To see this animation, you had to invest hundreds of dollars…
In dolorous memory of all the money I’ve thrown into this machine, I am presenting my collection of links regarding ‘Dragon’s Lair’. In case you were born later than 1983: ‘Dragon’s Lair’ was the first and the most successful laser-disc game ever. When it was published it skyrocketed game graphics: You were actually plaing in a fully animated Disney-like movie! In the arcade where I first met Dirk the Daring – our hero and the player’s alter ego – I used to play ‘Donkey Kong’ and ‘Defender’ at that time. Now compare the graphics for yourself.
Defender, a fast horizontal scroller and the first appearance of Mario in ‘Donkey Kong’
A part of the success was the wonderful characterization of all the monsters, villains and buildings and the professionalism of the animation. At least it was Don Bluth, now known for movies like ‘American Tail’, ‘Anastasia’ or ‘Titan A.E.’, who directed it. Naturally some spin offs were published, like ‘Space Ace’ or ‘Dragon’s Lair II’. The game was ported to many homecomputer systems, but the graphics sucked in comparison to the laser disc arcade version. The latest installment of Dirk’s digital troubles is ‘Dragon’s Lair 3D’ which I never played, though the screenshots look promising. And a 3D version could only improve the gameplay, which really was frustrating, illogical and – to be honest – boring…
Some screenshots of DL.
Now here is the collection: Dragon’s Lair at the Wiki, Don Bluth at the IMDB, an interesting interwiew with Don Bluth about DL, an in-depth article about the development, all you need to know about the actual machine, ‘Daphne’: a laser disc emulator (quite tricky to install), the ‘Daphne’ version of DL as a torrent, the IMDB entry of the corresponding tv-series and one example of the line of Dragon’s Lair toys that were developed in the eighties.
Three gems: Dom from Montreal has uploaded the full solution for the original Don Bluth-laser disc games to YouTube. Watch the brilliant animations of ‘Dragon’s Lair’, ‘Dragon’s Lair II’ and ‘Space Ace’ without the annoying gameplay!
And if you want to spend some money at amazon: Here is the Dragon’s Lair 20TH Anniversary Edition, Dragon’s Lair 3D and the “famous” interpretation of DL by Marvel: Dragon’s Lair Presents Dirk the Daring in the Quest for the Stolen Fortune
Oh, and let’s not forget these wonderful DL action figures!
Filed under: