Froggess is a rather shameless clone of the legendary Frogger (Sega, 1981). The Commodore 64 enjoyed several ports and clones of its own, the most notable being those from Sierra and Parker Brothers. This game tips its hat to all of them, while trying not to get flattened by a passing truck.

Back in the days when arcade heroes spent most of their time vaporizing aliens, invading planets, or generally committing enthusiastic acts of pixelated violence, Frogger stood out as a peaceful little masterpiece. Your only goal was to help a tiny frog cross a road and a river to get home. Admittedly, "peaceful" is a relative term when buses, crocodiles, snakes and drowning are involved.

So, after Haunting the Hauntessa and DownHeel, both fairly ambitious projects, why make a clone of a game whose entire design document could comfortably fit on a beer coaster?

Because simple games are often anything but simple to build. Frogger introduced a whole collection of technical challenges I hadn't tackled before: moving platforms carrying player, lane-based traffic, classic arcade timing, ... and gameplay that depends almost entirely on precision rather than complexity. In other words, it was the perfect excuse to teach my engine a few old-school 2D arcade tricks... and occasionally teach the frog that buses always have the right of way. Wait, I forgot to implement buses ... but there is always a truck that could play the part...

Also, the annoying repetitive music was left out.