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Frog Bog: Jump Up Jump Up and Get Down
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One Game Feature by MAtt Dujnic, 2/5/08
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Last night, I collided with a concrete abutment at 200 miles per hour. I was sailing downward from a jump, so the midair trajectory on impact ended up causing a catapult effect. And, despite the high definition graphics, despite the impressive slow-motion and cascading car parts, this moment in my Burnout Paradise experience actually brought back memories of Frog Bog. Yes, the 50-foot arc drawn by my steel wreckage reminded me of the impressive leaps I used to pull off with a 4-bit frog on low-res moonlit nights. Before there was Mario, and long before simulated cars were performing stunts, Frog Bog had faithfully simulated the most primal part of play: the jump.
My cousin Johnny was the one with the Intellivision. When my family visited, no matter what the occasion, I had only two things on my agenda: I wanted to see the latest bits in his Star Wars toy collection, and then I wanted to play Intellivision. At the time, mine was a 2600 house, and though I knew 2600 had better games, nothing could beat Intellivision for its pure tech-demo weirdness. The audio-visual presentation was just good enough to make the games surreal and creepy. I was uneasy with the colorfully detailed but distinctly deformed imagery, the sound that squawked (and, with a horrifying add-on, talked) at you, and perhaps worst of all, that keypad-with-overlays controller.
Frog Bog was the exception. It didn't look creepy; it was gorgeous (at the time). A lovely pond setting with ambient sounds and (get this) virtual sunrise and sunset! The horrible keypad? Unused. And while most Intellivision games were byzantine in their design, the rules in the Bog were simple. Jump, jump, jump. Make your little froggy fly through the air and (optionally) sling out its tongue for bugs. No matter what, the game would end after three minutes, so if you put aside the point competition, jumping was all there was.
And what jumping! Unlike any game at the time, Frog Bog had physics. There were acceleration curves borne of illusory gravity and frog-leg power. Such precision was immediately intuitive to my cousin and me. If we pushed hard, our frogs would launch into the stratosphere; gently: short hops. The angle was under our control as well - it simply depended which direction you pressed. So ultimately, it was our own fault when the frogs splashed into the drink. In fact, eat bugs wasn't half as fun as trying to drown yourself, so most of our Bog time was devoted the hilarity of amphibian dunking.
Now, almost thirty years later, I'm still jumping. Sure, now I see fit to do it in fancy cars, or on a skateboard, or on goomba heads, but the key to most fun is the jump itself. The games that jump well tend to play well. Frog Bog understood that. Indeed, it was ahead of its time. I only played it for only one night, but the experience is indelible.
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'Jump Up Jump Up and Get Down'
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#&rendershop#
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