Dragon's Lair (Arcade) Walkthrough No Commentary

Dragon's Lair is an interactive film LaserDisc video game developed by Advanced Microcomputer Systems and published by Cinematronics in 1983, as the first game in the Dragon's Lair series.[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 success of the game sparked numerous home ports, sequels and related games. In the 21st century it has been repackaged in a number of formats as a retro or historic game.The game is "on rails", meaning the narrative is predetermined and the player has very limited influence on its progression.[11] The game consists almost entirely of animated cutscenes. The player should execute an action at the correct time by selecting a direction or pressing a button in order to clear each quick time event (QTE). Comedic aspects of the game include bizarre-looking creatures and humorous death scenes, and the portrayal of the player character as a clumsy, easily scared and reluctant hero. The player does not control the character's actions directly- but controls his reflexes, with different full motion video (FMV) segments playing for correct or incorrect choices. The game consists of a sequence of challenges played in a random order. Some scenes are played more than once before reaching the end and additionally some scenes are flipped or mirrored such that the opposite actions (e.g. left instead of right) are required.The attract mode of the game displays various short vignettes of gameplay accompanied by the following 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!"

[scarlettgamer]

I remember playing this game I wasn't really good at it

[dryzumd]

Crazy this turned 40 this past June!
God bless Don Bluth for his commitment making this a memorable experience combining reaction controls and wonderful hand drawn animation

[jayzacharias]

I was 13 when this 1st came to the arcades in Blackpool. After a couple of weeks I could clear it without dying once. Used to have crowds around me in Funland arcade watching me play it. It was incredible to me and my friends when we 1st saw this. I have it on iOS now on my phone. Still love this game

[wgrillojr]

It is a total memory game but the graphics at the time amazed me. I was like 10 at the time. I never got good at it cuz I dumped my quarters and tokens into a lot of pinball machines and then the karate/kung fu games. And to waste the remained of my change I would let Sinistar gobble up the rest. Loved playing it but never got any better the more I played. But I think an exact layout of dragons lair in VR would be an incredible adventure playing as Dirk and saving the hot princess. It would be so close to my wish to literally be in there when I was a kid, able to be roaming in the realm exploring, and fighting would be awesome. I'm actually surprised it hasn't been done as well with Space Ace. What would I know about a game that would sell copies? Especially an older gamer that would buy for nostalgia and have the cash to spend on it. Plus one that add ons could be made and sold for more sales, I'm just a consumer though.

[chuckruckus]

If I invested all those quarters in a tax free muni I’d be richer than Elon now

[KunoichiForever]

I'll be honest this is really a weird game but good. I thought this was like a movie but now I see it's a game. I think seeing a game like this the first time is not something you don't see often really