Prototype Release (PSX Prototype, Gold Disc, Build 20)

Differences Noticed:

Intro:
- A screen showing the build date & number is the first thing which shows up when booting the game.
- There is a Millenium Interactive intro video, previously never seen before.
- There is no intro FMV.

Main Menu & Highscores:
- Unfinished
- Bugs selecting characters. Some chosen characters show up as the wrong character, some even show up as a bullrush.
- There is high score enabled for multiplayer maps.
- Two players can put in their high-score initials at the same time.
- There are no demos which play. The screen doesn't even scroll when Frogger moves, instead
- Scores display from smallest to largest.
- Instead of numbers, the leftmost lilypad uses letters ABCDEF.... etc.
- The logs have pho-lighting on them, similar to what we saw in that one-off advertising screenshot with an extremely high-poly Frogger model.
- The high scores and initials are completely placeholder.
- Different icons & font for the control indicators selecting a level.
- No main menu music?
- Viewing high scores on the main menu uses a completely different (& worse) angle than the final version.

Options Screen:
- The options screen is from a completely different perspective.
- There are two islands shown on the option screen.
- Appears to only support saving and loading high scores, not level progress. (Seems like there is no level progress?)
- Doesn't transition smoothly like the final.

Level Select:
- Does the same thing the Japanese Taikenban demo does where different parts of a zone can be locked / unlocked.
- Does not appear to be any way to unlock zones. frogs do not exist yet, but it looks like the maps have spots for where they planned to place them.
- Many levels have incorrect names / photos or missing names.
- Drastically different zone art from final for many zones.
- Drastically different level stack order from final.
- Some levels do not appear in the same order they do in the final version.
- There is no water background, only black.
- Holding down will eventually spam a noise never heard anywhere else.
- Level stack falls down after selecting a level. In final, the screen just fades to black.
- High score text is colored for some reason.
- No level loading jingle, loading graphic seems to not display until loading finishes either.

HUD:
- Pause screen still animates HUD, and still plays ambient sound, even after pausing music.
- The Frogger "life" sprites to show how many lives you have have Frogger's stripe, whereas in the final they do not.
- Baby frogs shown in the HUD when the level starts is completely different from final.
- There is no grey background under the player's score.
- Game Over screen doesn't fade. It just says "Game Over".
- Beta froglet icon colors.
- Froglet HUD icons animate significantly faster than in final.
- UI displayed when collecting a froglet is very different from final.
- Level completion screen differs from final, and does not display the next level texture name properly.
- Idling too long on the completion screen will auto-start the next level.
- When entering a high-score, if one presses 'down' while on the letter 'T', they will glitch out.

General:
- Overall the build looks extremely similar to the gameplay footage shown in the game credits FMV.
- Lots of text is blurry, seemingly due to a "text glowing" effect, which they thankfully got rid of in the final.
- Many bugs surrounding Frogger's death. It's possible to get stuck in a dead state and never respawn. Sometimes you'll be dead and can still move.
- The frog does not exist, but instead a yellow frog takes its place.
- Poly piece pop doesn't seem to happen when collecting Froglets or for nuclear barrels. It must exist because its used in multiplayer for frog deaths. TODO: TEST BALLOONS AND TREE BRANCHES
- Moving platforms, especially turtles like to spam noises for frogger landing on them.
- Frogger sommersalts after collecting a baby frog and kind of jumps upward off screen.
- Frogger's idle animations match many of the unused animations, instead of what got used in the final.
- Strange musical bit sounding like it came from a cartoon plays on timeout death.
- Getting 10,000 points will max out your life count instead of giving you a 1UP.
- Frog collection sound is lower quality than final.
- Getting run over plays a special noise not played in the final.
- It also places a texture where Frogger is. Presumably, it's supposed to be tire tracks, but the actual texture is just frogger's eye.
- There is some criteria (I think it's if you get at least one Froglet) where you will be given an option to "CONTINUE" upon getting a game over. This is because there is no level unlocks, you'd need to start the zone over.
- Some levels zoom out when you rotate the camera for some reason.
- Hopping off of rotating platforms (Especially on SUB1/Lily Islands) is really inconsistent.
- Game likes to ignore inputs sometimes.

Model Differences:
- Flags are very beta, and do not animate.
- Froglets are beta and have only one animation.
- More, I haven't looked at many models yet.

Original Levels (ORG):
- Different zone art.
- No fade-out shading on the left / right side of the level geometry.
- Croc heads face sideways when in small form.
- cars do not exist, and cars take their place.
- car models doesn't appear fully finished.
- "Lady Frog" has a weird brown spot on her head"
- "Lady Frog" doesn't disappear on death or upon collecting a frog.
- These levels are much, much more difficult than the retail ORG levels.

