The Frogg for Windows programming project began in early 1995,
the final days of the Windows 3.1 era. The original development hardware platform was a IBM 486-25sx clone with 4 meg of RAM, 105MB hard-drive, SoundBlaster soundcard, and a Gravis PC Gamepad. This PC ran under Windows 3.1. The development tool used for programming Frogg for Windows is Microsoft Visual C++ v1.52 Professional (16-Bit). Two Microsoft Application Programming Interface libraries (APIs) were also used; WinG and WaveMix.The development hardware
platform was upgraded in January 1996 to a Pentium 133 with 16 meg of RAM, 1GB hard-drive, Soundblaster Pro soundcard, and a Gravis PC Gamepad. This PC runs under Windows 95. The development tool is still MS Visual C++ in conjunction with WinG and WaveMix API. This PC is still the development hardware platform, although it has been upgraded to 40MB of RAM and a second hard-drive (5GB) has been added.
Shareware vs. Trialware
A decision was made before the initial
public release of Frogg that there would be both Shareware/Crippleware and Trialware editions of the game. Here is a rundown of the differences between the two:
Shareware (also called Crippleware or Nagware) editions of Frogg
* Will never expire or quit working after an evaluation period
* Only plays the first three levels of the game.
* The 'Adjustable Number of Froggs' feature is disabled.
* The 'Stop the Timer' feature is disabled.
*
A registration reminder 'Nag-Screen' is displayed upon clicking the game's icon, which delays launching the game for 5 seconds giving the user enough time to read the registration reminder.
Trialware editions of Frogg:
* Expires (quits working unless a valid registration key-code is entered) after a 30-day evaluation period.
* During the 30-day evaluation period, the game operates identically to the fully-functional registered software; all features are enabled and all
the game's levels are available for play.
The reason why we decided to produce these two different editions of Frogg is because some Internet shareware download sites will not put 'Trialware' on their pages because they consider them to be 'Demos of Commercial Software'. Also, we wanted to be able to let users evaluate the full version of the product with all its extra features without actually giving it away; if the shareware edition were uncrippled in anyway then who would
have an incentive to register? By the same token, if the trialware edition never expired, why would anyone register? Having both shareware and trialware editions adresses these issues by providing flexibility in the options that users have in properly evaluating the Frogg software.
BETA Release 1-December 24,1995
BETA Release 2-June 3, 1996
Between the start of the project and the final version 1.0 public release, two beta versions were privately released to a group
of less than a dozen friends that agreed to install the software onto their PCs for the purpose of beta-testing. To the best of our knowledge, these beta releases were successfully kept private and never 'accidentally' found their way onto the Internet.
Version 1.0 - October 12, 1997
Initial public release
Version 1.1 - December 2, 1997
Second public release.
Modifications:
* Fixed a bug which kept the game from running unless the
screen bit-depth was set to 16 or 256 colors. Frogg now runs on all bit depths, including 16-bit, 24-bit, and higher.
* Fixed a bug which only affected Windows 3.1 machines; the game would lock up the computer after completing level 1. This was caused by my not releasing a Windows Device Context after finishing with it. Windows 95 cleans up after programming mistakes like this, but Windows 3.1 crashes. Since my development machine was running Windows 95, I
was not aware that there was a problem until a user running Windows 3.1 reported it. A lesson leaned the hard-way!
Version 1.2 - January 18, 2000
Third public release
Modifications:
* Game now runs at same speed on all computers.
* Speed menu option now work properly: Only one is checked at a time. Selecting a lower speed cancels the higher speed.
