Frogger

[hansolo77]

May 2017 GOTM Winner: Mame Offender - 76,290 (link)

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Frogger Leaderboard

 

POSITION	USER NAME	TOTAL SCORE
1	Mame Offender	76,290
2	Cynicaster	43,280
3	Luigimaker	26,080
4	ExedExes	24,580
5	GimmeClassics	16,700
6	RedDog	14,000
7	Floyd Turbo	13,350
8	millerbrad	13,270
9	rtkiii	10,000
10	hansolo77	5,420

Last Updated by hansolo77: 01-06-2019

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1. Draco1962 - 640 (link)

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Please use these settings when submitting a hi-score for Frogger:

ROMSet: Frogger
Lives: 5
Cabinet: Upright
Special Rules: None

The green coloured default values match the Twin Galaxies settings.
The red coloured values need to be changed!

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# you can change your Mame dip switch settings by following this guide:
# you can make a printscreen of your hi-score screen by following this guide:
# general rules for submitting your hi-score:

 

[hansolo77]

Frogger (フロッガー (Furoggā^?)) is a 1981 arcade game developed by Konami. It was licensed for North American distribution by Sega-Gremlin and worldwide by Sega itself. It is regarded as a classic from the golden age of video arcade games, noted for its novel gameplay and theme. The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one by crossing a busy road and navigating a river full of hazards. The Frogger arcade version is an early example of a game with more than one CPU, as it used two Z80 processors.^[2]

By 2005, Frogger in its various home video game incarnations had sold 20 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States.^[3]

The game starts with three, five, or seven frogs, depending on the settings used by the operator. The player guides a frog which starts at the bottom of the screen, to his home in one of 5 slots at the top of the screen. The lower half of the screen contains a road with motor vehicles, which in various versions include cars, trucks, buses, dune buggies, bulldozers, vans, taxis, bicyclists and motorcycles, speeding along it horizontally. The upper half of the screen consists of a river with logs, alligators, and turtles, all moving horizontally across the screen. The very top of the screen contains five "frog homes" which are the destinations for each frog. Every level is timed (1 minute); the player must finish the level before the time expires.

The only player control is the 4 direction joystick used to navigate the frog; each push in a direction causes the frog to hop once in that direction. On the bottom half of the screen, the player must 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 central reservation where the player must prepare to navigate the river.

By jumping on swiftly moving logs and the backs of turtles and alligators except the alligator jaws, the player can guide their frog safely to one of the empty lily pads. The player must avoid alligators sticking out at one of the five "frog homes", 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 level, with increased difficulty. After five levels, the game gets briefly easier yet again gets progressively harder to the next fifth level.

Softline in 1982 stated that "Frogger has earned the ominous distinction of being 'the arcade game with the most ways to die'".^[4] There are many different ways to lose a life (illustrated by a "skull and crossbones" symbol where the frog was), including:

1. Being hit by or running into a road vehicle
2. Jumping into the river's water
3. Running into snakes, otters or into an alligator's jaws in the river
4. Jumping into a home invaded by an alligator
5. Staying on top of a diving turtle until it has completely submerged
6. Riding a log, alligator, or turtle off the side of the screen
7. Jumping into a home already occupied by a frog
8. Jumping into the side of a home or the bush
9. Running out of time

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's opening tune is the first verse of a Japanese children's song called Inu No Omawarisan (The Dog Policeman). The song remained intact in the US release. Other Japanese tunes that are played during gameplay include the themes to the anime Hana no Ko Lunlun and Araiguma Rascal. The US release also has "Yankee Doodle Dandy".

- Quote from Wikipedia

[hansolo77]

This month's showcase GOTM comes from a suggestion made last April by Mame Offender.  So thanks to him for suggesting it!  This game also beat out the other choices in the voting round by a whole 1 vote.  It was pretty tight, and we almost had a 3 way tie!  So thanks to that kind fellow (or lass) who voted the tie breaker!  This classic game is (hopefully) able to gain more participation, as there are no special controllers needed.  Everybody who is playing MAME has a joystick.  Although it might not be a 4-way, you can still jump right in and play this one.  It's also a very well known game, and I'm sure everybody's played it at least once in their lifetime.  If not, get your kids in here and play it already!

