Dragon's Lair (Arcade)

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Description

Originally released in the arcades as a LaserDisc game, Dragon's Lair is an interactive cartoon movie. Players control Dirk the Daring as he struggles his way through a dungeon to fight Singe, the Dragon, and rescue the beautiful Princess Daphne. The game consists of animated scenes, during which the player has to press direction buttons or the sword button at the right moment to trigger the next segment of the movie.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Trailer

Alternate Titles

• "龙穴历险记 " -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
• "Логово дракона: Побег из замка Синджа" -- Russian spelling
• "Dragon's Lair CD-ROM" -- DOS title
• "ドラゴンズ・レア" -- Japanese spelling

Part of the Following Groups

• Don Bluth / Readysoft interactive movies
• Dragon's Lair series and versions
• Fantasy Creatures: Dragons
• Games made into comics
• Video games turned into board / card games

User Reviews

There are no reviews for the Arcade release of this game. You can use the links below to write your own review or read reviews for the other platforms of this game.

Critic Reviews

Retro Archives	Nov 15, 2021	13.5 out of 20	68
All Game Guide	1998		60
The Good Old Days (Staff Reviews only)	Aug 10, 2013	1 out of 6	17

Forums

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Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Arcade version of Dragon's Lair appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Board Game

Milton Bradley released a Dragon's Lair boardgame conversion in 1983.

Budget

The game is said to have cost approximately $3 million to develop. Animator Don Bluth raised $1.2 million. Rich Dyer, the technology inventor and Cinematronics, the machine's manufacturer and distributor, raised the rest.

Cartoon

This game spawned a Saturday morning cartoon. Before commercial breaks, Dirk would be presented with several options, like jumping for a rope, standing and fighting some goons or taking a right down a tunnel. Upon return from the break the T.V. show would inform the viewer of the results of the various actions with the phrase, "If Dirk had done this..." and a clip showing the demise of the poor adventurer if he'd chosen the wrong path.

Nipples

If you are one of those that felt funny when watching the ending clips of Dragon's Lair when you were 8-10 yrs old you might be interested in knowing a little known fact about it: Princess Daphne's animations were not only inspired by Playboy magazine pictorials, but showed nipples, as described by Don Bluth himself in the DVD edition of the game. Bluth resorted to extense "documentation" for crafting the character poses, and while animators almost always remove nipples even if their characters have skin-tight clothing, Bluth left them in making an entire generation of videogamers very happy indeed.

Ports

Dragon's Lair has been ported to nearly every single console/computer platform under the sun. From the IBM PC to the Amiga...from the NES to the Sega CD...even from the Jaguar CD to DVD players. Coleco Industries was the first to acquire the license for a home port in 1983. They paid $2 million for the home console rights and released the game for the Coleco Adam the following year.

Revenue

The game generated more than 117 million dollars in revenue by 2000.

Information also contributed by Pseudo_Intellectual, Zovni, Satoshi Kunsai and FatherJack.

Related Web Sites

• TrueAchievements achievement guide (The TrueAchievements achievement guide for Dragon's Lair)