at play Level 9:

Level 9 play level of difficulty, German dictionary game, medium hard settings:



Level 9 play level of difficulty, German dictionary vocabulary practice, harder settings: