River Crossing

How to play River Crossing

1. Start the Journey or choose an unlocked crossing from Crossings. The frog waits for your first hop.
2. Hop through the traffic. Pause on a grass bank when the next lane is not clear.
3. Ride logs, shell rafts, the ferry or lily pads over the river. Water and the screen edges cost a frog.
4. Watch for warnings: a flashing signal before a train, bobbing shells before a dive and bubbles before the pike.
5. Aim for an empty landing. Fill all five to clear the crossing and earn its stars.
6. Try Arcade for a long run with carried lives, or climb as far as you can on the Endless or Daily road.

Controls

About River Crossing

River Crossing is a retro timing game about bringing small frogs from the bottom bank to five separate landings at the top. Traffic fills the lower half of each crossing and a river fills the upper half. You move one hop at a time, choosing when to wait on the grass and when to commit. A gap between two cars can be safe now and closed a moment later. A log can carry you toward the landing you need, but it can also carry you off the edge of the screen if you ride it too long.

The Journey is twenty-four authored crossings in four regions. Willow Meadow teaches the basics with cars, trucks, logs and lily pads, then adds a dragonfly that visits empty landings and a lost froglet riding a log. Mill Water brings shell rafts, some of which dive, a ferry that shuttles from bank to bank, slow tractors and long buses. Iron Crossing adds railway lines with flashing signals, quick racers and a heron that paces the middle bank. Lantern Marsh runs at night under lanterns and headlights, and a pike waits in some landings.

Every crossing asks you to fill all five landings with three lives. Three stars reward different skills: one for bringing all five frogs home, one for doing it without losing a frog and one for finishing within the par time shown on the crossing card. Stars are kept separately, so you can earn the careful star on one attempt and the fast star on another. Clearing a crossing opens the next one, and clearing the last crossing of a region opens the next region.

Each landing holds one frog. Reaching the reeds between landings or an occupied landing costs a life, so the final frog of a crossing is usually the hardest. Landing while the dragonfly is visiting earns two hundred bonus points. Hop beside the lost froglet to pick it up, then carry it to any landing for another two hundred. If your frog is lost on the way, the froglet is lost too, and a new one appears later.

Arcade runs through all twenty-four crossings in order with your lives carried from one round to the next. Each cleared round adds a frog, up to five, and a second lap runs faster than the first. Scores come from new rows reached, safe arrivals, time left on the clock, bonuses and a thousand points for each full set of five landings.

Endless road is a different kind of crossing. Roads, rivers and railways are generated as you climb, becoming longer, faster and busier with distance, and there are no landings to fill. Every quiet bank is a checkpoint where a lost frog starts again. The clock refills each time you reach a new row, so you can wait for a good moment but not forever. Dragonflies resting on the banks add points. The Daily road uses the same idea with one route per calendar day.

The frog waits for your first hop at the start of every crossing, and a short card shows the crossing, its new hazard and its three star goals. Pause freezes everything; resuming waits for your next hop so nothing moves before you are ready. Optional generated sound effects mark hops, splashes, landings and the railway bell. Stars, best times, arcade, endless and daily records and your options are saved in this browser.

A few useful tricks

• Treat each grass bank as a planning stop. Look at the next two lanes before leaving it.
• On a log, stand near the middle so you have room to wait for the next platform.
• Fill the outer landings early, while the middle ones are still easy to reach.
• When shells start to bob, step onto the next lane or a log before they dive.
• For the par star, move on the first safe gap rather than waiting for a perfect one.
• On the Endless road, bank the checkpoint before you chase a dragonfly.

Good questions