'''Dragon's Lair''' was one of the first
laserdisc video games, released in June 1983 by
Cinematronics. It featured
animation created by former Disney animator
Don Bluth. Most other games of the era represented the character as a
sprite, which consisted of a series of bitmaps animated by playing them in succession. However 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 laserdisc, but imposed other limitations on the actual gameplay.
The game's enormous contrast with other
arcade games of the time created a sensation when it appeared, and was played so heavily that many machines often broke due to the strain of overuse. It was also arguably the most successful game on this medium and is aggressively sought after by collectors.
Overview
''Dragon's Lair'' features the hero, "Dirk the Daring", attempting to rescue "Princess Daphne" from the evil
dragon Singe holed up in a
wizard's
castle. The screen shows
animated scenes, and the player executes an action by selecting a direction or pressing the sword button with correct timing.
The
attract mode of the game displays various short vignettes of gameplay with the accompanying narration:
:''"Dragon's Lair: The fantasy adventure where you become a valiant knight, on a quest to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon. You control the actions of a daring adventurer, finding his way through the castle of a dark wizard, who has enchanted it with treacherous monsters and obstacles. In the mysterious caverns below the castle, your odyssey continues against the awesome forces that oppose your efforts to reach the Dragon's Lair. Lead on, adventurer. Your quest awaits!"''
Instead of controlling the character's actions directly, players control his reflexes, with different
full motion video (FMV) segments playing for correct or incorrect choices.
A quote from a
Newsweek article (
August 8 1983) captures the level of excitement displayed over the game during that time:
:''Dragon's Lair is this summer's hottest new toy: the first arcade game in the United States with a movie-quality image to go along with the action... The game has been devouring kids' coins at top speed since it appeared early in July. Said Robert Romano, 10, who waited all day in the crush at Castle Park without getting to play, "It's the most awesome game I've ever seen in my life."''
Background
Rick Dyer was inspired by the text game, ''
Adventure''. This game gave rise to an invention he dubbed "The Fantasy Machine." This device went through many incarnations from a rudimentary computer using paper tape (with illustrations and text) to a system that manipulated a videodisc containing mostly still images and narration. The game it played was a
graphic adventure called ''The Lost Woods.''
Attempts to market ''The Fantasy Machine'' had repeatedly failed. Allegedly, an
Ideal Toy Company representative walked out in the middle of one presentation.
His inspiration allegedly came during his viewing of
The Secret of NIMH, whereby he realized he needed quality animation and an action script to bring excitement to his game.
He elected to take a reserved but as of yet unscripted location from ''The Lost Woods'' known as ''The Dragon's Lair''.
Development
''Dragon's Lair'' began as a concept by Rick Dyer, president of
Advanced Microcomputer Systems (which later became RDI Video Systems). A team of game designers created the characters and locations, then choreographed Dirk's movements as he encountered the monsters and obstacles in the castle. The art department at AMS created
storyboards for each episode as a guide for the final animation.
The game was animated by veteran Disney
animator Don Bluth and his studio. Development was done on a shoestring budget, cost US$1 million and took seven months to complete. Since the studio couldn't afford to hire any
models, the animators used photos from
Playboy magazines for inspiration for the character Princess Daphne. The animators also used their own voices for all the characters instead of hiring
actors in order to keep costs down, although it does feature one professional voice actor:
Michael Rye as the narrator in the attract sequence (he is also the narrator for
Space Ace and
Dragon's Lair II).
Because of the involvement of veteran Disney
animator Don Bluth, the artwork in ''Dragon's Lair'', such as this frame of Princess Daphne, was the highest quality ever seen in an
arcade game when it was released.
The music and many sound effects were scored and performed by Chris Stone at
EFX Systems in Burbank. Bryan Rusenko and Glen Berkovitz were the recording engineers. The 43 second "Attract Loop" was recorded in a straight 18 hour session. Featured instruments, all keyboards, were the
E-mu Emulator and
Memory MOOG.
Technical
The original laserdisc players shipped with the game (
Pioneer LD-V1000 or PR-7820) often broke. Though the Pioneer players were fine in quality, the laserdisc players just weren't built to undergo the strain ''Dragon's Lair'' imposed. Laserdisc players were designed primarily for playing movies, which resulted in a gradual movement of the laser assembly across the disc as the data was read linearly. However ''Dragon's Lair'' would seek to different locations on the disc every few seconds to access specific animation sequences as dictated by gameplay. The massive amount of seeking, coupled with the raw amount of hours the hardware was required to operate, could result in failure of the laserdisc player in a relatively short amount of time. The fact that the game was immensely popular and almost continuously played didn't help matters. As a result, the player often had to be repaired or replaced.
