Dragon's Lair - Gameplay (No Commentary)

Описание: SEIZURE WARNING: THIS GAME CONTAINS FLASHING LIGHTS....VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED.

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. 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, who is well known for movies such as The Rescuers, Pete's Dragon, The Land Before Time, and The Secret of NIMH.

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!"

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.

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. The game consists almost entirely of animated cutscenes. The player does not control the character's actions directly, but controls his reflexes, with actions determined by selecting a direction or pressing a button in order to clear each quick time event, with different full motion video segments showing the outcomes.

The game consists of a sequence of challenges played in a dynamic structure that resembles a random order. Some scenes are played more than once before reaching the end, some of which are flipped or mirrored such that the opposite actions (e.g. left instead of right) are required.

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