Frogger (1997)

Frogger, he's back! Also pretty much the last classic-style Frogger game until Frogger Returns and Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition (and either the best or worst depending on who you ask). It is also absolutely brutal in difficulty, especially when compared to its immediate sequel.

Prototype Info Prerelease Info PowerupsDid someone order phallic imagery? No? Unused ObjectsThings doomed to never see the light of day. Poor cave zone...

Zone Names#

Despite none of the zones in the game being explicitly referred to by name, they were each given names during development. These names are seen frequently in the game's source code, and most files for zone-specific assets use a 3-letter acronym for their zone as a prefix. They are also (most of the time) arranged in alphabetical order.

Zone Icon	Zone Name	Zone Acronym	Notes
	Caves	CAV
	Desert	DES	Referred to as "Desert Canyons" exclusively in the Milestone 3 prototype.
	Forest	FOR
	Jungle	JUN	Referred to occasionally as "Jungle River", primarily in earlier documents.
	Original	ORG	Some documents and code refer to this zone as "Retro", fitting the naming convention of its levels.
(Prototype Image)	Ruins	ARN	A zone that was scrapped early in development, with some of its elements being merged into the Jungle zone. Also referred to as "Ruined City". "ARN" suggests a name along the lines of "Ancient Ruin", but no documentation refers to it as such, and simply being called "Ruins" fits better alphabetically.
	Swamp	SWP	Referred to infrequently as "Sewer". It appears this may have also been the name used for ordering, as otherwise it breaks the alphabetical trend.
	Sky	SKY
	Suburbia	SUB
	Volcano / Industrial	VOL / IND	Referred to by 2 names fairly consistently, to the point is was given a second acronym. Some unused entity names suggest a more traditional "Volcano" setting was once planned.

Unused Music#

This track has no identified name, but the game's source code suggests it was for the cut Ruins Zone.

This track originally was meant to play when the jungle zone was completed. Because the credits play when you complete the jungle zone, this track goes unused.

Unused Palette Files#

The PC version contains a .PAL (Color Palette) file for each level, along with a palette named "OPTIONS.PAL". These files are believed to be unused because if they are corrupted, there are no visible changes.

Unused Graphics#

Unused Demos#

To do: There are many demos in prototype builds, most are not interesting. Perhaps all of the interesting ones can be recorded.

Watch on YouTubeTropical Trouble and Frogger Goes Skiing have some unused demos. They can be seen in the video.

Unused Sounds#

Unused Models#

To do: Migrate this section to "Unused Objects" page and discuss some of these models in more detail

Unused Animations#

Unused Entity Behavior#

Fireflies#

The callback function for CAV_FIREFLY (the path based fireflies seen only in Dark Dark Cavern) contains code for adding to the player's light, despite providing no benefit aside from score in-game.

// Give set score for Fire Fly.
AddFrogScore(frog, SCORE_250, NULL);

// Increase the light for this Frog.
Map_light_max_r2    += CAVE_FIRE_FLY_LIGHT;
Map_light_min_r2    += CAVE_FIRE_FLY_LIGHT;

CAVE_FIRE_FLY_LIGHT is equal to 8, which is in between the small firefly's light value of 5 and the Fat Firefly's 16. The difference here is that when those flies are collected, a macro is used which significantly increases the values to a level the "Cave Light" entity can actually use:

ADD_FROG_LIGHT(a,b) \
        Map_light_max_r2    += ((b)->sb_value<<16), \
        Map_light_min_r2    += ((b)->sb_value<<16)

5 becomes 327680.
16 becomes 1048576

As the callback function does not have this same increase, it results in the comparatively tiny value of 8 being added directly to the player's light, leading to no visual change.

Developer Levels#

To do: Record footage of ISLAND.MAP in an early prototype build since they contain original texture mapping and entity code. Also let's improve the descriptions here to back up the claims.

ISLAND.MAP#

Watch on YouTube

This file was found in the PSX build. It was created by developer Tim Closs, it was used to test many different things.

