(Link to video)
The last of the three games named Frogger 2!
This is the original sequel to Frogger, released in 1984 for a few systems including the ColecoVision. It's called "Three Deep" for two reasons: because the game is three screens deep, and as a pun on the sound people in the '80s thought frogs make: "Redeep", which we know today as "Ribbit".

About the run

  • Emulator used: BizHawk 1.5.3
    • Skip BIOS Intro unchecked (though it doesn't seem to matter for this game)
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Plays until there is no new content (end of Level 5)
  • Abuses a programming error in the game
  • Genre: Action
There are three screens in this game: sea, surface, and sky.
  • The sea is a lot like the highway in the original Frogger, except there's a current that always pulls you either to the right or left which gets stronger as you increase in level. There are always 3 holes to fill on this screen, inside logs. You can ride the white turtle through enemies, though it's slower than hopping around them. You can also zip through the yellow fish if you're facing them. The rest of the fish are instant death though.
  • The surface is, unsurprisingly, like the river in Frogger, but you can actually jump on the mouths of whales and crocodiles without dying. Besides falling in the water or going off the edge of the screen, you can also die by being trampled by the mother duck. Normally, you can hop onto the mother duck to take to the sky, but if you stomp on her ducklings, she'll get mad and try to kill you (unless you hop off of them, then she's okay with you again). Your goal is to fill the 1, 2, or 3 life preservers, or rafts, trailing behind the tugboat.
  • The sky has a forward perspective like the sea instead of a top-down one like the surface. Your goal is to bounce on the cloud and climb the birds to reach the cloud-hole(s) at the top. There are also some red bonus point birds that open up holes in the clouds when hit. Falling through these holes puts you back into the sea. If that happens, you won't lose a life but you'll waste time having to climb back up.
Here are some memory addresses for Frogger's position and the level timer: UserFiles/Info/637936906483849266

Lag reduction and strategy

The game runs at 30 fps, probably due to the large amount of sprites that are always onscreen.
Entering another screen seems to reset enemy and platform positions and lag patterns, while only the score, number of lives, and clock remain the same. The only things that don't reset are the spawn points of bonus point birds in the sky, and the positions at which the hippos on the surface will stop and shake Frogger off. I think they're both on a global timer, since only changing the frame number seems to affect them.
For the first four levels, the game seems to lag more when there are two white/red "completed" frogs on the screen, so I avoided this as much as possible by completing the sky screens first (because they are hopped across the least), followed by the surface screens, and lastly the sea screens (where extra lag would waste the most time overall). Oddly, this additional lag did not occur in the first or last levels.
Every time a hole is filled, the game will count down your bonus points. Frogger normally respawns in 64 frames if no bonus points are collected, and the countdown for every hundred bonus points earned adds 20 frames on to that. Because of this, bonus points are usually avoided. Note that Frogger will always get at least 200 points from surface screens because it's faster to hop across two yellow Pac-Man shaped lilypads to reach the rafts sooner.
Frogger moves pretty far with each hop. Sometimes, if he needs to move to a precise position, he'll have to wait for the water current or platform he's on to move him to where he can hop there as soon as possible. Hopping away and then back again can mess up this pixel-perfect position, otherwise I would hop around to entertain more often.
I managed to find a couple of wraparound glitches and a floating glitch, but unfortunately none of them saved time. I did use the floating glitch a few times in the run for entertainment though.

Level by level comments

Level 1

  • I start by getting the first sea hole out of the way since it doesn't cause any extra lag.
  • The sky screens are where you'll see most of the fairly precise tricks in this run. Normally, you would have to wait for that pink pterodactyl to carry you to the hole, but you can reach it much faster with a good enough bounce.
  • While going to the right to reach the middle sea hole may seem faster, Frogger actually can't make it into that hole with his long hops without waiting over half a second for the current to move him and the log into position. That log is still useful though, as touching its side is the fastest way to make it to the surface.
  • I can't make it onto the first top log on the surface, but that's fine since I have to wait for the boat and life raft to slowly wrap back around the screen anyway. So I decided to anger the mother duck as much as possible.

