Frogger vehicle-speed analysis - is there any info ?

[Alessandro.S]

After finally going over 100k in Galaxian clones I began tackling Frogger, where I used to have 180K+ on 3+1 frogs at the arcade...
I haven't looked into my own recordings yet, but I noticed that change of pace from the 2nd vehicle-speed pattern doesn't seem to depend on how quick you complete levels.

What is vehicle-speed level, first ? I call that the relative speed of vehicles (cars, tractors, smallcars, racecars, trucks) in the bottom half.
So there is
VS level 1 - default
VS level 2 - racecars speed up
VS level 3 - racecars speed down, tractors speed up a bit (?)
VS level 4 - racecars, tractors speed up
VS level 5 - tractors speed down, smallcars speed up
VS level 6 - smallcars speed down, racecars,trucks speed up
VS level 7 - racecars,trucks speed down - at this point lower logs start going faster than central log
...

This can freely happen in any of the sub-levels, which are
SL 1 - one racecar
SL 2 - two racecars, close to each other
SL 3 - two racecars, slightly distant from each other
SL 4 - three racecars
SL 5 - four racecars

VS level 2 can last for quite long, and when it does I'm happy because it's the one I easily master; but sometimes going from VS 2 to VS 3 happens in the 2nd round at SL 2, sometimes it happens at the 5th round.

So, the final question
Does anyone have tips to keep VS 2 lasting longer ? I've searched here and there, but didn't find exhaustive analysis... in the meantime I'll try and reach 250K on frogger by end of 2008

Thanks in advance !

[Alessandro.S]

Never mind, I watched ***PL***'s 505480 game (probably 75% of that throttled ), and I see there's not much point in trying to hold on to VS2 - the levels loop, with some irregularity (trucks don't always get faster after smallcars); that .inp shows that it pays to be eeeeeextra careful in crossing the road

Seriously, at times I wanted to drive the frog home myself as it seems the play avoided even very small chances of risk. But again, that was a 505K game and I'm just boasting 140K, so it's easy to see who's right and who's wrong

Seeing such a long game however allowed me to determine that there is only one impossible combination, which is SL5 and what would be VS9 (VS8 being similar to VS2 in cars' behavior) - you can't seem to reach the first home as the turtles which match the coming of the crocodile in first home are those going underwater - and they go underwater after leaving the central log but before getting to the crocodile.

OK - when I'm done hopping over 100K in all clones I'll get to work to beating 200K in the main rom

[***PL***]

Some of this has been discussed before, but perhaps it was a long time ago and the posts have been archived.

Your terminology needs to be straightened out. Look closely, the racecars in lane 1 and 4 are the same vehicles save color just traveling in different directions. And the cars in lane 3 are dune buggies, so crossing the road in lane order would be racecars, tractors, dune buggies, racecars, trucks. SL1, SL2, ... SL5 is should be simply called Round (Level) 1,2,3,4,5. We all know the game continuously cycles in rounds of 5 so it makes no sense to confuse and introduce SUB levels. SUB of what anyway? The VS situations you describe have been commonly called "transitions" i.e. speed changes. The first transition is what you refer to as VS2 is the most important one. Why? Because it determines the length between transitions and also the length of the entire game before the whole game starts over.

Assuming your skill is at 4K/round, the 1st transition will occur in round 2 or 3. If this happens in rounds 1 or 4, 5, something is way off and you are definitely not playing the original romset. If the 1st transition happens in round 2, then depending on the romset the second will be anywhere from 20K to 40K. If the 1st transition is in round 3, then the second will be anywhere from 40K to 80K. For a round 2 occurrence, usually the entire game will then repeat at 80K, if it's a late round 2, at 100K and for most games is a round 3 situation with a game repeat at 120K. Now these are approximate and a +/- 10K error can happen and be propagated throughout the game. But in general you will see the second transitions and game restarts near those scores.

I'd have to go back and look, but I think there are 8 possible transitions within a game cycle. If you think there are more you are incorrect. I'm just talking about the cars; later on in the game the are also subtle speed changes with the logs. Some transitions are skipped, some are repeated. The order is not always consistent!!! The length of time between transitions also is not consistent. If one cycle is long before the next transition, the same one in the next game cycle will be shorter.

