Frogger

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This article is about the video game, for information about the man "Frogger", visit Damian Mori.

Frogger

Screenshot of Frogger
Developer(s) Konami
Publisher(s) Sega/Gremlin
Release date(s) 1981
Genre(s) Overhead View Action
Mode(s) Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Platform(s) Arcade
Computers:
Sinclair ZX81, Atari 800, ZX Spectrum, TRS-80 Color Computer, Apple II, Commodore 64, PC DOS, MSX, Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, PC Windows
Consoles:
Magnavox Odyssey², ColecoVision, Atari 2600, Intellivision, Atari 5200, Atari XEGS, PlayStation, Super NES
Input 4-way joystick
Arcade cabinet Upright
Arcade CPU(s) Z80 (@ 3.072 MHz)
Arcade sound system(s) Sound CPU: Z80 (@ 1.78975 MHz)
Sound Chips: AY8910 (@ 1.78975 MHz)
Arcade display Raster, 224 x 256 pixels (Vertical), 99 colors

Frogger is an arcade game introduced in 1981. It was licensed for worldwide distribution by Sega/Gremlin, and developed by Konami. The game is regarded as a classic and was noted for its novel gameplay and theme. Frogger is still popular and versions can be found on many internet game sites.

Contents

[edit] Overview

The object of the game is to guide frogs to their homes one by one. To do this, each frog must avoid cars while crossing a busy road and navigate a river full of hazards. The skillful player may obtain bonuses along the way.

[edit] Description

The game starts with three frogs. The player guides a frog which starts at the bottom of the screen. The lower half of the screen contains a road with motor vehicles, which in various versions include cars, trucks, buses, taxis, and/or motorcycles speeding along. The upper half of the screen consists of a river with logs, alligators, and turtles. The very top of the screen contains five "frog homes"—the goal for each frog. Each level is timed, so the player must act quickly to finish each level before the time expires.

The only control the player has is navigating the direction for the frog to hop with the joystick. Each push in a direction causes the frog to hop once in that direction. On the bottom half of the screen, the player must successfully guide the frog between opposing lanes of trucks, cars and other vehicles, to avoid becoming roadkill.

The middle of the screen, after the road, contains a median where the player must prepare to navigate the river.

By jumping on swiftly moving logs and the backs of turtles, the player can guide his frog safely to one of the empty lilypads. The player must avoid alligators, snakes and otters in the river, but may catch bugs or escort a lady frog for bonuses. When all five frogs are directed home, the game progresses to the next, harder level.

Frogger is available as a standard upright or cocktail cabinet. The controls consist solely of a 4-direction joystick used to guide the frog's jump direction. The number of simultaneous players is one, and the game has a maximum of two players.

[edit] Legacy

The game was originally going to be titled "Highway Crossing Frog," but the executives at Sega felt it did not capture the true nature of the game and was changed simply to "Frogger". In addition to inspiring numerous clones, this game inspired an unofficial sequel by Sega in 1991 called Ribbit which featured improved graphics and simultaneous two-player action.

Frogger is regarded as one of the "Top 10 Videogames" of all time by the Killer List of Videogames (KLOV).

The original "Highway Crossing Frog" was actually an exact copy of an earlier game called "Freeway", developed in 1971 at the University of Washington psychology department on an IMLAC PDS-1 graphics minicomputer, as the "reward" part of a project related to studies of human short-term memory using this early graphics computer workstation. Apparently, someone at Konami saw it and commercialized it.

[edit] Ports

Froggy by DJL Software - 1984 Magazine advert
Froggy by DJL Software - 1984 Magazine advert

Like many games of the early 1980s, Frogger was ported to a wide variety of home systems for personal use. In the United States, Frogger was licensed by Sega to multiple companies for conversion: Parker Brothers held ROM-cartridge rights, while Sierra On-Line held magnetic-media rights. Several platforms, capable of accepting both ROM cartridges and magnetic media, thus received multiple versions of the game. Sierra also sublicensed their magnetic-media rights to developers who published for systems not normally supported by Sierra; because of this, even the Atari 2600 received multiple releases-- a cartridge from Parker Bros., and a cassette for the Supercharger from Starpath.


Official releases:

Self-contained units:

Releases for programmable systems:


In addition to these official releases, there have been numerous unofficial versions, including 'Froggy' for the ZX Spectrum released by DJL Software in 1984.

