Frogger – The most addictive game ever
Frogger is considered one of the most popular and influential games from the Golden Age of Arcade gaming. Along with Pacman, Qbert, and Asteroids, the game can be found in just about any arcade across the country. Today it is considered a classic and has spawned more than a dozen sequels.
Frogger was released in 1981 and was distributed by Sega/Gremlin. The game was developed by the Japanese company Konami and was their first big hit. Nearly three decades later, the game is still popular with a new generation of users who, thankfully, don’t have to use quarters to jump.
how to play
Frogger’s early and perhaps continuing appeal is its simplicity. There are no fancy stories or colorful characters with hundreds of special moves, there are just frogs. These frogs, like the famous chicken, are desperately trying to cross a busy street. The player’s job is to get each frog safely across the street without being crushed.
The player starts the game with three, five, or seven frogs, which is the number of lives they have. When the game starts, the frogs are at the bottom of the screen. To move around the busy road, the player has to bring the frogs to the top of the screen and cross several lanes of the road. As we mentioned, these lanes are busy…must be rush hour! In them, the frogs must avoid numerous vehicles including: taxis, cars, buses, trucks, buggies, motorcycles, vans, and even bulldozers. These vehicles, of course, move across the screen horizontally at different speeds and in opposite directions.
Beyond the freeway lanes, there is also a river containing logs, crocodiles and turtles, again moving across the screen. If the frogs can jump from one log to another or onto the backs of turtles without being eaten by a pot or falling into the water, then they will make it home. There are five different frog or lily pad homes located at the top of the screen. To make things even more challenging, each level is timed so the player must reach their destination before time runs out or they will lose a life. A player can also get bonuses for catching bugs in the river or escorting a frog.
How to win?
When all five frogs arrive at their home and all the lily pads are full, the game moves to the next, more challenging level. Unsurprisingly, vehicles move faster on the roads, and predators in the pond are faster and more abundant.
As for the controls, there is only one way to control the frogs and that is the joystick. Every time a player moves it in one of the four directions, the frog jumps once.
Where to play Frogger today?
You could search the arcades for some old units or just play the game online. In fact, the classic version of Frogger is available on most Internet gaming sites. Frogger has recently become a hit again with smartphone users who can download the game for less than a dollar and play it on their mobile devices.