In summary, you cannot force a transition, nor control to prevent it from happening. It hasn't been figured it out yet. That is the key to cracking 256 rounds or 1M points!!

[Alessandro.S]

Some of this has been discussed before, but perhaps it was a long time ago and the posts have been archived.

Thanks for chipping in !

I searched, but was unable to find anything - not here, not anywhere else...

Your terminology needs to be straightened out. Look closely, the racecars in lane 1 and 4 are the same vehicles save color just traveling in different directions. And the cars in lane 3 are dune buggies, so crossing the road in lane order would be racecars, tractors, dune buggies, racecars, trucks.

OK for the buggies - I'd love to keep lane1 cars distinct from lane4 "race"cars because those in lane1 never speed up - so they're not really "race"cars

SL1, SL2, ... SL5 is should be simply called Round (Level) 1,2,3,4,5. We all know the game continuously cycles in rounds of 5 so it makes no sense to confuse and introduce SUB levels. SUB of what anyway? The VS situations you describe have been commonly called "transitions" i.e. speed changes. The first transition is what you refer to as VS2 is the most important one. Why? Because it determines the length between transitions and also the length of the entire game before the whole game starts over.

I call "level" a full set of boards going from sub-level 1 (with 1 race car) to sub-level 5 (with 4 race cars).
But that's ok, let's switch to "round" instead of "sublevel" - I don't mean to reinvent a perfect wheel. And "transitions" is 100% fine with me

Assuming your skill is at 4K/round, the 1st transition will occur in round 2 or 3. If this happens in rounds 1 or 4, 5, something is way off and you are definitely not playing the original romset. If the 1st transition happens in round 2, then depending on the romset the second will be anywhere from 20K to 40K. If the 1st transition is in round 3, then the second will be anywhere from 40K to 80K. For a round 2 occurrence, usually the entire game will then repeat at 80K, if it's a late round 2, at 100K and for most games is a round 3 situation with a game repeat at 120K. Now these are approximate and a +/- 10K error can happen and be propagated throughout the game. But in general you will see the second transitions and game restarts near those scores.

Interesting. I can very often have a transition in round 4 - that is, complete round 1,2,3 without a speed change in any romset, and start off round 4 with the 3 racecars speeding right off the bat. I'll recheck my inps and tell you which of my uploaded romsets have that. That's why I said you're slow - terribly accurate though

I'd have to go back and look, but I think there are 8 possible transitions within a game cycle. If you think there are more you are incorrect. I'm just talking about the cars; later on in the game the are also subtle speed changes with the logs. Some transitions are skipped, some are repeated. The order is not always consistent!!! The length of time between transitions also is not consistent. If one cycle is long before the next transition, the same one in the next game cycle will be shorter.

Yup, with cars it's 7 transitions (see above), and indeed I noticed in your game some are skipped; I never had a long enough game to appreciate that

In summary, you cannot force a transition, nor control to prevent it from happening. It hasn't been figured it out yet. That is the key to cracking 256 rounds or 1M points!!

Actually I think the slower you go, the faster a transition happens. But controlling that - doesn't seem possible to me as well. I want to try and run a more in-depth game analysis and see if I come up with anything. Will take me a while though.

Thanks !!!

[Alessandro.S]

Okay, I checked - two of my submitted inps (frogger, 140010 and froggrmc, 138120) have first transition before beginning round 4; two more (frogseg1, 97810 and frogseg2, 138710) have first transition while I'm going to fill the last home in round 3 - very close to completion.

So I don't see anything wrong in a round 4 transition - I actually get that over 30% of the time, and it's relatively clear that it depends, at least in very good measure, on how quickly I complete the previous rounds.

My best in level 1 - round 1 (without catching any fly) is to end at 4380 points.

Ultimately though I have to teach myself more discipline - your gameplay is clean, mine is MUCH more error-prone...

[***PL***]

I'm sure we have stylistic differences. 90% + of the time my first transition happens in round 3.

Blitz Frogger is a totally different game.

Don Hayes holds the record for most points within exactly 1 hour -- 216990 that's under 28 min for every 100K!!

My high score for round 1 is 4850. The default high score of 4630 is the best the programmers/testers could do.

[Alessandro.S]

Heh - Blitz Frogger, that's cool

I'll check out my inps to see how much it usually takes me to get to 100k.