It is rare to find a ''Dragon's Lair'' game intact with the original player. There are conversion kits available to use more modern laserdisc players in American games.
The original USA 1983 game used a single side NTSC laserdisc player manufactured by Pioneer, the other side was metal backed to prevent disc bending. The European versions of the game were manufactured by Atari under license and used single side PAL discs manufactured by
Philips (not metal backed). Philips was also the supplier of the laserdisc players for the European games which were of course different from the American ones.
Legacy
The original ''Fantasy Machine'' was later realized as a prototype videogame console known as
Halcyon.
The game led to the creation of a short-lived
television cartoon series by
Ruby-Spears Productions (in which the originally nameless Dragon was given the name Singe, and Princess Daphne now wore a long pink dress). Thirteen half-hour episodes were produced. The show was generally run of the mill, but boasted an unusual feature: to keep the show in the spirit of the game, before each commercial break a narrator would ask what the viewer would do to solve the problem facing Dirk. After the commercial break, the outcomes of the various choices were shown before Dirk acts on the correct idea (with the occasional exception) to save the day.
''Dragon's Lair'' led to the creation of numerous
video games for home systems. Since some original sequences did not fit in the ports for those systems, they were re-released only in a virtual sequel called
Escape from Singe's Castle; A non-linear arcade interpretation of Dragon's Lair and Escape from Singe's castle with elements of platform and puzzle, was made by
Software Projects for
8-bit machines in 1986.
A
platformer adaptation of the game was also made for the
Nintendo Entertainment System and
Super NES called ''
Dragon's Lair''.
The
Game Boy version (entitled ''Dragon's Lair: The Legend'') in particular has almost nothing to do with the source game aside from Dirk as the protagonist, Mordroc as the villain, and saving Princess Daphne as the objective. In fact, the game is a port of a five-year-old
ZX Spectrum game, ''
Roller Coaster'', the result being a platform game where Dirk has to negotiate a series of thinly-disguised fairground rides. The later
Game Boy Color version, however, is a relatively faithful rendition of the original game.
The original game was ported to several home computer systems in the late 1980s. Due to the limitations of computers at the time, the graphics were much less impressive, and the game's limited interactivity became more apparent. These versions received almost uniformly negative reviews.
The game inspired a sequel (disregarding the ''Escape from Singe's Castle'' as one), '', created shortly after the original, but released in
1991. It also led to the creation of
1984's ''
Space Ace'', another game animated by Don Bluth and his crew. Light versions of these games were ported for
Amiga and
Atari ST by Readysoft.
'' was made for Amiga and DOS in
1992, mixing original footage with scenes from Time Warp that were not included in the original PC release due to memory constraints.
ReadySoft released ''Dragon’s Lair'' for the
Apple Macintosh on CD-ROM in
1994. A
Sega CD version was also released
''
The Dragon's Lair Deluxe Pack'' was released for
home computers containing all the FMV for all three games. Though it contains all the video including some scenes cut from the
North American version of the game, the gameplay was reported as lackluster.
In late
2002, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original arcade release of the smash hit,
Digital Leisure Inc. produced a special edition
DVD box set of the three arcade classics that defined laser disc arcade games: ''Dragon’s Lair'', ''
Space Ace'' and ''. All the scenes from the original arcade releases were included and optionally the player could select new scenes that were animated in
1983, but not included in any previous ''Dragon’s Lair'' release. The games were also updated to include higher quality video, authentic scene order and a new difficulty selection to make it more challenging for ''Dragon’s Lair'' pros. Digital Leisure worked with a small independent game developer, Derek Sweet, to release a
CD-ROM 4-Disc Box Set for Windows based PCs.
'' was developed in
2002, as a
3D interpretation of the game for
Microsoft Windows,
Xbox,
GameCube and the
PS2.
A comic book mini series based on the game, but incorporating elements from the cartoon series as well, like Dirk's horse Bertram, was released in 2003 by Crossgen Publishing, concurrent with a mini series based on Space Ace.
Arcana Studio is currently publishing the entire comic book series in 2006 as there were three issues that were never before published.
