Chapter 63: Plunk Your Magic Twanger, Froggy

You are hanging, hundreds of feet in the air, from a green pole attached to the doctor’s orange helicopter, and you have been dealing with snakes, balloons, bats, flying faces, and even bats disguised as flying faces, all while shinnying up and down every pole in the entire pole district, and you don’t see any kind of hole in the sky anywhere. You are about to give up, when suddenly you see something… or rather… something sees you! You see a dark spot in the sky, maybe thirty feet away, from which a creepy eye peers out at you. You leap to a blue floating pole, which takes you closer to it. The eye seems alarmed that you are approaching it, and the hole starts to glide away. In desperation, you leap toward it, and grab it. It’s like sticking your hands, well, your flippers, into an open porthole – it has edges you can grab. You are now eye to eye with the eye, and you see that it is more than an eye. Now that you are close, you can see the frightening face of a creepy witch on the other side of the hole. “Let go!” she shrieks, and immediately, the hole rockets off into the sky, up into the clouds. The wind tears away your pole climbing suit, exposing all your frogness to the world. You are terrified, and it is all you can do to hang on, but you don’t let go! The hole zig-zags, whirls, shakes, flips around, and vibrates, but you are hanging on for dear life, and you don’t let go. Finally, it comes to rest in a high cloud. The witch sticks her face close to the opening of the hole. “What are you, anyway?” she says, her hideous green face peering down at your strange frog body. “A giant frog?” She looks you in the eye. “Giant frog, are you a human under some kind of curse?” You aren’t sure how much longer you can hang on, and you nod vigorously. “I can’t stand it when amateurs perform curses. Do you want me to fix it?” she asks, smiling with some of the most revolting and rotten yellow and brown teeth you have ever seen. You can feel yourself slipping, and you look down at the ground thousands of feet below, and again, you nod vigorously. She cackles, points her finger, and ZAP! She hits you with a bolt of energy, and suddenly the hole grows much larger. No… wait, it doesn’t! You are shrinking! You are now the size of a normal frog, and with your smaller flippers, it is harder to hold onto the edge of the hole. She eyes you critically and nods, saying “Now… that’s what I call some professional cursing! Begone, frog!” And she jabs her broom through the hole, knocking you out into empty space, and you plummet downwards as her cackle recedes into the distance. You are sure that you are doomed to die as a splattered frog as the ground races up to meet you, but you see that a river next to a highway is beneath you, and as it approaches, you brace yourself for a dive into it.

SPLASH! Fortunately, the terminal velocity of a normal sized frog is lower than that of a human, and even though you go rocketing to the bottom of the dark blue river, you are still alive. You gather your wits in the cool mud at the bottom of the river, thinking that maybe this will be a good place to rest, when suddenly you see two more creepy eyes in the darkness coming toward you. No witch this time – instead, it’s an alligator! You push off the bottom of the river with your strong frog legs, and swim up dodging logs and snapping turtles. You climb onto a floating log, and try to get your bearings. You see the tall skyscrapers in the city on the other side of the highway. If you can get back to the Mad Doctor, maybe he can still help? Or at least Melvin will be able to help you. But now that you are a normal sized frog, it seems really far away. Can you even get there? Suddenly, you realize that the log you are on is headed for a waterfall! You jump from it onto the back of a turtle, but the turtle starts to dive! So you jump from log to turtle, to crocodile to turtle to log, and finally to a calm sandy bank by the highway. But before you can take a breath, you see a huge green snake slithering right at you, so you leap out into the road. But there are cars and trucks everywhere! You jump out of the way of a huge white truck, some pink racecars, and some purple… bulldozers? Who makes purple bulldozers? After more orange racecars (going the other way – what kind of race is this?) you finally make it across to the sidewalk. To your surprise, a whole crowd of frogs is there, and they all start croaking in approbation. The largest of them, a red frog who stands out against the smaller green frogs, hops forward, and says, “That was amazing! Who are you?”

A younger frog speaks up. “Yeah! We saw something streaking through the sky, and I said ‘Look, it’s a bird!’ and Fred said ‘It’s a plane!’ and Cassie said ‘No, it’s a frog!’ and Cassie was right! And then that amazing hopping you did! It was incredible!”

