Ludography
Drol cover

1983 · Action · Arcade

Drol

Sega console exclusive

Drol is an SG-1000 game released in 1985. Originally developed by Brøderbund for various home computers in the west, it was brought to the SG-1000 by Sega and released exclusively in Japan. You play as a robot who must rescue his children.

Released
1983
Platforms
Apple IIAtari 8-bitCommodore 64Commodore C64/128/MAXPC-8800 SeriesSG-1000
Genres
ActionArcadePlatformer
Developers
—
Publishers
Broderbund
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
Side view
Themes
Action
Country
United States
Languages
English

About

Drol is a video game published by Broderbund in 1983. It was written for the Apple II by Benny Aik Beng Ngo, then ported to the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit computers. Versions were released for the SG-1000 in 1985 and Amiga in 1991.

Keywords

  • robots
  • robot protagonist

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The player controls a robot walking or flying through a four story maze, attempting to rescue people and animals while avoiding traps and enemies such as alien creatures, snakes, eagles, magnets, arrows and axes. There are only three levels, but the game repeatedly starts over in a more difficult version if the third level is completed. In the third level of some versions, in order to reach the final floor without being eaten by a plant sprouting from out of nowhere, the player must choose between three different trapdoors, and the correct trapdoor varies from game to game.

Reception

When reviewing three new games in February 1984, ANALOG Computing said that Drol was "by far the best thought-out", with "refreshing sound effects and some of the best pseudo-3D graphics I've ever seen", reminding the reviewer of a scene from The Ninth Configuration. Run, reviewing the Commodore 64 version in May 1984, gave it an "A"—its highest rating—and described it as "fun, funny, and exciting", although the magazine criticized the slow loading times. InfoWorld's Essential Guide to Atari Computers cited it as among the best Broderbund arcade games. Ahoy!

called Drol "an amusing little game." Electronic Fun with Computers & Games gave it 4 out of 4. Reviewer Marc Berman wrote:

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
Commodore C64/128/MAX31 December 1983North America
Apple II31 December 1983North America
Atari 8-bit31 December 1983North America
PC-8800 Series1 August 1985Japan
SG-100031 December 1985Japan

Games like this

Collections2 collections

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.