Trog is an arcade maze game developed by Midway Manufacturing and distributed on their Bally Midway label in 1990. It caters for up to four simultaneous players and features “Claymation” characters and cut scenes (although they call it “PLAYmation” on the title screen, probably because the word “Claymation” is trademarked). Claymation is when all the characters are made of, and animated with, plasticine or coloured clay (think Wallace & Gromit and you’ll get it).

The game is basically a Pac-Man-style egg-collecting game where you control one of four cute dinosaurs (Rex, Bloop, Spike and Gwen) and must avoid being captured and eaten by a gaggle of chasing cavemen (called “Trogs” aka Troglodytes).

You can punch the cavemen if you encounter one up close, and you can also eat what looks like a pineapple that’ll turn you into a man-eating T-Rex temporarily which then allows you to eat the chasing cavemen for extra points. There’s also another power-up that you can collect that’ll allow you to breathe fire on them to torch them. So you do have plenty of ways to defend yourself.

You must avoid falling into tar pits (which appear temporarily in certain places), or falling off the edge of the screen and into the water (which is easily done if you’re not playing attention), and when all of the eggs have been collected an exit to the next stage opens up, which you must then enter.

As the game progresses the mazes become more complex and walls start appearing, restricting your movement options. Trog is a much more forgiving game than Pac-Man, though, and the chasing cavemen don’t home in on you as aggressively as the ghosts do in Pac-Man, so the game is more suitable for children, or for those who wish to play something entertaining that isn’t mind-bendingly difficult.

Trog is a fun game overall and is well-presented and easy to play. The four-player gameplay is chaotic but is a good party game if you have friends around. While it’s certainly not what I would call a classic, it has entertainment value and is worth playing if you’ve never seen it before. I have to admit that Trog is not a game that I’ve ever seen in an actual arcade before and was pleasantly surprised by it.

A two-player version of Trog was converted to and released for both the NES and MS-DOS PCs in 1990 and 1991 respectively.

More: Trog on Wikipedia