When I *do* get there of course

4850 - you must have picked *three* flies... I noticed there's a chance to reliably pick the first one in either the 2nd or the 4th home with my starting pattern (probably the 4th), but I have to pause a bit on the bank instead of zipping on the turtles and logs... and I'm baaaad at taking pauses

[Alessandro.S]

For the kicks of it, I peeked into my frogseg1 inp - the first three levels, with only the main transition, clock in at an impressive metronome ratio of 4'57", 4'58", 4'59" to reach 61420 points in under 15 minutes... then I get the second transition in L4R1, and slow down to avoid fast trucks in L4R5 - which I manage, with TWO transitions in L4R4 going especially slow. The whole level though gets to 6'46".

In L5 I die twice, so the level takes a whopping 7'59", so I go over 100K at 29'46".

I think I can get down to 27 minutes for the first 100K - perhaps I already got close. Will check my other inps. Tomorrow. Or later. Time for some sleep...

Of course keeping that up for an hour looks a tad more difficult - but not impossible

[***PL***]

Your second transition at L4R1 is two or three rounds earlier than my usual which for me is around 69K or 73K. Your score after L3 is completed is a little more than 4K/round which is fine, but remember you had been playing the easiest boards!!! The second half hour will present much more complicated boards and you will perhaps dip lower than 4K/round. That said, it will be very difficult to maintain a pace of say 27 minutes per 100K for a full hour. I think the potential max is about 225K, but would require a perfect speed run with no deaths.

Next month, Don and I are going to a tourney and will be playing Blitz Frogger head-to-head!!

[Zhorik]

In my opinion the two big transition questions that limit massive scores are:

1) How to avoid the cars transitioning while you're in the middle of traffic.
2) How to avoid the "kill screenish" 5th screen where you can't get alignment on the left lilypad using a normal approach.

All other transition changes don't really seem to be a problem in terms of risk once you learn to play all the different timing combinations.

-George

[***PL***]

George, in general what you say is correct. However, there are other ways of dying which are not readily apparent.

• You can also die from transitions in the river portion, but it is not as common. Unexpected speed changes have caused me to miss the edge of a log or when placing a frog home I've drifted off the edge or wound up in the bushes!!

• You may be low on time and only have a certain path to reach home and become trapped by two snakes in the median or on a log.

• Every game you will encounter the unavoidable pseudo "kill-screen" in round 5 and this will result in a couple of deaths.

• Most games you will encounter a game bug that does not result in your favor. For example: sitting quietly on the left side of a turtle and an otter comes from the right and kills you!! This kind of stuff is another 1-2 deaths.

The remaining deaths are usually because of stupid human errors which can only be eliminated with fewer mistakes and endurance.

[Alessandro.S]

Don Hayes holds the record for most points within exactly 1 hour -- 216990 that's under 28 min for every 100K!!

My high score for round 1 is 4850. The default high score of 4630 is the best the programmers/testers could do.

Unearthing this thread after a while, as I played a dozen games in these last days thanks to Marco Marocco and the AEX Frogger contest

I'll see whether I can get close to the highest scoring 1h - haven't checked how much time I took to pile up my recent 204040 points submission - will likely time it tomorrow... however, the point progression (with partial score per level) has been the following:

Code: Select all

L01 20810 [20810]
L02 41440 [20630]
L03 62320 [20880] (died in R2)
L04 82790 [20470] (died in R1)
L05 102840 [20050]
L06 123990 [21150] (died in R3)
L07 144690 [20700]
L08 165130 [20440]
L09 185340 [20210]
L10 204040 (died three times in R5, sigh)

Pretty regular, I'd say

Plus I managed during my games to score a 4970 in the L1R1

[Alessandro.S]

Blitz Frogger is a totally different game.

Don Hayes holds the record for most points within exactly 1 hour -- 216990 that's under 28 min for every 100K!!

And in my recent submission I trounced the above - I clock in 235330 at the hour

Told ya guys - you're damn accurate but fairly slow

[***PL***]

And in my recent submission I trounced the above - I clock in 235330 at the hour

Told ya guys - you're damn accurate but fairly slow

Excellent! But then again, you are playing at home -- probably in your comfy chair and preferred input device!

Try it again standing up in a noisy arcade with kids running around and people bumping into you! (and we started with 3 lives, which can be a factor if you die twice before the hour).