Do you want to partner with us? What we are REALLY looking for is… interesting stories of Frogger!!!
Most classic arcade games seem to have some fantastic story attached to them. Like how the programmers just finished writing the code ten minutes before the first machine was scheduled to be loaded onto the truck to go to the consumer electonics show. Or how the programmer found inspiration in a box of pizza. Sadly enough Frogger doesn’t have any stories like that. Konami just decided to make a frog game, and Sega bought it from them.
So help us by submitting your stories about Frogger!
Here are some great stories we found on gamecareerguide.com:
David McClure, London, Unstuck in Time
“Shit,” thought Charles Freck “Not again.”
A five-lane motorway, which stretched as far as the eye could see, lay in front of him. Monstrous, misshapen vehicles with strange proportions rushed along it, following an alternating pattern of lanes he had never seen before he arrived in The Place. The tarmac sizzled in the baking heat.
“Maybe I’m in hell,” he thought miserably, “or perhaps purgatory.”
Even if he crossed The Motorway then there was The River with its unpredictable currents, snakes and alligators. Charles Freck did not like The River much, yet he still felt compelled to journey towards it every time he woke up here, in the filthy gutter at the side of The Motorway.
“Of course,” he ruminated “This must be Hell, or Purgatory, and I must be here to repent for all the bad things I did in my life.”
There really was no other sensible solution. All he could remember was continuing to wake up here, trying to cross The Motorway and then attempting to ford The River. So many times he had been crushed by the terrifying
juggernauts which now screamed in front of him, pulled under by currents too strong to kick against, torn apart by alligators and felt the terrifying paralysis of the serpents’ venom overcome him. Even worse, he had to suffer all these indignities in the body of a frog. A frog, him, Charles Freck, the best systems technician in his graduating class!
“Maybe,” his thoughts continued, “I should try and think of every bad deed I’ve ever done and my reasons for doing them and apologize for them. Then maybe I can reach my lily pad.”
Once he had seen what looked like some other frogs idly sunning themselves on lily pads near the far bank of The River. Charles Freck had been overcome by a desperate longing to sit amongst them, with a pad of his very own to bask on. He had tried to shout and gesture to them but to no avail and while he was preoccupied a snake had bitten him. Still, as far as he could tell, they were frogs like him, or at least very similar to the one whose body he appeared to be currently inhabiting. Maybe if he could make amends for everything he had done he could cross The Motorway and The River without mishap and join them. Sometimes when he woke up he had dreamt about reaching the lily pad he desired and for a second or two he would really believe he had done. However, how could he be back in the gutter of The Motorway if he had crossed The River and arrived in his place?
“The man really is an irritation.” Spaceship XL-1442 sighed to itself. The VWorldCruise TM system in Charles Freck’s hypersleep pod had developed a fault and the service personnel were not due to be roused for another 2 years, 14 weeks, 3 days, 12 hours, 5 minutes and 30 seconds, minimum. If Freck’s mind were left without any stimulation for so long then the results would be dire. Spaceship XL-1442 had rerouted some of its own capacity to run an old program created for exactly this kind of scenario after a similar problem had occurred on a service from Sol to Alpha Centauri, leaving several passengers in a state of permanent psychosis. Charles Freck should have been easily able to cross the motorway and the river and then spent his time feeling content and pondering the mysteries of life but the man kept falling in the river and refusing to kick or stepping under the wheels of vehicles. It was as if he was sabotaging himself. Privately, Spaceship XL-1442 had decided that Charles Freck was just too neurotic.
“I wonder if I can ever really make amends for what I’ve done,” thought Charles Freck, remembering the time when a much younger Charles Freck had lifted his pet cat up so it could swat a small songbird, which thought it was safe atop the garden shed. “Maybe I’ve always been a horrible monster.”
Spaceship XL-1442 sighed. It would be a long voyage.
Devin Monnens, IGDA Game Preservation SIG Discovers Early Manual Draft for Frogger
Grandpa Frog tells Us the Story of the Legendary Froggers who helped establish this Great Country and Free Us from the Persecution of the Monarchy.
Back in the dark old days, before we had mad scientists to defeat and princess rescuing to do, when we had to hop uphill both ways through ten feet of snow and 8-bit pixel graphics — and like it — before we even had ants, we were brutally persecuted in the Old Swamp Kingdom for simply wishing to freely practice our religious beliefs in peace and equality. Those who struggled against tyranny to create a better world were our forefathers, the Froggers.
The Froggers left the inquisitions of the evil monarchy and set out on their arduous pilgrimage to cross the Freeway of Death and the raging River of Fell Beasts to establish a new home in the land of flies and honey, Firefly Swamp. The strength and zeal of the Froggers was tested every second by the Semi’s, Roadsters, and Backhoes of the Freeway of Death, and the ravenous Snakes, Crocodiles, and treacherous Turtles of the River of Fell Beasts, as well as the ever-ticking Clock of the coming winter.
Finally, after arriving in Firefly Swamp and surviving the Great Winter through the help of the native inhabitants, the Froggers taught them the wisdom of pacification through steel and gunpowder and gave them salvation and redemptive labor under the greater breeding of the Common Frog.
This is the story of the Froggers, those heroic pilgrims who selflessly left home and swamp for the Great Migration, braving dangerous motorcades and raging rivers, yea, even giving their lives when necessary, so that all of Frogkind might benefit from their sacrifice. Hardly a Frog is now alive who forgets that famous day and year!
We commemorate their struggle in this great game created to let you relive the heroism of our forefathers: Frogger.
Submit your Frogger stories to FroggerStories2@googlemail.com