70. Dragon's Lair

(Arcade/Various Home, Advanced Microcomputer Systems, 1983)
Dragon's Lair is one of my favourite videogames of all time.
Dragon's Lair is barely a videogame.
Trying to squeeze all my thoughts and pro-laserdisc arguments into a few blocks of text is impossible, but I'll endeavour.

Released as a Laserdisc arcade in 1983, Dragon's Lair was the result of hard work by animator Don Bluth and developer Rick Dyer. The game is basically hand drawn animated film telling the story of our hero, Dirk the Daring, as he attempts to rescue the gorgeous Princess Daphne from an evil Dragon (Ive never understood why Dragons kidnap princesses, What's in it for them? The possession of beauty or just for LoLs?)

Every few seconds the player has to make a move to prevent Dirk from dying, based on what unfolds on screen, it's hopelessly unfair, as the events offer little in the way of clues and the reaction time allowed is superhuman. The game basically becomes a memory quiz, where a successful player will just remember the moves needed and after many attempts will be able to move smoothly through the game purely on knowledge learned through trial and error. Dragon's Lair II is more forgiving, although it is faster paced it has clearer visuals cues and slightly more reaction time.

After making his way through various scenes of danger, Dirk comes up against the Dragon, saves the Princess and, it would appear, receives the promise of some hardcore action once they get back home.
Dragon's Lair is universally trounced by many gamers, claiming that the game has little to no interactivity and is questionably a game at all. These critics miss the point, Dragon's Lair is a masterpiece of design, an attempt made during gaming's golden era to try something new and different, possibly taking the business in a new direction. The fact is that upon release the game had incredible success, with gamers queuing up to play despite the game's higher price and insane level of unfairness. It was something never experienced before and, for the time at least, had people guessing at the direction their favourite hobby would be taking. Unfortunately, as historians know, that direction was downward, as the market crashed and put many companies out of business, shutting down arcades left, right and centre.
Dragon's Lair's art is beyond compare, Don Bluth and his studio created beautiful imagery that is arguably better than anything produced by any animation company at the time and makes most of today's animation look like the very worst fanart.
But, is Dragon's Lair a videogame? people will argue, it didn't have pixel graphics, computer produced sound or even "proper" control. However, it did provide excitement and thrills and required both concentration and hand to eye coordination of the player in order to get Dirk through to the bitter end.

More importantly, Dragon's Lair tried something different, it rolled the dice. Whilst it might not have come up double sixes, it invented a new style of game, got itself in the Smithsonian museum and was ported to almost EVERY SINGLE home format there has ever been.
I'm not here to argue over the game's playability, I'll be the very first to admit that it's one long "quicktime event" before the phrase was even coined. This blog's purpose is to write what these games mean to me and Dragon's Lair means a lot. It was one of the first arcades I ever played and it's legacy has followed me throughout my gaming life. With Blu-Ray, Nintendo DS and Iphone versions on the way, it's still being ported nearly thirty years after it's original release.
Don't hate Dragon's Lair, it was a brave attempt to try something completely different and whilst it only worked in the short term, it did it with style and flair. The game is iconic and should be remembered proudly as a part of videogame history.