HSC18 Round 4: FROGGER

[McKong]

Sierra Slow 96030. It doesn't get any more difficult after the 2nd time through and you get an extra life after every 5th round. I was planning to retire at 100k but got careless 

[MrTrust]

Slow 12,290.  Fast 9,365.

[carlsson]

Sierra Slow: 12590 pts

Sierra Fast: 10135 pts

 

I'm not sure if slow is supposed to be easier than fast, but I find them almost equally challenging. Of course timings are completely different, and perhaps strategy too.

 

 

[Deteacher]

On 3/6/2021 at 9:17 PM, carlsson said:

Sierra Slow: 12590 pts

Sierra Fast: 10135 pts

 

I'm not sure if slow is supposed to be easier than fast, but I find them almost equally challenging. Of course timings are completely different, and perhaps strategy too.

 

Slow is actually harder on the higher levels because I tend to run out of time, getting the frog in the last cave.

[Deteacher]

Slow:  104,130!  The stupid alligator popped out just as I was jumping into the cave. 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Deteacher

[+therealbountybob]

17 hours ago, McKong said:

Sierra Slow 96030. It doesn't get any more difficult after the 2nd time through and you get an extra life after every 5th round. I was planning to retire at 100k but got careless 

Now you can long play PB and see if it's the same!!

[Mister-VCS]

JH slow 8210

 

 

[+therealbountybob]

No improvement from me on Fast, will try Slow again later!

 

Round 5 >>> POLL OPEN <<<

[+therealbountybob]

6 hours ago, therealbountybob said:

No improvement from me on Fast, will try Slow again later!

 

Round 5 >>> POLL OPEN <<<

Small improvement on fast after lots of goes, one berth remaining on first set 19,520.

Slow managed to get past first slowdown to 34,510 (pbros ver) 

[carlsson]

Ok, I will probably regret later for posting this video, but I made a recording playing the C64 version (Chuck Benton, Sierra On-Line) of Frogger with the dance mat. In principle I could have connected my Atari 130XE instead, but I'm not sure it would be that much more enjoyable to watch. Laugh as you feel fitting and I know I'm obese so no reason to point that out.

 

As you can see, it was fairly hard, at least with my next to non-existing coordination. Someone who is better at moving their feet probably would achieve better. In the end (not in the clip), I almost cleared the first level on Slow.

 

 

[McKong]

On 3/7/2021 at 10:49 PM, carlsson said:

Ok, I will probably regret later for posting this video, but I made a recording playing the C64 version (Chuck Benton, Sierra On-Line) of Frogger with the dance mat. In principle I could have connected my Atari 130XE instead, but I'm not sure it would be that much more enjoyable to watch. Laugh as you feel fitting and I know I'm obese so no reason to point that out.

 

As you can see, it was fairly hard, at least with my next to non-existing coordination. Someone who is better at moving their feet probably would achieve better. In the end (not in the clip), I almost cleared the first level on Slow.

...

 

Definitely worth a bonus point or two!

[McKong]

On 3/7/2021 at 9:00 AM, therealbountybob said:

Now you can long play PB and see if it's the same!!

I just played the Parker Bros version on slow and it seems to play about the same maybe slight more difficult. Resets with a bonus life after every 5th screen and as with the Sierra online version doesn't appear to get any more difficult after the 2nd time through

[carlsson]

I suppose the fact that the two versions are so similar must mean that Sega Konami had some sort of specs or documentation, or otherwise both sets of programmers spent days after days playing the arcade game and came to the same conclusions. From what I've read elsewhere, documentation was rare or at least rarely handed to developers making ports.

 

It makes me curious about the Chuck Benton version (Sierra On-Line which we don't play in the HSC), that it was speculated whether it ever was published or just leaked out. It is the official SoL version on the C64 that I played yesterday and I observed that e.g. crocodiles show up in the frog homes already on the very first level, while they don't appear until level 2 on the John Harris version. I didn't try Parker Bros because it wouldn't boot on my SIO2SD. It would be a clear example of when there is a difference between arcade and home port.

 

Edit: I always thought the arcade game was from Sega, but I realized it originally is a Konami game, that somehow got licensed through Sega (??) to Parker Bros for cartridge versions and Sierra On-Line for tape and disk versions? On the Dragon 32, it was Microdeal who got the rights, posisbly because neither PB nor Sol were active there. Microdeal in its turn was part of the Cornsoft group, who also did versions for TRS-80 next to Radio Shack's version, as well as Timex Sinclair 2068 and probably Timex Sinclair 1000 (ZX-81).  On the MSX, Konami themselves published Frogger, no need to involve neither Sega nor any American companies.

 

Edit 2: Ok, I read up on Wikipedia how Sega/Gremlin paid Konami $3500 for a 60 day licensing window, tested the arcade game in a bar with mostly males (as opposed to Frogger being a game for children and women) and from there on went to licensing it. So while the game is from Konami, I understand if it had not been for Elizabeth Falconer at Sega/Gremlin, it may never had been a household name in gaming. The Wikipedia article also explains the rights for magnetic media and cartridge, including sublicensing to Cornsoft for the systems that Sierra On-Line correctly didn't publish for themselves.

