The modified Frogger game on 5th Ave. (irrelinvent.com/)

Here’s a project that neatly weds our collective video game nostalgia with modern technology: To celebrate the classic arcade game Frogger’s 30th birthday (and, let’s be real, in a not-so-subtle attempt to get his work into the Smithsonian), Tyler DeAngelo, a creative director at ad agency Devito/Verdi, redesigned the game based on real time traffic data.

Mr. DeAngelo set up cameras that captured the traffic flow on 5th Avenue, then wrote code that translated those images into the Frogger game. In short, the team “hacked a 1980′s Frogger Arcade so the cars you dodge are really driving down 5th Ave while you play.”

Not content with playing the game indoors, Mr. DeAngelo also dragged the modified Frogger machine out on to 5th Avenue, and let interested passersby play the game right in front of the street–needless to say, the poor little frog got squashed on screen by digital versions of the actual cars whizzing down the ave.

Check out the video below, which includes a talking frog with a British accent, because why not?

Jessica Roy is a reporter for Betabeat and the New York Observer. Follow Jessica on Twitter or via RSS. jroy@observer.com