Frogger

Frogger is an arcade game introduced in 1981. It was licensed for worldwide distribution by Sega/Gremlin, and developed by Konami. The game is regarded as a classic and was noted for its novel gameplay and theme. Frogger is still popular and versions can be found on many internet game sites.

The object of the game is to guide frogs to their homes one by one. To do this, each frog must avoid cars while crossing a busy road and navigate a river full of hazards. The skillful player may obtain bonuses along the way.

The game starts with three 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.

By jumping on swiftly moving logs and the backs of turtles, the player can guide his frog safely to one of the empty lilypads. 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.

There were more ways to lose a turn in this game than the typical videogames of the era. You lose a turn if the frog...

Gets hit by traffic
Gets struck by a snake in the median strip or on a floating log
Misses a log or turtle and ends up in the water
Runs off the screen on a floating log or turtle
Stays on top of a "diving turtle" too long as it submerges
Jumps into the mouth of a floating alligator
Jumps into the mouth of an alligator in the dock
Misses the dock as he tries jumping into it
Jumps into a dock already occupied by a frog
Runs out of time before making it to the dock

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.

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". This game is of special interest to children of all ages. In addition to inspiring numerous clones, this game inspired an unofficial sequel by Sega in 1991 called Ribbit which featured improved graphics and simultaneous two-player action.

Frogger is regarded as one of the "Top 10 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.