How to play The Official Frogger online
- Hop up, down, left and right: arrow keys (the fire button is not used)
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Choose one or two players: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Screen-edge rule: F4 toggles the Player 1 difficulty switch
Gameplay
You start with seven frogs on the side of a busy road. Cross the traffic to the safe strip in the middle, then ride logs and floating turtles over the river into one of the five frog bays at the top. Turtles that dive take you down with them, and later waves add snakes, otters and crocodiles. A time bar runs down on every crossing.
Each forward hop scores 10 points, a frog bay 50, and filling all five bays 1,000 more, plus a bonus for time left on the clock. Bringing the lady frog home or catching a fly is worth 200 extra each, and you earn a bonus frog at 20,000 points. The difficulty switch decides what happens when a log carries you off the side of the screen: in position A you lose the frog, in position B you reappear on the other side.
Tips
- Play on B first. The wrap-around setting removes the most common way to lose a frog on the river.
- Skip a far-away lady frog. The time it costs to fetch her is often worth more than her 200 points.
- Crocodiles can be ridden. Stand on the back, never near the mouth.
Why there are two Froggers
Parker Brothers held the rights to Frogger on cartridge, but not on magnetic media such as tape. Starpath used that gap to release its own licensed version for the Supercharger. Reviewers today generally rate it above the Parker Brothers cartridge for its colourful graphics and its in-game background music.
Similar games to play next
- Frogger – the Parker Brothers cartridge version, for comparison
- Frogger II: Threeedeep! – the sequel, underwater and in the sky
- Freeway – Activision’s road-crossing game starring a chicken
- Dragonstomper – another Starpath Supercharger game, an early role-playing adventure