Steve Kranish is the creator of the Atari 8-bit and Atari 5200
versions of Frogger, the versions published by Parker Brothers.
Parker Brothers had the rights to publish cartridge versions of
Frogger. Sierra On-Line had already published versions of Frogger
on floppy disk and cassette, so Parker Brothers bought the rights
to use that version as the basis for its cartridge version. But
there were a few problems: for one, the 13K cassette game would
need to be shrunk to fit on an 8K cartridge. Another: the source
code was lost.
Steve also worked on an Atari 8-bit version of the board game
Risk, and a game called Baker’s Dozen, both of which were
unfinished. He also worked on Project Zelda, Parker Brothers
investigation into distributing Atari VCS games via cable
television.
This interview took place on March 2, 2025. In 2016, I
interviewed John Harris, who programmed the Sierra Online version
of Frogger (as well as Jawbreaker and Mouskattack). Check the show
notes for the link to that.