Story is a big part of AAA games today, but it wasn't always that way. Out most recent design challenge asked you to concoct a story for a game that isn't known for narrative: Frogger.

We got a plethora of entries. Some took the literal approach and explained what Frogger wants or is doing by crossing the road (saving the forest or meeting the love of his life). Other stories went more to the absurd, creating fantastical tales for Frogger or even science fiction explanations.

They key to telling a good story with minimal characters is to create something intriguing, something beyond the basic. Frogger falling in love and trying to meet his love across the pond is a nice story, but pretty simple and easy to come up with. Frogger being the prince of the Frog Kingdom and having to save the Princess from the other side of the road in order to keep the Kingdom together is far more intriguing, and yet it's same idea with more detail and depth to it.

The best entries tapped into Frogger's motivations. Telling the protagonist his motivation is key for any story.

There was a very special submission that we had to include and deserves mention. Devin Monnens of the IGDA Game Preservation SIG brought to our attention some historical documents that were recently uncovered pertaining to the original release of Frogger for the Atari 2600. See below for more.

Here are the winners this week!

David McClure, London, Unstuck in Time
David McClure's story of Frogger starts like a story, which is the first reason we liked it. There's a saying that the best artists are thieves, stealing great ideas from other artists. Whether McClure's Frogger story is an homage to or a ripoff of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly is moot. In fact, the "unstuck in time" gag has been pulled by not only Philip K. Dick, but also Kurt Vonnegut and more recently, the writers of the TV series Lost. It's a fun premise, with multiple versions to be played out, and it works here.

Devin Monnens, IGDA Game Preservation SIG Discovers Early Manual Draft for Frogger
Devin Monnens is the Memorials Project Lead for the IGDA Preservation Special Interest Group. The preamble to his submission caught our attention so strongly that we had to write him and ask, "Is it true?" A manuscript, he claimed, had been discovered in a university's archives that described the original backstory of the first Frogger game for the Atari 2600. "Really?" we asked.

Monnens admitted no. The story was not true. He invented it for the purpose of this challenge. Well played, Monnens!

Dean Ray Johnson, Frogger is Not a Frog
Dean Ray Johnson brings to light the fact that video game narratives often make no logical sense whatsoever. His story of Frogger takes that to the extreme - though he would probably argue that it is not at all the extreme, that Frogger being a raccoon and not a frog at all is nothing more than par for the course. And his defense ain't half bad.

Honorable Mention
Tameem Amini, The Prophecy of the Blood Lilies
Tameem Amini's story tries a bit too hard to read how we think video game stories should read. The title alone is painfully stereotypical. But of all the submissions of this style, it was the strongest, and thus gets an honorable nod.