One of the main things it was used to test was movement and slopes.

It contains a mud-pit which causes the player to bounce. This behavior is not seen in the retail game.

The map is very unpolished, with lots of holes in the collision grid and outdated textures.

QB.MAP#

Watch on YouTube

This odd unused map is likely designed and named after QBert.

The map has no textures, only vertex coloring.

Words cannot describe how strange this map is.

Hidden Developer Comment#

In each map file, the comment is:

Maybe this time it'll all work fine...

Out of Bounds Models#

Retro Level 5#

This model matches the crocodile head model used as an enemy in this zone. However, this is part of the level geometry.

Honey Bee Hollow#

The entity that blocks the line of sight of bee swarms, FOR_STAT_TREESTUMP, uses this single-polygon model, which goes otherwise unseen due to these entities being placed underneath the level geometry.

Bang Bang Barrel#

This flag looks identical to the flags used in the multiplayer stages as checkpoints. However, it is part of the level geometry, and not animated.

Boom Boom Barrel#

This box model was accidentally put into the map instead of the entity it represents. The entity that was supposed to be placed here would kill Frogger when he touched it, and not display in-game. However, the 3D model was placed there instead.

Crumbled Point#

A few detail models can be found within the protruded cliff walls in the center of the level, including some bison remains and a cliff branch. These are leftovers from Cactus Point that were not removed when the cliff walls were extended outwards during this level's creation. A cluster of rocks was also covered up during this process, near the bison remains, though part of the cluster sticks out enough to be visible in-game.

Cheats#

Both the PSX and PC versions have several cheats, which can be triggered while on the pause screen in single player, with the following codes:

Additionally, the game has 2 additional variables for cheat toggles which were seemingly used for debugging, but weren't made accessible to players:

Infinite Time#

Cheat_time_toggle
Achieves the same result as the PC version's "No Death on Timeout", but instead of preventing the Timeout death, this cheat stops timer progression altogether. This has the additional side effect of allowing players to receive very high time bonuses, as the timer's value never decreases, and can in fact still be increased by eating flies.

Collision Cheat#

To do: Find and make note of some more specific object interactions, as this cheat has some pretty strange effects.

Cheat_collision_toggle
Disables collision with most lethal objects in the game, effectively making the player invincible. Some other non-lethal objects that rely on collisions will also not function correctly. This cheat also prevents things such as large drops, falling out of the map, or tumbling down a cliff from killing the player, opening up new and exciting softlock opportunities.

Build Date#

FROGPSX.MWD contains all game files, along with its build date. Some early builds such as the Windows version of Milestone 3 has loose game's files instead of being in one whole MWD archive. The build date can't be found in the files, but instead it's based off of the build's disc creation date.

Debug Text#

North American Retail Release#

The file SLUS_005.06 on the North American PlayStation version of the game contains debug text.

...
...
...

[
  "----------------\n"
  "%jcFROGGER"
  "%jcCOMPILED: 13:01"
  "%jcBUILD: 71"
  "%jc23/09/97"
  "----------------\n"
]; This build information changed during development, and this was shown upon booting the game on debug builds. Unsure what %jc stood for. One guess is that it centered the text and added a newline character.

[
 "----------------\n"
 "Heap: %ld Kb\n"
 " Bss: %ld Kb\n"
 "Data: %ld Kb\n"
 "Code: %ld Kb\n"
 "Version: 59\n"
 "----------------\n"
]; While technically, used, the user will never see this. After initialization, the PSX version calls printf with this text. 

Stream_next_frame: Size change - ABORT   ; An error message for trying to play an invalid STR file.
Stream_sync: Timeout in decoding         ; An error message for failing to play a STR.
Stream_open_file: Find Failure: %s       ; An error message for failing to find the STR file specified.
Stream_open_file: Seek Failure:%s        ; An error message saying the CD blocking control method failed.