Quick word of caution...  you need to change the lives (via DIP settings) to 5 instead of the default 3.  This is in YOUR favor, so if you don't do it, it's your loss!  Hope to see more participation this month!  Happy gaming!

[rtkiii]

Not much but something!  Crap...upload issues.  Can someone assist?

 

 

[hansolo77]

If you can't post an attachment to your forum post, you can always upload the image somewhere like imgbb.com and just link to it.

[rtkiii]

Yeah but typically in the past if I saw this issue then everyone was having the issue.  Looks like it is working this morning.

I know the screenshot looks different than my normal ones.  But I played this on my PC vs cabinet.  Best I have ever done but surely this is a horrible score  

8,460

 

 

[Draco1962]

How are high scores normally submitted? I may be getting in on this one, if only to beat @rtkiii's score!

[Draco1962]

Nevermind, installed Adultery's Hi Score Snapper thingy... it is a pitiful score (640), but it is my first, so be gentle...

[hansolo77]

Thanks guys for posting scores!!!  I'm liking the competition already!  I have a day off on Sunday, so I will be making my attempt then too!

@Draco1962 - It's basically take a screenshot and post it.  I'm not particular on what your message body says (like making sure you include your name, date, initials, score, etc.)  At this point I'd just be happy to see something posted.  The purpose of the screen shot tool was to incorporate a means to show some initials in a game that wouldn't normally offer them.  It also helped prove your weren't cheating by having the screenshot confirm it.  Thanks for using it, I'm sure Adultery is pleased!  But yea, if you play again and post a better score, just post a reply, don't go back and re-edit your post.  I'll update the OP with the new score. 

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[Mame Offender]

I promise a better score in the close future....

 

This will get me on the board for now.

 

"...cmon stretch stretch, you caaaan put it on the boooooooard, yyyeessss!!!!"

 

35,370

 

 

 

MO

[Mame Offender]

As promised...

 

76,290

Level 20

 

 

 

MO

[hansolo77]

Hmmmm.... I dunno.  Initials don't match.  LOL!  Its cool, because it's 1(st) 2(nd) 3(rd)...  At first glance it looks like the initials are ST, ND, RD, etc.    But jeez man, give us sucky guys a break!  "elite" class is pretty much 10k I'm thinking, and you smashed it.  I'm on the hunt for you tomorrow!

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[Cynicaster]

30,740

[hansolo77]

O

M

G

You guys suck man.  I can't compete with that!!  Good thing I'm going to try a tiered approach on the rematches..  There's just no way!  After an hour, and probably $20 in quarters, this is the best I can do:

5,420

Not sure why the aspect ratio is all wonky.  Oh well

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[hansolo77]

Has everybody changed their player counts to 5?  I thought I did, but just realized when I was playing that I still only had 3 lives.  Maybe my ROM is bad?

[Draco1962]

I ran into the same issue. My ROM set is 0.158. Would be interesting to see if this occurs with later.

[hansolo77]

I re-played it and it shows 5 now.  Weird.

[Draco1962]

Mine shows 5 in the dip switch settings, but only gives me 3 lives. What MAME version are you running?

[ExedExes]

Can't pass up a classic, and I appreciate all that the GameEx mod team does to keep this going. This won't be my last score - it's a great way to break in the middle of the "Crap Tournament" going on now @ Twin Galaxies. (For your health and mine, do NOT play the arcade game "Time Limit", stick with Frogger instead!)

@ 5 lives.

ExedExes - 14,110

[rtkiii]

Oh I thought I was supposed to change it from 5 to 3  - Sweet...so maybe I can get 12K

[Mame Offender]

Ok, some tips about this "harder than it looks" classic game:

- While you may feel the pressure of time, usually you will find that ample time is given to get that frog to his home.  Keep this in mind, rushing will get you killed pretty quickly.

- at all costs, try to plug the far left slot with a frog.  It is the most difficult to get to, so get the hardest one out of the way first

- the fifth and tenth are the hardest to finish.  The fourth row of racecars are the challenge.  So try and position yourself just below the racecars, leap side to side, then leap upwards quickly by the racecars when the big transport trucks leave a big open gap.  It's tough to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, ur laughing.

- get into the habit of landing on the turtle s backs squarely to allow side to side movement if necessary.

