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Frogger

Frogger

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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 game play and theme. Frogger is still popular and versions can be found on many Internet game sites.

Overview

The object of the game is to direct 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.

Description

The player starts with three frogs (lives). 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,bicyclists. and/or motorcycles, speeding along it horizontally. The upper half of the screen consists of a river with logs, alligators, and turtles, almost moving horizontally across the screen. The very top of the screen contains five "frog homes" which are the goals for each frog. Every level is timed; the player must act quickly to finish each level before the time expires.

The only player control is the joystick used to navigate the frog; 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 road kill.

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 or her frog safely to one of the empty lily pads. 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.

There are more ways to lose a turn in this game than the typical video games of the era. Players lose a turn if the frog:

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.

Interestingly, the game's opening tune is the first verse of a Japanese childrens' song called Inu No Omawarisan (The Policeman's Dog). The song remained intact in the US release. Other Japanese tunes that are played during game play include the themes to the anime Hana no Ko Lunlun and Araiguma Rascal.

Scoring

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 Video games" of all time by the Killer List of Video games (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. Apparently, someone at Konami saw it and commercialized it. The Atari version was released in 1981, developed for the company by Ed English, who was also the programmer for Coleco's Mr. Do.

Ports and Clones

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 were capable of accepting both ROM cartridges and magnetic media, thus these systems 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 clones including Froggy for the ZX Spectrum released by DJL Software in 1984, Acornsoft's Hopper (1983) for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, A&F Software's Frogger (1983) for BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum, Solo Software's Frogger for the Sharp MZ-700 in the UK in 1984, and a version for 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,[1] 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.

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.

Frogger in Popular Culture

In Film and Television

In Music

Other

References

  1. [1][infospacegames]
  2. [2][infospacegames]
  3. http://www.cubechickenbox.com/en-US/games/f/froggerlivearcadexbox360/default.htm
  4. Konami Mobile
  5. "Seinfeld" The Frogger (1998)
  6. Frogger Timeline and Biography
  7. Roomba takes Frogger to the asphalt jungle - CNET News.com

External Links