BEIJING — A few short weeks after its release, a Japanese mobile game featuring a traveling frog has become a hit in China.

Why, exactly, is a bit hard to explain.

The game is called Tabi Kaeru, or Travel Frog. It was created by Hit-Point, the Japanese company that released the popular game Neko Atsume, or Kitty Collector, in 2014.

It is played like this: A frog sits in its stone hut, eating and reading, while you collect clover from the front yard. The clover is used to buy food, which the frog takes on a journey.