Level 2

  • Among the minor differences in this stage are a second raft on the surface screen and slightly different positions for the birds on the sky screen.
  • I actually need to step on the ducklings in order to survive without stepping on the lily-Pacs. If I stayed on the first crocodile that passes Frogger's spawn point, there would be nowhere else to hop and I would die at the edge of the screen. But it's fun messing with the mother duck anyway.
  • The bubble that appears in the sea screen doesn't cause extra lag. The lethal black algae that appears later does, but this lag is unavoidable because the algae can't be killed.
    • However, because the algae changes up the lag, it's actually 2 frames faster to make a precise hop into the middle log instead of the leftmost one.

Level 3

  • There're plenty more fish in the sea, son...and also another hole in the sky.
  • The mother duck has a new starting position right behind the ducklings. Normally, when she touches one of the ends of the row of ducklings, she'll turn around and swim in the opposite direction. Since that would waste way too much time, I force her to swim left by stepping on and off a duckling, giving me just enough time to catch her and take to the sky.
  • The sky level is harder since there are fewer birds to hop on, plus an airplane and dragon that will kill you on contact.
  • The second round of the sky level requires precision and clever strategy to make it around the dragon, especially without hitting the bonus point birds. While there is a route that would allow Frogger to make it to the hole 8 frames faster, it would mean hitting one of these birds, which would be 12 frames slower overall. Also, the pink pterodactyl is barely far enough away that it can't be hopped onto; otherwise, the hole could be reached around 7 seconds earlier.
  • Despite the extra hundred bonus points, hopping across two lily-Pacs to reach the second raft actually saves 14 frames over only hopping across the third lilypad. I use this for the rest of the run to save time.
  • Messing with the mother duck never gets old. At one point, I even partially clip through her when she wraps around the screen.

Level 4

  • Here the sea screen's current becomes stronger, which makes it more difficult to traverse. There is also another raft and an instant death shark swimming over your platforms on the surface.
  • Though I had originally planned to copy-and-paste the input from the previous level for the sky screens, I actually had to redo both screens due to different positions of the bonus point birds. This was a good thing, though, as the different positions allowed faster routes that saved 8 frames for the right hole and 30 for the left.
  • I jump on the ducklings a bit to provide some relief for your ears from the shark's "theme".

Level 5

  • The last level! And also the longest and most difficult. The current is now even stronger, the enemies, platforms and birds are in their toughest positions yet, and a ninth hole has been added in the sky.
  • The mother duck is surprisingly in a near optimal position in this level. You only need to step on and off her ducks as fast as you can and she'll be right there to hop onto.
  • In the first sky screen, the birds and plane are in positions that prevent me from going to the middle hole right away, so I have to wait for another high-flying bird to come from the right.
  • Due to the dragon's position, there's no faster way to reach the left sky hole than waiting for the pterodactyl to fly over and help you in.
  • Because there's no lag in this level, I get the sea holes out of the way before going on to the last raft.
  • The last raft is difficult to reach in real time without running out the level timer. The timer starts when Frogger spawns in the sea, so every movement from the spawn point to this final raft has to be almost perfect. You'd think you would have plenty of time to reach the raft, or even to wait on a lily-Pac for the boat to drive by. But with everything moving so slowly, only one badly positioned top log and one whale, and the endlessly circling shark, this raft is designed to make you race the clock...and lose.
    • If time runs out, you die and lose a life, like in most games. You only have three extra lives, so three tries to reach that raft or it's game over, no continues.
    • And to add to the frustration, a horrible repeating noise plays to constantly remind you that time's running out.
  • But since this is a TAS, Frogger reaches the raft with 5.4 seconds to spare (58 frames if you didn't hop across the lilypads to get there sooner). No problem for our theoretical superhuman player!
  • And this is where I end the run, as Level 5 repeats endlessly after this point.

