Frog Runner

You're a frog and it's time you hopped home

"There are many hazards to face between you and your frog pond. Peter Berrecloth has packed a lot of features into Frog Runner"

This was my final project on the VIC and I wanted to go out with something great. Frog Runner was the result of all my experience on the VIC, plus some useful routines I had picked up along the way. It was certainly worth it and was given a double colour page spread in Home Computing Weekly. The game was based on the arcade classic "Frogger" where your job is to guide the frog, using the cursor keys for left and right and A and Z for up and down, through the four-lane motorway and across the river to the frog ponds beyond. The basic rules are:-

• Avoid Cars, Lorries, Cats-Eyes, Snakes and Yellow Frogs.
• Catch: Turquoise Frogs, Logs and Turtles.
• And keep moving, otherwise you will de-hydrate!

There are seven levels of play. The more difficult levels have fewer logs and turtles, more tradffic and faster action. Bonuses are awarded for landing on turquoise frogs (on the logs), landing next to yellow frogs (in the ponds) and getting all five ponds filled. You have five lives and can lose them by hitting traffic, snakes, river banks at the top, yellow frogs, wrapping around the screen, dehydrating anf falling into the river. Your status is shown on the bottom two lines: hi-score, score, lives and moisture left.

Two features not normally found are included for ease of play:

• A carefully times jump will clear any oncoming traffic up to two characters long
• The snake will not notice you unless you move, but don't stay still for too long - keep an eye on the timer.

As expected, a game such as this requires lots of those dreaded DATA statements. These are included in a separate program which must be LOADed first. A checksum is included to trap errors, but no crashes will occur with the first program anyway.

The DATA is in three parts: user-defined characters, screen split and scroll routines. The characters are explained so that any corruption of the graphics can be traced. After the first program has been RUN successfully, SAVE it to tape then type in the second part. Do not run it yet as line 49 could cause a fatal crash. After entering, sale the second part to tape following the first part. Many lines in the program must be abbreviated (? for PRINT and so on) to enable them to be entered. Your manual explains the abbreviation of keywords.

If the LOADing is successful, GAME OVER will appear. Hit any key to start. I think the game contains enough features to keep it interesting. The level may be changed by altering X in line 1 of the main program. Try 50 if life is not too hard. Look for scores of 150,000 plus, without cheating. Happy Frog Running.

Note: Continuous RUN/STOP restoring of the program will cause errors in the machine code, so try to avoid this.

Designed and Programmed by Pete Berrecloth

VIC 20 3.5K Published by HCW 62 (May 15th - May 21st 1984)