Dragon’s Lair is a video game franchise created by Rick Dyer and Don Bluth. The series is famous for its Western animation-style graphics and complex decades-long history of being ported to many platforms and being remade into television and comic book series.
The first game in the series is titled Dragon’s Lair, originally released for arcades in 1983[1] by Cinematronics. It uses laserdisc technology, offering greatly superior graphics compared to other video games at the time.
[2] The game was ported to several other platforms, but as no home system technology of that era could accommodate the graphical quality of LaserDisc, several abridged versions of the original game were released under different names.
[3] The first true sequel, Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp, had started development as early as 1984, but would only appear in arcades in 1991. While its graphics were once again praised, its by-then outdated and limited interactivity compared to the newer generation of arcade games kept it from reaching the popularity of the original.[4]
Gameplay – Dragon’s Lair
The two main games in the series are considered gaming classics[5] and are frequently re-released for each new generation of consoles.[6] In 2010, they were bundled alongside the unrelated 1984 Bluth Group game Space Ace in the Dragon’s Lair Trilogy which was made available across numerous platforms.[6]
Forays into other media include a short lived animated series that aired on ABC in 1984 and a comic-book miniseries released in 2003. Plans for a feature-length film have existed since the 1980s and resurfaced in 2015, when Bluth launched two crowd-funding campaigns.
[7] The Kickstarter campaign was unsuccessful[8] but the Indiegogo campaign reached its target in early 2016.[9]
Games
- Dragon’s Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983.[10] In the game, the protagonist Dirk the Daring is a knight attempting to rescue Princess Daphne from the evil dragon Singe who has locked the princess in the foul wizard Mordroc’s castle. It featured animation by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth. Most other games of the era represented the character as a sprite, which consisted of a series of pixels displayed in succession. Due to hardware limitations of the era, artists were greatly restricted in the detail they could achieve using that technique; the resolution, framerate, and number of frames were severely constrained. Dragon’s Lair overcame those limitations by tapping into the vast storage potential of the LaserDisc but imposed other limitations on the actual gameplay. The game can freeze as the laserdisc searches for the correct scene to play, and the cabinets are difficult to maintain.[11] It was advertised as the first truly 3D video game and as the meeting point of video games and animated films.[12] Its success sparked numerous home ports, sequels, and related games. In the 21st century, it has been repackaged in a number of formats (such as for the iPhone) as a “retro” or historic game. It is currently one of only three video games (along with Pong and Pac-Man) in storage at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.[13][dubious – discuss]
- Escape from Singe’s Castle, also known as Dragon’s Lair Part II – Escape from Singe’s Castle, is a 1987 video game published by Software Projects for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum home computers. In 1990 and 1991, Readysoft made the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS versions; based on the latter, an Apple IIGS version was released in 2022. The game is sometimes referred to as Dragon’s Lair II but is not the official arcade sequel Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp.
- Dragon’s Lair is a 1990 platform game developed by MotiveTime and published by CSG Imagesoft in North America, Elite Systems in Europe and Epic/Sony Records in Japan for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES. Its plot is identical to that of the original game.
- Dragon’s Lair: The Legend is a 1991 platform game developed by Elite Systems and published by CSG Imagesoft in North America, Elite Software in Europe and Epic/Sony Records in Japan for the Game Boy. This is actually a port of Elite’s 1985 ZX Spectrum game Roller Coaster.
- Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp is the first official sequel other than Escape from Singe’s Castle. Released in 1991 by Leland Corporation, its story takes place years later. Dirk has married Daphne, and the marriage has produced several children. When Daphne is kidnapped by the evil wizard Mordroc in order to be forced into marriage, Dirk’s children are clearly upset by the abduction of their mother, and Dirk must once again save her. Home ports of the game were announced for the Philips CD-i, 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, and Jaguar CD. However, only the CD-i version was actually released, though non-playable demos of the 3DO and Jaguar CD versions appear on those consoles’ respective versions of Brain Dead 13. The game was later ported to the Wii as part of the compilation release Dragon’s Lair Trilogy.
- Dragon’s Lair III: The Curse of Mordread was made for Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS in 1993, mixing original footage with scenes from Time Warp that were not included in the original PC release due to memory constraints. The game also included a newly produced “Blackbeard the Pirate” stage that was originally intended to be in the arcade game but was never completed.[14]
- Dragon’s Lair is a 1993 platform game developed by MotiveTime and published by Data East in North America, Elite Systems in Europe and Konami in Japan for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Its plot is identical to that of the original game.
- Dragon’s Lair 3D: Return to the Lair was developed in 2002, as a 3D interpretation of the game developed by Dragonstone Software and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox, GameCube and the PlayStation 2. It is based on the original Dragon’s Lair and follows a similar story as Dirk must enter Mordroc’s castle to rescue Princess Daphne from a dragon. Many of the characters and locations from the 1983 original make appearances in the game, along with new puzzles, rooms, and enemies. The game uses cel shading to mimic the distinctive style of the original. Bluth produced two new animated sequences for the opening and ending of the game. It received mixed reviews.[15] In 2005, Digital Leisure created a new Dragon’s Lair III which utilizes 3D footage from Dragon’s Lair 3D but has a control system like the original arcade games.