In 2005, Digital Leisure created a new ''Dragon's Lair III'' which utilized 3D footage from ''Dragon's Lair 3D'', but controlled via a system like the original arcade games.
DAPHNE, an emulator for laserdisc based games, can emulate the original 1983 version. DAPHNE requires the ROM files plus the original laserdisc to run. Alternatively, an MPEG-2 video stream and Ogg Vorbis audio stream can be substituted for the laserdisc. These streams can be generated from the original laserdisc or from Digital Leisure's 2002 DVD.
In Late 2006, Digital Leisure released "Dragon's Lair HD", which features an all-new High-Definition transfer from the original negatives (as opposed to just sourcing the laserdisc). The original mono soundtrack has also been remastered into
Dolby Digital 5.1 sound (on PCs that can support it).
According to
Don Bluth and
Gary Goldman a "Dragon's Lair" movie has been scripted and is ready to go into production once financing for the project is in place. The film will be in the classic, traditional 2D animation style.
On April 9th, 2007, a
Blu-Ray version of Dragon's Lair was released. This uses the same HD transfer as the aforementioned PC release, but went through a 6 month process to clean and remaster the image. Dragon's Lair Blu-Ray is the first title to fully utilize
BD-J technology.
[1] An
HD DVD version has also been announced by Digital Leisure with an August 15th release date.
[2]
Platform ports
Trivia
★ Dirk speaks only twice. First, he mutters "Uh, oh" when the platform begins to recede during the fire-swinging sequence, then he exclaims "Wow!" when first entering the ''Dragon's Lair'' and laying eyes on the slumbering Princess Daphne.
★ Dirk the Daring's voice belongs to film editor Dan Molina, who later went on to perform the bubbling sound effects for another animated character,
Fish Out of Water, from 2005's
Disney film ''
Chicken Little'', which he also edited.
★ The
European arcade version of ''Dragon's Lair'' was licensed to
Atari Ireland (as was ''
Space Ace'' later). The cabinet design was therefore different from the Cinematronics version. The main differences were that the LED digital scoring panel was replaced with an on screen scoring display appearing after each level. The
Atari branding was present in various places on the machine (marquee, coin slots, control panel and speaker grill area), and the machines featured the cone LED player start button used extensively on Atari machines. Although licensing for this region was exclusive to Atari, a number of
Cinematronics machines were also available from suppliers mostly via a
gray import.
★ The sequence with the drawbridge and eyestalks seen in the attract mode was excised from most console versions of the game, but still remains on the laserdisc, playable in fan-made modifications of the program, or in the version of the game released in
European territories as well as the PC version.
Pop culture
★ A version of ''Dragon's Lair'' is featured prominently in the
2005 film ''
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants''.
★ The
Adult Swim comedy ''
Robot Chicken'' shows Dirk battling a mid-life crisis in the segment ''Dragon's Lair: The Middle Ages''.
★ The
TV comedy ''
Silver Spoons'' featured a ''Dragon's Lair'' arcade machine in the family room set.
★ In 1988 the
Italo Disco band
Koto published a song "Dragon's Legend" with the text of the attraction mode narration and the sounds from the game.
★ A joke is made involving ''Dragon's Lair'' and ''
Space Ace'' in episode XXI of ''
Samurai Jack''; an old man tells Jack to take the left route to get to the Dragon's Lair. When Jack asks whats it at the right path, he replies, "Space Ace," confusing Jack.
★ ''Dragon's Lair'' is parodied in the popular TV Show ''
Family Guy''.
★ ''Dragon's Lair'' was once a featured game on the 1980s video game based game show, ''
Starcade''. The entire episode can be seen in
Digital Leisure's 20th Anniversary DVD and PC CD ROM editions.
Screenshots
See also
★
Space Ace
★
Dragon's Lair II
★
Digital Leisure
★
Dragon's Lair föreningen
★
Halcyon (console)
External links
★
The Dragon's Lair Project Your original source for all laserdisc gaming needs since 1997.
★
Digital Leisure Website for all licensed versions of Dragon's Lair.
★
Wizardry Engineering Developers Of Dragon's Lair - Nintendo DS.
★
★
★
★
The Dot Eaters entry on Dragon's Lair and the laser game craze
★
Digital Press interview with ''Dragon's Lair'' animator, Don Bluth
★
Detailed Info on Dragon's Lair from Cataroo
★
Syd Bolton's Dragon's Lair Page contains detailed information on each version
★
★
Dragon's Lair Blu-Ray Review
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