- use the diving turtles when they are in the midst of resurfacing, NOT when they are heading under water.

 

MO

 

 

[Cynicaster]

19 hours ago, hansolo77 said:

I re-played it and it shows 5 now.  Weird.

I think you need to exit out of the game and re-start it for changed settings to take effect.  For example, if you start by loading Frogger with default dips, then change lives to 5, you're still only going to get 3 lives until you exit out of the game and restart it.

I really enjoy Frogger, but oddly I have not played very much of it at all since building my MAME cabinet 6 years ago.  I kind of forgot how fun this game can be.

Frogger is almost like 2 games in 1, because navigating the bottom half of the screen requires a whole different set of techniques than navigating the top half. 

For the first 2-3 boards, IMO you don't even really need any kind of strategy--the only thing you need is patience and restraint.  Take your time, make reasoned and low-risk jumps, and you should be fine.  Most of your hopping on these boards will be forward; not much side-to-side movement is needed.  

When the traffic on the road starts getting more hectic, two things start to become really important: the first is learning how to hop side-to-side between two cars, "in sync" with the speed of the cars of that row so that you don't accidentally hit the one in front of you or get squashed by the one behind you.  Hopping along within a row of traffic in this way allows you more flexibility in choosing the exact moment you want to make the leap to the next row up, rather than always waiting for an obvious vertical track from bottom to top to present itself. 

The second important thing on hectic roads is learning how to look ahead--not just to the next row above you, but beyond.  The reason this matters is because, if you look closely, you'll notice lots of times that rows of cars have gaps in them.  These gaps present great opportunities to hop through at lower risk.  If you take mental note of where those larger gaps are, you can try to time your advance so that the gaps pass in front of you just as you need them.  I could never get past about 16,000 points until I figured this out.  

I agree with MO's suggestion to fill the left-most slot early on, but I don't think you need to necessarily do it first, just do it at the earliest opportunity.  As soon as you get past the road, check to see if you think you have enough time to plot a path to that slot--if not, take an easier slot and try again next time for the left side.  You don't want to lose a life from running down the clock if it can be avoided. 

Most of the time, death by sinking turtle is completely preventable.  A quick scan of the turtle rows in the water should be enough for you to identify where the sinkers are.  Try to make a conscious effort to always identify the sinkers before hopping into a turtle row. 

Frogger was designed to work with a simple 4-way joystick, which would make one think it would be easy to emulate at home, but I find that most controllers don't work very well with this game.  The reason is, you move your frog with a string of discrete taps rather than the usual method of just holding the stick in the direction you want to move.  The real arcade machine had a red ball-top stick with a short throw that was pretty springy, which made it very suitable for rapid tapping in different directions with accuracy.  Lots of generic arcade joysticks and hand-held controllers are not very good at mimicking this kind of performance.  That's why Frogger might be the only game in the MAME library that I think plays well with a keyboard; the tap-tap-tap inputs translate quite logically to key presses.  The thing to keep in mind when using a keyboard is that the game will only register inputs as quickly as the frog can jump, so you have to get into a rhythm and avoid the tendency to rapidly mash the buttons to jump quicker.  If you do that, you'll get lots of unregistered button presses and you'll be likely to either over- or under-jump to your death.    

 

   

 

 

[hansolo77]

On 5/7/2017 at 5:44 PM, Draco1962 said:

Mine shows 5 in the dip switch settings, but only gives me 3 lives. What MAME version are you running?

154

@ExedExes - Thanks for the score!  Added it to the board!

@Mame Offender - Thanks for the tips!

@Cynicaster - Thanks for the tips too!

Thanks for keeping the excitement alive guys!  I got my schedule for the next 2 weeks and I'm not going to have a day off until the end of the month.  I'm slotted for (but it's yet to be written) a vacation the last week.  May 28th is my birthday, and if everything falls into place, I'll be on vacation for the first time ever since I started working.  I'm planning on using that free time to look at how best to tackle doing the tiered tables.  The only thing I can think of doing right now is to just judge what our current roster of scores are for a particular game, and divide the scores up in 3's.  Any other suggestions are welcome!

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[rtkiii]

A little better....just a little   10,000!

[hansolo77]

A little, a lot... long as it's am improvement right? Thanks for posting a new score!

Updated OP, DB, RSS