Posted on October 16, 2019
Phineas Frogg – ZX Spectrum – Let’s Play and Review
Phineas Frogg is a 1985 Mirrorsoft game for the ZX Spectrum. I have fond memories of playing this as a kid as it is one of my earliest gaming memories. I remember the jumping noise that Phineas makes driving my dad up the wall – I know see why!
It’s a puzzle adventure game, and you have to make decisions in a certain order, and also solve puzzles and mini games. I can’t remember if I solved the whole game back in the 1980s or not – I do remember getting to the bit where you escape in a car, but I may have done that without rescuing the Mole, and therefore not really completing the game.
I’d love to hear if anyone else had this game, so if you did, please comment in the section below! There are literally no videos of it that I could find on YouTube, but surely someone else has played this!
Equipment:
- ZX Spectrum 128k (toastrack)
- DivMMC Future
Oh my word!! Thank you for making this Video. I can’t believe someone remembers Phineas Frogg!!
I’m Cate, the daughter of the developers of this game, Widgit Software (still going). Mirrorsoft were just the publishers. I haven’t seen this for years and years, though when watching your video I remember it very well.. and that frog noise – brings back floods of memories😊
I have a copy of an original drawn map you can access here: https://www.widgit.com/images/spectrum/PhineasFrogg-map.jpg
This may help you complete the game? Tantalisingly it’s drawn on the back of a document titled “Some hints to help rescue mole”. I’ve tried to uncover the text but can’t make it out. At the moment we are working from home because of the virus, but when we are back in the office I can see if I can dig this out of our archives.
Thank you again for the trip down memory lane!
Ha – that’s amazing!
I have great memories of this game – I don’t think I ever completed it as a child, and I certainly failed when I tried as an adult, so maybe I need to give it another crack.
And, yes, that frog noise – I think it used to drive my parents crazy!
Here you go. I found this after a bit more digging 🙂
**Spoiler alert:**
https://www.widgit.com/images/spectrum/PhineasFrogg-Solution.pdf
Brilliant – I have no excuse now!
Wow, I’m so excited to see this game again – thanks so much! The video brought back so many memories of hours and hours and hours of playing this as a child in the 80s! It was literally the only game I would play on the Spectrum, just kept loading it up over & over, never got bored even when me & my brother did eventually figure out how to rescue mole – we found it hard to remember all the steps, so we kept playing over & over (never thought to write it down, but that would’ve spoiled the fun!). Cate, it’s lovely to read that you’re the daughter of the developers! I wish there was a version for Mac so I could share the joy of this game with my own child! The frog noise indeed brings back floods of memories. One thing I loved was the variety of different challenges – each small game-within-a-game had its own character, its own challenges. My favourite was jumping on the logs to catch the fish, closely followed by the key puzzle to get the white coat. Thanks again for reminiscing about this fab game! 🙂
Me too! Me too! We used to play this in school. I think other than a game on the ZX81 where you programmed an A and a B to chase each other, and a game for the BBC Micro with a scarey looking witch, Phineas Frog was right there with my first game too. It’s certainly the one I remember most fondly. Although, until I read the comments about the catching fish and coloured keys games, I was struggling to remember anything other than the driving bit at the end of the game. I still think of the game even to this day when I am driving along a country road at night with the cats eyes glowing on either side.
I’d LOVE the chance to play it again.
I think the scary witch game would be Granny’s Garden! Terrified thousands of kids in the 80s.