It was also ported to the Newbrain under the name, "Leap Frog". Hasbro Interactive released a new version for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation in 1997 (in this one, Frogger is green with an orange stripe). The port to the Mega Drive/Genesis in 1998 was the last game released for that system. It was also the last official North American release for the Super NES in 1998. The prototype developed for the Sega Game Gear was never released, presumably due to legal issues between Sega and Konami. A Java port of the game is currently available for compatible mobile phones.

In 2005, InfoSpace teamed up with Konami Digital Entertainment to create the mobile game Frogger for Prizes, in which players across the U.S. compete in multiplayer tournaments to win daily and weekly prizes. Frogger was released on the Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360 on July 12th 2006.

Atari 2600 port (Parker Bros. version)

Atari 5200 port

ColecoVision port

C64 port (Sega/Sierra version)

MSX1 port (Konami)

[edit] Sequels

Unlike the arcade version, the home versions had numerous sequels, including:

In many of the recent games (starting with Frogger: The Great Quest), "Frogger" is shown as bipedal wearing a shirt with a crossed-out truck.

[edit] Television adaptation

In 1983, Frogger made its animated television debut as a segment on CBS' Saturday Supercade cartoon lineup. On the series, Frogger was voiced by Bob Sarlatte. After only one season, Frogger and the Pitfall Harry segment were replaced by Kangaroo and Space Ace. Saturday Supercade has never been officially released on VHS or DVD.

[edit] Popular culture

  • The game was featured in the 23 April 1998 episode of Seinfeld (episode #168, "The Frogger") [4]. Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza visit a soon-to-be-closed restaurant they frequented as teenagers and discover the Frogger machine still in place, with Costanza's decades-old high score still recorded. Costanza buys the machine and tries to get it home without letting it lose power, which will erase the score with his initials 'GLC' (in reality, Frogger doesn't actually let players enter their initials). After rigging the machine up with batteries, his attempt to navigate it across a busy New York street is a direct parody of the game (which uses the same sound effects and is shown from a top down view) and ends with a "smashing" defeat. George's score was 863,050 points, even though the current world record is 589,350.
  • In 1982, Buckner and Garcia recorded a song called "Froggy's Lament", using sound effects from the game, and released it on the album Pac-Man Fever. The song begins:

Froggy takes one step at a time
The way that he moves has no reason or rhyme
He hops and jumps, dodges and ducks
 Cars and buses, vans and trucks.

  • The Sugababes' 2002 hit song "Freak Like Me" begins with a sample of the coin-insert sound from the game (as does "Froggy's Lament").
  • In "My Day at the Races", the 96th episode of the American situation comedy Scrubs, Turk reveals that having sex while playing "Frogger" is one of his completed life goals.
  • Bad Religion has also recorded a song called "Frogger" in which the singer claims to be "playing Frogger with my life".
  • Frogger was one of the many video games that appeared in the cartoon Saturday Supercade. Like many of the games adapted there, the Frogger cartoon bears very little resemblance to the game. In the cartoon he is portrayed as a newspaper reporter, perusing stories about human behavior with two sidekicks, a female frog and a male turtle.
  • In the MTV Movie Awards 2003 sketch, "The MTV Movie Awards Reloaded" has the Architect (Will Ferrell) saying that, while having created Q*Bert and Dig Dug, he didn't create Frogger but he came up with the name for it because it was going to be called "Highway Crossing Frog". The last half of the joke is actually a true fact - "Highway Crossing Frog" was the working title for Frogger. [5]
  • Robot Chicken parodied Frogger which looks like an enhanced Version but it turns out to be a joke when Frogger crosses the road and a truck crashes into a car and exploded while people are yelling at each other.
  • In 2006, a group in Austin, Texas used a modified Roomba dressed as Frogger to play a real-life version of the game. Although the group expected the Bluetooth controlled machine to be crushed on its first time across, the modified Roomba was able to get across the street 10 times (40 lanes) and survive for 15 minutes before it was "killed" by an SUV. [6]
  • The Ice Age website has a version of Frogger on it called "Operation Acorn". You play as Scrat and you have to dodge animals to get to the acorns.
  • Age old question: Why can't frogger swim?

[edit] External links

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