Suggested screenshots

992, 7520

Thanks to

  • The BizHawk devs for the awesome emulator
  • IceQueenZer0 for her helpful GameFAQ for this game
  • You, for watching

feos: Judging...
feos: Updated the submission file with the 502 frame improvement
feos: Accepting to Vault.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4176: CoolKirby's Coleco Frogger II: ThreeeDeep! in 11:50.38
Skilled player (1703)
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I've noticed you gain points every time you move. I wonder what the highest score would be if instead of standing in place, you moved back and forth during the waiting periods to rack up points? :P Entertainment-wise, this was....meh. I'm leaning towards no, but it's Coleco, so I can't really expect many games to be action-filled.
Editor, Skilled player (1936)
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For a moment, I thought this game was good. Then the game decided to throw in some horrible noises, and make the sea stages really long. The thing that I most liked about this game was the "gravity" in the sky level, and the ability to bounce. Other than that, I wasn't entertained. No fault to the author though.
Spikestuff
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THE VAULT HAS COME BACK TO COL-E-CO
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
Editor, Experienced player (607)
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jlun2 wrote:
I've noticed you gain points every time you move. I wonder what the highest score would be if instead of standing in place, you moved back and forth during the waiting periods to rack up points?
Actually, it looks like you only gain points while making progress vertically (30 points every time you move up the screen) and moving left, right, or down doesn't change the score. I think I got almost the maximum score possible in this run, since time remaining is factored into the score (I didn't hit all the lilypads though). And thanks for your honest comment, FractalFusion.
mklip2001
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I've been fairly amused by the Frogger games before (especially the more recent games), but this one really isn't as interesting. The sea stages have way too much waiting. If more of the game were like the other two stage types, this would be a much better game. I admit I didn't watch the whole run; after a couple minutes, I jumped closer to the end to see if there were more close calls I could catch that would show off TASing prowess. While there is definitely skill in this run, there's too much waiting around overall in the run to make it worth a good vote from me. Waiting isn't what Frogger is generally supposed to be all about. I appreciate your dedication to the games; it's a shame this one has so much dead time.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 5/29/2004
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This was an absolutely appalingly boring run. No fault of CoolKirby for that fact... the wait times were absolute yawn fests. Even with added movement and frame precise leaps... no. I was barely entertained and it got worse from there. There's a reason this was a console only sequel and not an actual Arcade gem. No vote. x.x; Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Patashu
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When's Frogger: He's Back TAS?
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Spikestuff
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Patashu wrote:
When's Frogger: He's Back TAS?
CaneofPacci said he was working on it last time I checked... Also the game has no audio sounds due to emulation so... idk anymore.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
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Thanks for the in-depth comments, guys. I appreciate knowing it's not my fault the run wasn't entertaining.
Spikestuff wrote:
Patashu wrote:
When's Frogger: He's Back TAS?
CaneofPacci said he was working on it last time I checked...
Right, that's why I haven't worked on that one at all. And I can't believe I didn't realize before that you can hop across multiple lilypads to reach the surface rafts in the last three levels earlier! I guess the last raft isn't as tough to hop to as I thought. So I made this 502 frame improvement; could someone please replace the submitted movie file with this one?
adelikat
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I voted meh, overrall I liked it but it did drag a bit. However, I really appreciate you made this! More Coleco imo! One suggestion though, there are times where you wait for a while for the "exit" to appear and go in, maybe you could move around a bit to keep the "dead air" to a minimum? Or maybe this causes lag or costs time in some way?
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
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adelikat wrote:
One suggestion though, there are times where you wait for a while for the "exit" to appear and go in, maybe you could move around a bit to keep the "dead air" to a minimum? Or maybe this causes lag or costs time in some way?
When you see me on the very edge of a bird, whale or log, usually I'm in a precise position that would be messed up if I moved (for example, the last 23 seconds of the run). Otherwise, I didn't move around to entertain a lot because I figured it would get old as fast as standing still would, especially due to the limited capacity for entertainment in this game. Edit: Thanks feos! I updated the encode link and submission text to reflect the changes in the improvement.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2523] Coleco Frogger II: ThreeeDeep! by CoolKirby in 11:50.38