%jcRECORDING DEMO       ; This flashes on the screen while the user is recording a demo. Potentially in the future we'll be able to get a video of this.
GAME_MULTI_COMPLETE     ; If memory allocation for multiplayer completion data fails, this message will be displayed on-screen in debug mode.
Game outro data         ; Allocation failure message for "JUN_OUTRO_DATA" struct.
game over multiplayer   ; Allocation failure message for "GAME_OVER_MULTIPLAYER" struct. (Contains data showing results / who won.)


ENTITY ROOT
Water wibble vertices buffer
Water wibble vertices
Water wibble distances
Map poly groups
Map poly nodes
SKY LAND VERTICES
SKY LAND QUADS
POLY_GROUP_PRIMS
LIVE ENTITY
ENTITY SPECIALS
FROG POLY PIECE POP
CHKPOINT PTR
FROG POLY PIECE POP
PATH RUNNER
HUD score background polys
HUD TIMER BAR POLYS
HUD CHECKPOINT 2DSPRITE 
SHADOW EFFECT
SIGHTS EFFECT
TRAIL EFFECT
TONGUE EFFECT
TRA_TRIS
POLY PIECES
LEVELMOFS
Select BG polys
FROG ANIM HEADER CONSTRUCTION
HS water points ; HS stands for high-score.
HS riverbed points
HS water prims
HS riverbed prims
HS matrices 4
HS matrices 3
FROG POLY PIECE POP
LS matrices ; LS stands for level select.
; The above chunk are all further examples of allocation failure messages. 

MRAllocMem(%ld, '%s') failed ; This takes the above messages, and displays them.

Retry file: %s       ; XA Audio File lookup failed.
File: %s (%d bytes)  ; XA Audio File was found, and has a particular length.
Start = %d, End = %d ; Reading audio from the given offsets.

%jcTOO MANY POLYGONS ; This message would display if there were too many polygons to render.
%jcCHECKPOINTS COLLECTED ; Removed developer cheat to complete the level.
%jcGOLDFROG COLLECTED    ; Removed developer cheat to capture the golden frog of the level.

[
  "%jc3.DMA  1:11 32345678"
  "%jc2.DMA  1:11 22345678" 
  "%jc1.DMA 0000000000:00s"
]; Dummy level high-score data. Overriden / shown when a level is chosen from the stack.

Internal API Version 1.40 (c)1997 SCEE    ; Information about Millenium Interactive's Engine. The PC version is running 1.43.

MR_MFIXDMRInitialiseResources: No filename information available in .MWI; Used if there was a need for file names, but this was the PSX build, which doesn't include file names in the MWI. (File names were included in the PC version because it made it possible for map designers to load maps directly from disk instead of having to build a new game archive to test every change.)

Failure to load PC file: %s ; If opening a file on disc fails (A debug-only feature), this message will be used.
Failure to save PC file: %s ; Part of the debug-only file-saving method. This is the message used if the file-system fails to create a file for whatever reason.

...
...
...

Regional Differences#

There are quite a few differences between the different versions.

• The Japanese PSX release has a setting option where you could start the game with their selected lives (3, 5, 7).

International	Japan

• The Japanese PSX release uses a different font for the text and the menu selection was wider. and it also swapped the button icons to "O" and "X"

International	Japan

• In the Japanese PSX version, the Music and Sound volume were located in the sound options menu, as well as the save and load option and high scores are located in the respective options menus.

• It also has a difficulty selection (easy, hard). Easy mode disables timeout deaths.

• The PC version starts the player with 5 lives, while all of the other PS1 versions start the player with 3 lives.

• The North American PSX version runs at 30FPS, but all other known versions of the game (besides the prototype) run at 25FPS, including the PC version.

• Playstation versions have a short drum beat which plays when loading a map, but this doesn't play on the PC version.

• Various sounds are pitched differently on PC than they are on PSX. It might be due to the framerate differing, but this has not been confirmed.

• Bugs have a slight glow around them in the PSX versions, however on the PC version there's a "bubble" sprite.

References#