 

Edit 3: Further I read on the Frogger Fandom page that there was a long dispute between Konami and Sega who held the rights to Frogger, which eventually Konami won. Not so surprising to mistake it for being a Sega game if that is how they presented it for a long while before Konami legally got the rights back.

Edited March 8, 2021 by carlsson

[Caco]

FAST: 9190

SLOW: 16225

 

[+therealbountybob]

2 hours ago, McKong said:

Definitely worth a bonus point or two!

Yes. Hilarious carlsson you should re-do the vid so you can see the screen top half is white and then become a you tube sensation. I have xbox dance mats stored away, if you spec out what is required I might see if brother in law will solder it?!!

 

We did check out the other versions last time, the Sega one has superb musc.

 

Round 5 >>> POLL OPEN <<<

 

[carlsson]

16 minutes ago, therealbountybob said:

I have xbox dance mats stored away, if you spec out what is required I might see if brother in law will solder it?!!

I am using a PSX64 interface which I think is discontinued since many years ago (schematics here), but I understand there is a bunch of other PlayStation to Atari/Commodore adapters on the market. Perhaps that is because PlayStation has a straightforward serial protocol or just the abundance of controllers available. I don't know about Xbox, but probably someone has done a similar design that lets you connect Xbox peripherals to your Atari as well. You would want it to convert any inputs to digital joystick.

 

Also I just read that NBC Peacock is planning a game show, 13 hour long episodes! (February 23, 2021 so just fresh news)

https://nordic.ign.com/news/43907/frogger-gameshow-series-coming-to-peacock

 

Edit: The KMTech Cyclone RX (alt link) probably would work for this purpose (not sure about Guitar Hero though). There is also a project using an Arudino and probably a lot more if you look around.

 

Edit 2: Regarding the video, I considered recording two streams, one of the screen and one of me and then synchronize those in video editing software but I'm afraid it would be more work than I'd gain from it so I opted out for the moment being. Maybe if I feel bored and have the time to spend, I'll make some more attempts.

Edited March 8, 2021 by carlsson

[Caco]

FAST - 16355

SLOW - 16790

Edited March 8, 2021 by Caco

[Sikor]

Small improvement in harris fast:

 

[mimo]

Sierra slow 

15340

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mimo]

Fast 8955

 

[graywest]

You guys are posting some killer scores. I've had a hard time breaking through my previous best, especially on fast.

 

Parker Brothers (fast): 15,380

 

Parker Brothers (slow): 61,850

Edited March 8, 2021 by graywest

[+slx]

CAR version (the one to the right in post #1) 

Slow 6165, Fast 4550

 atari065.tiff

atari064.tiff

 

Disc Version Slow 5705

[MrTrust]

14,020 fast on Sierra.  Didn't even know this existed.  Why are they so close but not identical?  Weird.

[carlsson]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

Why are they so close but not identical?

The easy answer is because Sega handled the rights for Konami, and they licensed cartridge versions of just about every format to Parker Bros, and magnetic media (disk/tape) versions of the same formats to Sierra On-Line. Apparently it was common practice back then to separate the two. Most consoles of course only take cartridges, and most computers take tapes or disks, but then there are a few formats like Atari 8-bit, C64 etc that support both. Since both PB and SoL had rights to make versions of Frogger, apparently both aimed for the same format and that is why there are several versions.

 

I think you may see something similar regarding e.g. Zaxxon and Super Zaxxon except in that case it was two different games licensed to different publishers. Earlier I commented about a story how Sega supposedly paid one publisher (on the C64) to wait with publishing their game because the other publisher wasn't ready yet and the games were supposed to come out in a certain order. Normally the publisher would pay Sega for obtaining rights to make a home version so perhaps the two waived the cost.

 

I wonder if Sega/Konami could have handled it in such way that they would license Parker Bros to make cartridge versions for all systems that lack tape/disk, and Sierra On-Line to make magnetic media versions for all systems not supporting a cartridge, and for those in the middle where conflict would occur, they would bid individually or simply split the rights so one would do cartridges for Atari 8-bit and TI-99/4A and the other would do tape games for the VIC-20 and C64 (for instance). Since in particular tape games, but also disk games tended to be much cheaper than cartridge games, it makes me wonder if Parker Bros managed to sell that many cartridges on the systems where Sierra On-Line published their own, cheaper version that was more or less identical, but would take a little longer to load.

[MrTrust]

Sure, that part doesn't strike me as odd, but they look like they're both using big chunks of the same code.  Different guys credited on both versions, and this one is different from the Sega one by SoL.  Apparently, the PB version was subbed out to Roklan?  If they were totally different, or identical, it wouldn't seem odd.