How to play Frogger online
- Hop up, down, left or right: arrow keys (one press, one hop)
- Start a new game: F12 (the consoleās Reset switch)
- Choose a game variation (1ā6): F11 (the consoleās Select switch)
- Screen edge rule: F4 toggles the Player 1 difficulty switch (F9 for Player 2)
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0ā9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0ā9 loads it
Gameplay
The bottom half of the screen is a road with lanes of cars and trucks moving in alternating directions at different speeds. Get hit and you lose a frog. The top half is a river, where you have to ride on logs, turtles and alligators; falling in the water also costs a frog. Turtles are safe while they are red but dive under when they turn light blue. You can stand on an alligatorās back, but not near its jaws, and snakes slither along the riverbank and the logs. Each frog has 30 seconds to get home.
You start with five frogs and get a bonus frog at 1,000 points if you have fewer than four left. The game ends when you run out of frogs.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Each forward hop | 1 |
| Frog reaches a home | 5 |
| Eating a fly | 20 |
| Bringing the lady frog home | 20 |
| Time left | 2 per second |
| All five homes filled | 100 |
Variations and switches
There are six games. Odd numbers are for one player and even numbers for two players taking turns. Games 1 and 2 are the easiest and games 3 and 4 are harder. Games 5 and 6 are āSpeedy Froggerā: the fastest version, where holding the joystick makes the frog keep hopping instead of taking one hop per push.
The difficulty switch decides what happens at the edges of the river. In position B, a frog carried off one side on a log or turtle safely reappears on the other side. In position A, being carried off the screen is fatal. The wraparound option was new to the home version and was noted by reviewers at the time.
Tips
- Pause on the median strip. The safe strip between the road and the river is the place to stop and read the logs before you commit.
- Donāt trust blue turtles. Once a group of turtles changes colour it is about to dive. Hop off or wait for the next group.
- Keep the time bonus in mind. Each spare second is worth 2 points, but a lost frog costs far more, so donāt rush a risky jump.
- Grab the lady frog when she is on your route. She adds 20 points to a crossing, but long detours in the river are dangerous.
History
Konami developed Frogger for the arcades in 1981, and Sega/Gremlin distributed it in North America, where it became Sega/Gremlinās most successful release. Parker Brothers, until then best known for board games, bought the cartridge rights and released the 2600 version in 1982. It was a huge success: Parker Brothers reported $40 million in orders at launch and four million 2600 cartridges sold by the end of the year, the companyās most successful first-year product ever.
Because Parker Brothers held only the cartridge rights, Starpath was able to make its own version, The Official Frogger, on cassette for its Supercharger add-on. Parker Brothers followed up with the sequel Frogger II: Threeedeep!, which takes the frog underwater and into the sky.
