Frogger
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Frogger is a 1981 arcade game licensed for U.S. distribution by Sega/Gremlin Interactive, and developed by Konami. The game is regarded as a classic and was very popular for its novel gameplay and theme.
Overview
The object of this game is to guide a frog to its home. To do so, the player must get frogs to successfully dodge cars and navigate a river full of hazards. The skillful or lucky player may obtain bonuses along the way.Description
The game starts with three or six 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.
The frog will drown if it lands directly in 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 "homes". 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.
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 spawned a sequel in 1991 called Ribbit which featured improved graphics and simultaneous two-player action.
Frogger is regarded as one of the "Top 100 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.
Ports
Like many games of the era, Frogger was ported to several home systems for personal use. In 1983 Frogger was ported to the PC (booter), Apple II, Atari 2600, Atari 5200,Atari 7800, Commodore 64, ColecoVision, Intellivision, and Magnavox Odyssey². 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). A port to the Mega Drive/Genesis was the last game released for the system. An enhanced sequel to Frogger was developed for the Sega Game Gear, but 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 Games] teamed up with Konami Digital Entertainment to create the mobile game [Frogger for Prizes]. In Frogger for Prizes players can compete against others across the U.S. 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:- Frogger II: Three Deep (1984)
- ''Frogger (1997) (1997)
- (2000)
- '' (2001)
- Frogger's Adventures: Temple of the Frog (2001)
- Frogger Advance: The Great Quest (2002)
- Frogger Beyond (2002)
- Frogger's Adventures 2: The Lost Wand (2002)
- Frogger's Journey: The Forgotten Relic (2003)
- (2003)
- 2005
- 2005
- ''[Frogger for Prizes - Mobile Game] 2005
- ''[Frogger's 25 Aniversary: XBOX 360] 2006
Popular culture
- The game was featured in the 23 April, 1998 episode of Seinfeld (episode #168, "The Frogger") [link]. 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). 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").
- 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 featured there, the Frogger cartoon resembles very little from the game. He is turned as a journalist, who is always on the hunt of some news about the human behavior. He is working with a female frog and a 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 joke is actually a true fact.
- 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. [link]
External links
- [Frogger Series] at the Open Directory Project
- [Frogger Series] at the Yahoo! Directory
- [The KLOV entry on Frogger]
- [MobyGames' entry on the Frogger series for personal systems]
Clones
- [Directory of Free Online Frogger Games]
- [Flash Frogger] Flash-based remake of the original Frogger
- [Flash Atari Remake] Flash version of the Atari port
- [Frogger For Prizes - Mobile Game]
- [Accurate Flash version of the original Frogger]
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