Frogger  (Parker Brothers)
Platform: Commodore 64
Region: pal
Controller: joy
Genre: Arcade
Gametype: Undefined
Release Year: 1983
Developer: Parker Brothers
Publisher: Parker Brothers
Players: 1
_________________________

Your task in this arcade conversion is to guide a frog across a treacherous road and river, and to safety at the top of the screen. Both these sections are fraught with a variety of hazards, each of which will kill the frog and cost you a life if contact is made.

The road is full of cars and trucks, at variable speeds. The river water itself is fatal, as are the snakes which hover within on later levels. Frogger must use the arrangement of logs, turtles (which are only there for a short time) and alligators (but stay away form their faces), and then jump into one of the open home-cells, ideally one containing a fly for extra points. Once all holes have been filled, you move onto the next, harder, level.

Trivia

In season 12's last episode of Fifth Gear, Johnny Smith's Frogger self contained unit is put into an armored vehicle, to test its construction.

Robot Chicken parodied Frogger once: an enhanced version of Frogger crosses the road and a truck crashes into a car and explodes while people are yelling at each other. He then tells the other frogs that "it's time to cross the street".

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 did not 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.

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.

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".

Frogger was named #6 in the “Top 25 Atari 2600” Games poll in Retro Gamer Magazine (Issue 46).

The Super Nintendo version was the last game released for the system in America. Excluding 2006's Beggar Prince, it was also the last American game released on the Genesis.

The reason Starpath was able to create their version of the Atari 2600 port was that although Parker Brothers owned the cartridge rights, they did not own the magnetic media rights, opening the door for Starpath.

In episode #174 of Seinfeld ("The Frogger"), George discovers that his high score still remains on the Frogger machine in a pizza place he and Jerry used to go to in high school. In an attempt to rescue the machine and his high score, the camera shows George trying to cross a car-infested street from the same perspective as the game, complete with music.

The Xbox 360 version closely resembles the original game, but it has new artwork, modernized sound and music, new bonuses, and new play modes (split screen head-to-head and co-op).

The first stage's background music on most platforms is the opening song to Nippon Animation's 1977 anime series "Araiguma Rascal".

Frogger was popular enough to have a Saturday morning TV cartoon based on it in the early 1980's.

Frogger was popular enough to have a song inspired by it on the full-length "Pac-Man Fever" album - "Froggy's Lament".

In 1983, Starpath Corporation released the 3rd game designed for them by Stephen H. Landrum entitled THE OFFICIAL FROGGER for the Atari 2600 Video Computer System (VCS) and licensed to them by Sega Enterprises, Inc.
The game is one of a few cassette based games (living up to the term “tape”) ever released for the Starpath Supercharger. Unlike the first two games Landrum designed for Starpath, this one does not contain a secret way to see the designer’s initials.

Frogger (PC version) supports a tweaked CGA graphics mode which is able to create more than 4 colors on the screen by switching color palettes each time the display reaches a particular scan line. This trick only seems to work on true CGA cards, including the Tandy 1000. The game uses this technique to produce blue water and a black road. (Several alternate options are also included, such as a bright green road and black water, though I'm not sure why you'd want to use some of these available combinations.)
This technique has appeared in a few other games, including Jungle Hunt, California Games, and The Games: Summer Edition.

In Frogger, if you fall into the water, you die. This makes no sense at all in the real world: Frogs are amphibious creatures, at home in the water as much as on land. O yes.

---

Description from the packaging:

Frogger springs to life with fast-paced action, arcade-like graphics, and even the familiar Frogger theme song.
Hop your frogs across a dangerous highway, then over a raging river to the safety of home. But your frogs will have to leap away from one danger after another before they're safe. Watch out for the tricky diving turtles! Jump from the frog-eating snakes and alligators, or they'll snatch your frogs from you!
Frogger- the fast-moving, quick-hopping game that's full of amphibious fun!



http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/frogger
