498 Words About: Frogger for SNES
I have killed an inordinate number of frogs. I would like to add that to a resume but I’m positive that it would keep me from acquiring desirable employment, or land me a job that would almost certainly be philosophically horrific. Job applications aside, I decided to play Frogger again after a two decades hiatus and write something about it.
I note, for the historic record, this time I actively tried to avoid killing any frogs.
I also played it on a Super Nintendo Entertainment System emulator (SNES) because every other console that released some version of Frogger looks, I say this as professionally as I can, like butt.
Frogger is about frogs who are attempting to cross a road. I don’t know why the original developers (who were Konami apparently) didn’t capitalize on the classic joke using chickens, but here we are. It’s never explained why these frogs are trying to make it across, and, honestly, it doesn’t matter. Frogger is a basic top-down puzzle game that was clearly designed to inhale quarters with a basic concept. Whenever I played the game as a kid I would occasionally see lady-frogs(gendered by their pink lipstick, slow-blinking eyes, and dolled up hair), and I suppose that might have provided some context as to why these frogs were needlessly crossing an active highway.
Structurally the verbs of Frogger are “Hop” and “Wait.” Players can have their frogs hop across the road when there are gaps between vehicles, but naturally this is a road (and a game) so it’s just as important to time hops correctly so as not to be run over by trucks, cars, buses, etc. As such players alternate between hopping and waiting just to get across the road. Once across players will have to navigate hopping across the backs of turtles and moving logs in order to hop into empty slots along the back row. Once again, players have to time their jumps and movement correctly because hopping at the wrong moment or waiting too long will result in drowned frogs.
Which makes no biological sense to me whatsoever given the fact frogs are amphibians and demonstrate cutaneous respiration and therefore require water in order to breath through their skin.
However, Benjamin Disraeli once provided plenty of insight when he said, “It’s a game dude. Don’t overthink it.”
I played Frogger often as a kid because it was a game, because it was there, and because it was fun killing the frogs. I recognise in hindsight how quickly I turned this harmless puzzle game into a murder simulator, but It was funny hearing and seeing the frogs when they got squished or drowned (it was the same sound-file), and there was an absurdity to all of this death. It made absolutely no sense. But to be fair, neither does the actual game.
Killing the frogs in Frogger was an excuse to subvert the intended goal of a software program for my own amusement, and just play.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
9.22.2025
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