The Game Census
Tadpole Tales cover art

Tadpole Tales

Andrei Cretu · Pinnical Studio · 2021-03-12

Steam

ActionAdventureCasualFree To PlayIndie

Modes: Single player · Perspectives: Bird view / Isometric

Releases: Mar 12, 2021 (PC (Microsoft Windows))

A tiny 2D Hand-drawn "Clean 'Em Up" game about a tadpole cleaning rivers and fighting pollution.

Tadpole Tales is a free-to-play Action, Adventure, and Casual game released in 2021, with an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 owners and a Very Positive review sentiment (90% of 873 reviews).

1
playing now
90%
positive of 873 reviews
Very Positive
steam's rating (official)
100,000–200,000
owners (SteamSpy est.)
bronze
deck/linux tier (ProtonDB)
Unsupported
Steam Deck (Valve)
SteamOS: Playable
Free
steam price (US)

1 players in-game as of 2026-10-14 15:00 UTC (census sample)

Tadpole Tales is a tiny 2D Hand Drawn Clean ‘em Up about a tiny tadpole cleaning rivers and fighting pollution. In this journey, you get to play in three different froggy forms based on your health, with wave-like patterns of enemies. You heard it, it’s a clean ‘em up, not a shoot 'em up. All the animations you see are hand-drawn frame by frame. We hope that this little game can offer you a short yet pleasant experience, something that anyone can pick up and put in their library. This game is a love letter to retro gaming, reminiscent of GBA games. We hope you enjoy it!(Storyline via IGDB)

Health check

Quietly active
  • · 1 players in-game at the last census sample.
  • · 25 reviews in the last 8 weeks (~3/week).
  • · Review velocity up 0% vs the prior 8 weeks.
  • · Current weekly pace is under 5% of the all-time peak week (383 reviews).
  • · Top 16% of 27,667 Action games in the census by review count.

Health tier since 2026-08-31

Review momentum

PositiveNegative
35335320212026Week of 2021-03-01: 353 positiveWeek of 2021-03-01: 30 negativeWeek of 2021-04-01: 71 positiveWeek of 2021-04-01: 9 negativeWeek of 2021-05-01: 30 positiveWeek of 2021-05-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2021-06-01: 20 positiveWeek of 2021-06-01: 4 negativeWeek of 2021-07-01: 16 positiveWeek of 2021-07-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2021-08-01: 19 positiveWeek of 2021-08-01: 8 negativeWeek of 2021-09-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2021-09-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2021-10-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2021-10-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2021-11-01: 111 positiveWeek of 2021-11-01: 5 negativeWeek of 2021-12-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2022-01-01: 11 positiveWeek of 2022-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-02-01: 10 positiveWeek of 2022-02-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-03-01: 14 positiveWeek of 2022-04-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2022-05-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2022-06-01: 7 positiveWeek of 2022-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-07-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2022-08-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2022-09-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2022-10-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2022-10-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-11-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2022-11-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2022-12-01: 6 positiveWeek of 2023-01-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2023-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-02-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2023-03-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2023-04-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2023-05-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2023-05-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-06-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2023-06-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2023-07-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2023-07-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-08-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2023-08-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-09-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2023-09-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-10-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2023-10-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-11-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2023-11-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2023-12-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2023-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-01-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2024-02-01: 8 positiveWeek of 2024-02-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-03-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2024-03-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-04-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2024-05-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2024-06-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2024-07-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2024-08-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2024-08-01: 3 negativeWeek of 2024-09-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2024-10-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2024-10-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2024-11-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2024-11-01: 2 negativeWeek of 2024-12-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2024-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-01-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2025-02-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2025-03-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2025-05-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2025-06-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2025-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-07-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2025-08-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2025-09-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2025-10-01: 4 positiveWeek of 2025-11-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2025-11-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2025-12-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-01-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2026-01-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-04-01: 5 positiveWeek of 2026-05-01: 2 positiveWeek of 2026-06-01: 3 positiveWeek of 2026-06-01: 1 negativeWeek of 2026-07-01: 1 positiveWeek of 2026-08-01: 3 positive
Weekly review counts (Steam review histogram). Positive above the line, negative below.

Players online

202026-09-15 00:00 — 1 players2026-09-16 09:00 — 0 players2026-09-17 16:00 — 2 players2026-09-19 00:00 — 1 players2026-09-20 07:00 — 0 players2026-09-21 15:00 — 0 players2026-09-22 22:00 — 0 players2026-09-24 06:00 — 1 players2026-09-25 13:00 — 0 players2026-09-26 21:00 — 0 players2026-09-28 04:00 — 0 players2026-09-29 12:00 — 1 players2026-09-30 19:00 — 1 players2026-10-02 03:00 — 0 players2026-10-03 10:00 — 0 players2026-10-04 19:00 — 0 players2026-10-06 02:00 — 0 players2026-10-07 10:00 — 1 players2026-10-08 17:00 — 0 players2026-10-10 01:00 — 0 players2026-10-11 08:00 — 0 players2026-10-12 16:00 — 0 players2026-10-13 23:00 — 0 players2026-10-14 15:00 — 1 players
Concurrent players, hourly average, last 30 days (census samples).

Completion

4
achievements tracked
2.7%
earned "My lake is saved!"
2.1%
median achievement earned by

Global achievement rates from Steam.

Details

WindowsSingle-playerFamily Sharing

1 supported languages: English

Console footprint

PlatformPlayers trackedCompletionTrophies/achievements
Steam (Steam)10566%4

Players tracked by Exophase (achievement/trophy trackers) — a sample of the player base, not total sales.

Player tags

2DPvECuteActionArcadeLinearCartoonyColorfulTop-DownHand-drawn

Census log

Computed from census-recorded observations only — dates are observation dates.

Players also track

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Similarity via IGDB.

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