Frogger

Every hazard in Frogger runs on a clock. The trucks, the drifting logs and the shifting river current all repeat the same timing forever, which means a run that ends ten seconds in is almost never bad luck — it is a misread pattern. This version comes from Neave Games and keeps the arcade layout intact, redrawing it with cleaner, sharper sprites for modern screens.

One Screen, Two Opposite Rules

The playfield splits across the middle, and the two halves want completely different things from you. The bottom half is a road: lanes of vehicles crossing in alternating directions at different speeds, with a safe median strip above them. Nothing there can be stood on, so the road is pure gap-finding — you wait on solid ground and hop into the space between bumpers.

The top half is a river, and it inverts that logic. Water is fatal, so the logs floating past are the only footing available. Here you are not dodging traffic, you are riding it, and the current keeps sliding you sideways while you wait for the next piece of cover to line up. Drift off the edge of the screen and you lose a frog just as surely as if you had touched the water.

Above the river sit five home bays. Landing in one banks that crossing permanently, so a single level takes five successful trips, not one. You get three frogs to manage the whole thing.

Controls

Each press is one discrete hop of exactly one row or column. There is no partial movement and no way to cancel a jump once it starts, so the decision has to be made before you press the key rather than corrected afterwards.

Learning the Timings

Because the patterns loop, improving at Frogger is mostly a memory exercise rather than a reflex one. A few habits move you forward fast:

• Watch a lane before you enter it. Standing still on the median costs you nothing except clock, and one extra second of observation is cheaper than a frog.
• Hop as the gap arrives, not when it is in front of you. You are aiming for the space a vehicle has just vacated, because that space is guaranteed to stay empty longest.
• On the river, always know your next landing spot. Logs pass at different speeds, so the safe move is often to sit on a slow log and let a faster one catch up to you.
• Fill the outer home bays first. The two bays on the edges are the hardest to reach once the current is pushing you, so clearing them early leaves the easier middle bays for when the level has sped up.
• Never aim between bays. The hedge separating the home slots is solid — a jump into it ends the frog even though you have technically crossed the river.

Later levels tighten everything: vehicles move faster, the river runs harder, and crocodiles start mixing in among the logs. Treat any crocodile as a log with a lethal front end and only ride the back section.

Where This Version Came From

The arcade original was developed by Konami and released in 1981, and it became one of the defining machines of the early eighties precisely because its rules could be explained in one sentence. That original also filled the river with turtles that submerged without warning and put a countdown timer under the playfield, forcing players to commit to a route quickly.

Neave's browser build is a remake rather than a port. It reproduces the structure — road, median, river, five bays — with a modern coat of paint, so muscle memory built here transfers to the arcade version and vice versa. What survives across both is the honesty of the design: you can always see every threat on screen, and losing is always traceable to your own decision.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many crossings does one Frogger level take? Five. Each of the five home bays has to be filled separately, so reaching the top once only completes a fifth of the level.

Is this the same Frogger that Konami released in arcades? No. This is a browser remake by Neave Games that follows the 1981 arcade design and rules with updated visuals rather than emulating the original machine.

Why did my frog die when it reached the top row? You almost certainly landed in the hedge between two home bays. Only the open slots count as a finish; everything between them is solid.

Do the logs move me even when I am not pressing anything? Yes. Anything you are standing on in the river carries you along with it, and being carried off the side of the screen costs a frog.

What changes in the later levels? Vehicle speeds increase, the river lanes get faster, and additional hazards such as crocodiles and snakes appear, which shortens the safe windows you had memorised earlier.