When I was in elementary school, times were very different. I only had one console, and the controller only had two buttons. There was no Kotaku or Joystiq. Getting a new video game was a rare treat, not a Friday evening. My parents would surprise me with games they’d purchase while I was at school, hand-picked not based on review scores or my own personal requests, but whether the box art was something that would appeal to me or not. I acquired some pretty rad NES games that way, but one stands out in my mind as being extremely special: Trog!

I didn’t know it at the time, but Trog! was a port of an arcade game called Trog. The gameplay was similar to Pac-Man with a few neat enhancements. You’d control a dinosaur and go around the board collecting eggs and dodging cavemen (the titular Trogs) who wanted to bash you over the head and eat you. You could fight back, of course. You had a basic punch attack, and could also collect powerups that would speed you up, let you spit fire, or turn you into a giant T-Rex who could eat and stomp the Trogs. The best part was that it was co-op, so you and a friend could team up and tackle the hundreds of levels together.

I liked my co-op partner a lot.

I played with my mom.

My mom didn’t play a lot of video games. She liked Dr. Mario a lot, I remember. She always turned the music off, which to this day I think is weird. She didn’t really like me spending a lot of time playing video games, because I think back then she still thought I’d grow out of it. With all those things considered, it was a real joy for me to have a video game my mom not only liked, but she’d actually suggest sitting down to play together.

I was reading a comment thread on Kotaku yesterday about obscure NES games, and Trog! came to mind. Whenever I think of that game, I think of my mom and how much fun we’d have when we played it together. We’d yell and scream as the Trogs relentlessly pursued us across the screen. She’d yell for me to come save her if a Trog managed to hit her dinosaur over the head, with few precious seconds until her dinosaur would be consumed by the cycloptic caveman. We’d laugh when one of us would get the pineapple power-up and turn into the T-Rex, staying out of the way as mayhem was wreaked in our favor.

One time I remember I drew an entire level on a piece of paper, and I wrote my name above one of the dinosaurs and her name above the other and gave it to her as a present.

I still have my NES cartridge of Trog!. I don’t get rid of my old games, but if for some reason I ever did, Trog! would stay with me until the very end. I don’t remember what occasion, if any, Trog! was a gift for. I don’t remember the first time I played it. All I remember are the countless evenings of me and my mom sitting there, yelling and laughing at the TV, controllers in hand.

She always played the blue dinosaur, Bloop. She liked his victory dance. I was always the yellow one, Spike. He reminded me of Bart Simpson.

So mom (I know you’re reading this. Stop crying!), when you come visit, can we sit down and play Trog! again, like old times? You can be player one, just like always.