ANTIC Interview 454 - Steve Kranish, Parker Brothers Frogger

Steve Kranish, Parker Brothers Frogger

 

Steve Kranish is the creator of the Atari 8-bit and Atari 5200 versions of Frogger, the versions published by Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers had the rights to publish cartridge versions of Frogger. Sierra On-Line had already published versions of Frogger on floppy disk and cassette, so Parker Brothers bought the rights to use that version as the basis for its cartridge version. But there were a few problems: for one, the 13K cassette game would need to be shrunk to fit on an 8K cartridge. Another: the source code was lost.

 

Steve also worked on an Atari 8-bit version of the board game Risk, and a game called Baker's Dozen, both of which were unfinished. He also worked on Project Zelda, Parker Brothers investigation into distributing Atari VCS games via cable television. 

 

This interview took place on March 2, 2025. In 2016, I interviewed John Harris, who programmed the Sierra Online version of Frogger (as well as Jawbreaker and Mouskattack). Check the show notes for the link to that.

 

Video version of this interview

 

2007 interview with Steve at Atari Compendium

 

Steve's games at AtariMania

 

Steve on Atariage

 

ANTIC Interview 200 - John Harris: Jawbreaker, Frogger, Mouskattack

 

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