Dragon's Lair
The digital 80's
I loved games, and in my infancy I used to be an "adult playing observer", passing hours watching people inserting 25 peseta coins for additional lifespan in Gauntlet, or trying to consume all Out Run's in-game melodies and the colorful USA-wide scroll. Defender, Space Invaders, Galaxian or Donkey Kong are the first ones I remember, full of charm, in bars, mini-golf resources, or swimming pools near León, with a delicious smell to tapas.
Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created 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 (such as for the iPhone) as a "retro" or historic game.
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Content extracted from Wikipedia, where you can find its license details.
Ignacio Javier Gómez Rodríguez (igjav). OS developer. Naive power.
