Dragon’s Lair

Dragon’s Lair

The 1980s. Ronald Reagan, Rubik’s Cube, MTV, and in the arcades, games like Pac-Man, Centipede, Space Invaders, Defender and others are eating up the quarters of America. Jump ahead in time a little and a new technology, the laser disc player, is brought into the arcade in the form of a game/animated movie called ‘Dragon’s Lair’. In this game, the player ‘plays’ the movie, that is, at certain points in the game the player is given the option to choose how the character moves. Choose the right option and the story continues, choose wrong, and the character faces a gruesome demise.

Real player with 19.0 hrs in game


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Back in ‘83 when this game first came out, we had a single arcade in our small city (that’s not so small now) that had Dragon’s Lair. Many of us fell in love with the game and a new challenge was present in our community arcade… to beat the dragon and save the princess. I dumped way too many quarter’s into this game and came back late from lunch on more than one occassion. The owner of the arcade had installed a monitor above the machine so others could watch while you played. In time I had developed quite a few followers that I think figured I was most likely to complete the game. Some would even let me play ahead of them even though they had their quarters lined up. A couple of times other people even paid for me to play the game. One afternoon, it finally happened. Amidst a small crowd of people surrounding the machine I reached the Dragon’s Lair. Of course I didn’t beat it the first time, but I played again and much to the enjoyment of the crowd, I defeated the dragon and we all saw the end of the game. I was very proud to have been the first person in our city to have defeated the game.

Real player with 3.9 hrs in game

Dragon's Lair on Steam