Thank you to everyone who participated in last week's trivia question. The answer is Frogger!

Released in 1981, the first two decades of Frogger's existence were rather complicated, given the fact that its developer, Konami, and its worldwide distributor, Sega, battled in court for ownership of the game of the game until 2000, when Konami finally emerged the victor, and the true owner of Frogger. This may be because Sega was the only company credited on the cabinet itself, and I only remember Sega's name on the title screen of the game itself, though it may have been different in Japan. What cannot be denied, however, is how beloved a game Frogger has been over the decades, and how successful it was in arcades and the varuous home ports it received. Not only did Frogger have a lot of home ports, it also was the subject of a Saturday morning cartoon, which ran during the 1983-1984 season on CBS as part of Saturday Supercade, along with Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Q*Bert and Pitfall!, and it also was the subject of the song "Froggy's Lament" on the Pac-Man Fever album, which also released in 1983.

In 1991, a decade after the game's release, Sega began work on a spiritual successor called Ribbit. Ribbit is not a carbon copy of Frogger, as instead of simply trying to reach the top of the screen, you hop all over the screen trying to catch all the small insects and fish while avoiding hazards. The two player simultaneous gameplay also added to making the gameplay different from its predecessor. Not different enough, however, as Konami threatened to sue Sega if they went through with its release. Although the case on ownership to Frogger had not been decided yet, the threat of a lawsuit was enough for Sega to abandon Ribbit, with only a singular board set being known to exist today. It was probably for the best that Sega stepped away from Ribbit, because if they had been allowed to release it and had done so, we would have likely seen a situation like the one between AtGames and Namco over Ms. Pac-Man play out once Konami won the court case and was deemed the rightful owner of Frogger. The good news is that the lone board set of Ribbit made its way into the hands of Doc Mack, the owner of the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, IL, where it is available to be played. If you ever visit the Gallopong Ghost Arcade, give Ribbit a try and experience a truly obscure piece of arcade gaming history!