“Settle down, little one,” says the red frog. She looks at you seriously. “Like he said, I’m Cassie. You sure did impress the little ones! Did you really come out of the sky?”

You suddenly realize that they are speaking in frog language, and you can understand it… and, even speak it? “Yes… that’s right,” you say experimentally, surprised to hear your frog voice.

“Well,” says Cassie, “I don’t know who you are, but you seem like some kind of super frog!” All the younger green frogs croak in agreement.

“Look,” you say, looking up at the skyscrapers, and wondering where Melvin is “I can’t really stay… I need to get back to the city, and find my friend…”

Cassie nods. “Yes, I appreciate that. But I was wondering if you can help me with a little problem I have. It’s my job to guide these little ones, across the river to set up homes of their own. But,” she shakes her head, and starts to whisper, “this road wasn’t here last time! I’m nervous about getting them there safely! Someone with a keen eye and good sense needs to guide these little ones past all these cars and help them from getting gobbled up by the snapping turtles in the river. It’s supposed to be my job, but… I’m scared. You jumped across that road so easily… do you think you could help?”

You look at the happy eyes of the little frogs, and then at the pleading eyes of Cassie. You aren’t sure how you are going to get back to the Mad Doctor anyway… now that you are a normal sized frog, he might not even recognize you. You sigh, and say, “Sure, how can I help?”

“Great!” says Cassie, “they have to do it themselves, but if you shout to them when to jump, they’ll do it!”

You look down at the little frogs, and they look up at you excitedly. “Okay,” you say. “Who’s first?” And every flipper goes up at once.

Put the Frogger cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set difficulty switches to a, and use game select 1. Play until you score 5,000 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 62: Let’s Take a Pole

By now, you have climbed four buildings, dealing with egg-laying birds, falling girders (where were they falling from??), a sign with a short circuit, and of course the relentless pelting of the Mad Doctor. You are exhausted, hanging by your flipper from his helicopter, when Melvin flies up to you. He shouts over the noise of the helicopter, “I’ve looked everywhere above the clouds, I don’t see that hole anywhere… and I should know where it was, you and Charlie fired me into it! I think the Doctor is right, it must have moved.”

The Doctor’s terrifying red face leans down out of the helicopter, which makes you wonder who is flying it. He shouts at you with a megaphone. “The hole doesn’t seem to be around any of these skyscrapers! I think it must be in the Pole District!”

You are wondering if he means some kind of Polish neighborhood, when you see the helicopter is making a terrifying dive toward a strange part of town with many poles sticking out of the ground, and some just floating in the air! You are sure you are going to be killed, but the helicopter stops its sudden plummet just a few feet above the ground. You let go and plop down into the dust. Immediately, an evil looking rainbow snake starts slithering toward you, fangs glistening. You scramble away from it in terror. “Watch out for that snake,” says the doctor, “it’ll kill you, and then you’ll never find the hole. Fortunately, you’re a good jumper!” He’s right about that – you leap over the snake, as it lashes out to strike. The doctor throws down a purple and blue jumpsuit. “Put this on! It will help you with pole climbing. I have to go get my orange helicopter – this blue one has no pole attachment. I’ll be back soon! When you see me return, climb up to see if you can find that skyhole anywhere! And… watch out for the bats, and… whatever those face things are. Be right back!”

As the helicopter disappears into the distance, you don’t really want to put on the jumpsuit, but that snake is coming back for you, flanked by some bats, and you are worried you might not be able to jump over all of them. You quickly put it on, which isn’t easy with frog flippers, and leap onto a pole, finding that with the sticky suit, you can easily climb up and down it.

“Wow! Nice work!” says Melvin. “You seem to have this pole thing under control, though if you ask me, this whole thing is a stuntman’s nightmare. Anyway, you look for the hole here, and I’ll go check out the higher parts of the sky.” He zips off, and you see the Doctor returning in his orange helicopter, with a long green pole hanging down from it. You can’t help thinking this is not the best way to look for a hole in the sky, but bats are coming your way, and there’s no time to think about it!

Place the Stuntman cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set difficulty settings to b, and use game select 1. Play until you clear nine screens, or get 10,000 points, whichever comes first. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.