Road-Frog - Catching the tadpoles
There are some games you just have to play. To admit no knowledge of them is to be outcast from society and left to play on an Oric 1 for the rest of your natural life (I had an Oric 1 , I'm allowed to say things like that!) And so we come to Frogger, or in our case Road Frog from Spectrum Games in 1983 .
It's taken me a while to track down which version of Frogger we had as it's such a common type of game. But pondering through Nick Jenkin's massive Spectrum game review playlist on YouTube a few nights back, it hit me (or rather the sound of the game did.) There are better versions of Frogger available , but this was the version I knew and so in my mind , this to me IS Frogger (sorry!)
The aim of the game is simple , cross the road, jump on logs, get into one of those holes in the far bank. Easy? Not that many keys so even Julie can do this?
I have to say this game has some control issues and also some collision detection issues. We did spend some worrying moments thinking our keyboard was broken on occasion. That little blue frog , yes, that thing at the bottom of the screen is a frog , as I recall after a few games of this my father found other names for it, does not jump when it should. But it was 1983 , so you have to allow for a few quirks in the programming. Besides I was far more excited that someone had programmed a game featuring magenta racing cars!
I have to say this game has some control issues and also some collision detection issues. We did spend some worrying moments thinking our keyboard was broken on occasion. That little blue frog , yes, that thing at the bottom of the screen is a frog , as I recall after a few games of this my father found other names for it, does not jump when it should. But it was 1983 , so you have to allow for a few quirks in the programming. Besides I was far more excited that someone had programmed a game featuring magenta racing cars!
The soundtrack of this game is a continual road sound ( I think that's what it was intended to be, or possibly white water rapids) along with a merry funeral tune when frog becomes ex frog and a merry ditty when frog reaches home . My father couldn't resist connecting this up to the large speakers of his Ferguson Radiogram to increase the gaming experience. I can exclusively reveal this does not improve the sound effects of this game at all, it also tends to vibrate furniture, bones and neighbours.
Although this is a one screen game, you have to admit it's pretty. That's what struck me even as a 12 year old, the magenta cars, the detail on the logs. It's a game that may be a clone of lots of similar games but you can tell it was written with attention to detail. In fact those logs would plant a lasting memory that would eventually reveal itself when I started to make jewellery a few years back! I have to say it's not a game that I craved to re-play, I much preferred Horace Goes Skiing .
But it is a game that brings back that warm fuzzy nostalgia feeling. The feeling of a Saturday afternoon that never ended, a school holiday that would seem like an eternity or a Sunday morning with no cares in the world.
But it is a game that brings back that warm fuzzy nostalgia feeling. The feeling of a Saturday afternoon that never ended, a school holiday that would seem like an eternity or a Sunday morning with no cares in the world.
And that is why, dear reader, I wanted to include it. For me this game brings back those memories of childhood, even the word 'Frogger' reminds me of childhood. The logs on the top of the screen in particular remind me of my happiest times as a child, sploshing through the streams in the local woods, catching tadpoles and eagerly turning over stones to see what treasures we could find.
As the years go by and the world becomes more complicated we seek more and more hi-tech realism in our gaming experience.
But sometimes I just feel the need to go back to my ZX Spectrum riverbank and play with the tadpoles.
As the years go by and the world becomes more complicated we seek more and more hi-tech realism in our gaming experience.
But sometimes I just feel the need to go back to my ZX Spectrum riverbank and play with the tadpoles.