Suburbia Levels (SUB):
- Bow Wow Falls is named "PELIS ISLAND". this is either a slur, a bad dick joke, or a really unfortunate name choice. Maybe they meant "Pelican's Island"? Yeah right they hadn't even put the pelican in yet.
- Bow Wow Falls has two roads right next to the starting spot which go straight into the water. Could this be a remnant from a previous removed section?
- Only the car can kill Frogger in Bow Wow Falls.
- Bow Wow falls has beta clouds, and just a random patch of grass in the sky for getting to the and frogs.
- Bow Wow Falls has different terrain from final, especially towards the back of the level, and with fenceposts blocking off the area accessable in Bow Wow Revenge.
- The car in this zone is beta, and matches the car we see in the german trailer video.
- There are hubcaps in the street of SUB1.
- You can ride down the waterfall without falling off in Bow Wow Falls.
- You can fall from the cliff onto the frog in Bow Wow Falls.
- The snakes in bow wow revenge doesn't move.

Sewer / Swamp (SWP):
- Boom Boom Barrel has the pink water seen in the game credits.
- Boom Boom Barrel is extremely difficult because you can't see the barrels you need to use the nuclear barrels to land on, so it's a crapshoot.

SKY:
- All of the levels are layed out roughly the same as final, but are visually completely different.
- balloons look like disgusting alien heads.

Forest:
- Swan in Honey Bee Hollow.
- Canopy Capers is called "Swinging Trees", despite not having any swinging trees.
- The squirrels look completey different.
- Many forest graphics are broken.
- The reflection water has leaves in it.
- Canopy Capers is unfinished.
- Honey Bee Hollow plays what we thought was ruins zone music.
- The bees in honey bee hollow don't work nearly as well as the final.

Volcano:
- Placeholder graphic for volcano zone.
- The switches work, but are constantly alternating between on and off.
- The spinning gear platforms in VOL1 cannot be stepped on.
- Different frog placement in VOL1.
- Much taller platforms in VOL1.
- The platforms in VOL2 fall instead of opening up.
- The lava in the ground for VOL2 and VOL3 are not animated.
- The camera auto rotates for Lava Crush sides. Why the heck doesn't it do this in the retail game? We had so much trouble beating this in afterschool program because of this.
- The kitchen tile looking things in Lava Crush are wayyy dirtier. They almost look like a crime scene. It's probably a good thing this was toned down.

Cave:
- Frogger goes skiing has all the frogs at the end of the level. It's also extremely incomplete, and has walls on some of the sides.
- Webs Cavern is quite interesting. The platforms are VERY tall, much higher than retail, and there's a ring around the edge allowing Frogger to safely move between the different parts of the level without obstacles.
This makes the weird side paths in this level make way more sense, since they used to actually lead to this ring.
- Also, there are bugs, which when eaten will show the mazes from above with full brightness, so you know the path.

Jungle:
- Named "Trouble in the Tropics" instead of "Tropical Trouble"
- Bridge is invisible until it collapses.
- Very significant change to terrain at the end of level. Completely unrecognizable.
- Bouncy mushrooms bounce player onto tops of trees, where they can sit. Flamingos can be ridden to transport across the level since it's so large.
- Completing the level (which normally triggers the credits / outro) crashes the game here, presumably because it's not finished.

Desert:
- Most levels are the same as previously seen prototypes, except how DES2 has a cliff sloping downwards, instead of seeming like it's part of a bowl in the retail release.

General Level Differences:
- Across the board less polish.
- Wacky level timers. Some are too slow to even get to all parts of the map (Such as Webs Cavern), and some are so long they go past the end of the timer bar.
- Most levels seem to have a pointless massive glow bug in them, despite them seeming to only have purpose in the cave levels.
- Many levels lack edges, so it's possible to walk off and fall into the void.
- Many levels have poorly configured scrolling textures, so they don't look right.

Multiplayer:
- Frog Selection screen is way different (barely functional)
- All flags must be collected before one is declared winner.
- There is score (& tracked high scores) in multiplayer.
- ORGM Lorry truck is missing poly.
- ORGM Lorry truck has animated windshield.
- ORGM Water has not been made low-resource yet.
- ORGM The lady frog still shows up in multiplayer.
- Flags do not fly up into the air when collected.
- When stepping on another frog, a croak plays.
- If nobody collects a flag in a certain amount of time, both players die.
- Multiplayer frogs have giant legs. It's most apparently on the high score initials screen.
- When more than 1 player is entering a high score initial, the footsteps on lilypads have a broken texture.

Other:
- It seems like there are 63 map files in this prototype.
- This is extremely interesting because there are only 40 in the PSX retail release. I've already managed to view some of them, and they are totally unfinished developer playgrounds.
Hoping to find a way to load them in-game, and in FrogLord.