Video Game / Dragon's Lair

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Dragon's Lair was the first arcade game that utilized LaserDisc technology to provide an entirely new gaming experience... back in 1983, at least. Rick Dyer and Don Bluth basically created an entire animated world that was placed on a laserdisc, and animated progress screens, death scenes and the like played according to what direction you, as the player, moved via the joystick and "Sword" button, thus inventing the Interactive Movie genre.

Your role is Dirk the Daring, a brave yet still reluctant knight in medieval England whose goal is to save Princess Daphne from the clutches of Singe the Dragon^note His name was only found in promotional materials, and he is called by that name in the later TV series. Although Bluth played it straight for the most part in order to give it the feel of games of the era, the characters are somewhat on the cartoony side, as knight-errant Dirk is an average joe Comedic Hero, while Daphne is an over-the-top Ms. Fanservice whose look and poses were based on Playboy centerfolds.

The game itself has garnered a place in the Smithsonian Institution, and has had umpteen versions on home consoles, PC systems, smartphones and even homemade hacks adding further scenes and adventures. It also had an Animated Adaptation on ABC, courtesy of Ruby-Spears (Bluth had no involvement in it). The Coleco Adam version^note Which is sometimes mistakenly called "Super Dragon's Lair" by some was notable for its then-revolutionary use of raster graphics.

The game (along with its sci-fi counterpart Space Ace, as well as the sequel) was well-known for dozens of death scenes, all of which were unique to a given scenario. The Saturday morning cartoon based on the show included a variation by offering Dirk a choice of actions before each commercial, and showing what would have happened to him if he had made the wrong one in the next scene (while usually making a successful choice that wasn't offered by the narrator).

• Main Games
  • Dragon's Lair (1983) (Arcade)
  • Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp (1991) (Arcade)
  • Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair (2002) (GameCube / PlayStation 2 / Xbox / Windows PC)
• Alternate Sequels
  • Dragon's Lair Part II: Escape From Singe's Castle (1987) (Amiga / Apple IIGS / Atari ST / IBM PC / Macintosh)
  • Dragon’s Lair III: The Curse of Mordread (1992) (Amiga / Atari ST / IBM PC / Macintosh)
• Spin offs
  • Dragon's Lair: The Legend (1991) (Game Boy)
  • Space Ace (1984) (Arcade)

Even though it is the Trope Maker for Action Commands and Press X to Not Die, its common place among gamers may set them off. This is still probably better than every other FMV game ever made, though - save for those that followed this gameplay formula (like the aforementioned Space Ace, and Taito's Time Gal).

A movie was announced (and even storyboarded), but has languished in Development Hell for years. Bluth and his colleague Gary Goldman, trying to raise funds for it, attempted a Kickstarter campaign for the movie in late 2015. Unfortunately the campaign failed to reach even half of its proposed goal, and Bluth pulled the plug on it as of November 24, 2015. Despite this setback, Bluth and Goldman didn't give up and moved their fundraising to Indiegogo; the campaign was not only successfully funded, but far exceeded their minimum goal of donations. The film has now entered production.

There's also a six-issue comic that's based on the game that also incorporates elements from the cartoon series (such as Dirk's horse, Bertram).

It should be noted that Dragon's Lair was not the first laser disc game ever made (that honor belongs to a Horse Racing game called Quarter-Horse), but it was the one that popularized the idea. It was also the first ever video game to (initially) cost 50 cents (i.e., two quarters) to play.^note Not the first arcade game, however — that honor goes to Gottlieb's Black Hole, a pinball machine from 1981.

Now available on Steam.

Dragon's Lair contains examples of the following:

• Ability Required to Proceed: Due to 3D's metroidvania gameplay, this becomes part of the experience. Of the five Dragon Essences available, Dirk will need four of them to traverse the castle thoroughly. The Dragon's Wing lets him hover across chasms and/or slow his descent, the Dragon's Eye reveals hidden passages and even invisible things, the Dragon's Flame lights his sword on fire for various uses as well as additional damage, and the Dragon's Scale prevents damage from superheated rooms so long as he has mana to power it.
• Action Commands: This game was the Trope Maker for requiring the player to execute a particular command (either moving the joystick in a certain direction^note  In some versions of the game (including the original arcade version), there are multiple correct directions for certain actions. or using the sword) in a short time window based (usually) on visual cues in order to proceed through the game. Fail to execute the required command in the time window, and Dirk meets a grisly (if hilarious) demise.
• Action Girl: In the comics, Daphne is this. Yes, Singe captures her, but he has to work at it, and she and Dirk are hugely overmatched.
• Adaptational Modesty: When the game was made into a Saturday morning cartoon, of course Daphne couldn't wear that barely-there outfit she does in the game. Lampshaded in the comic miniseries, where it's revealed the glass bubble she's in actually turns maidens kept inside it into airheaded bimbos who think nothing of parading themselves like that.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: Whether they be crumbling bridges, encroaching acid blobs or electrified floors, Dirk is almost always being chased by something.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Stages are sometimes mirrored, and Dirk is either right- or left-handed depending on the mirror. This can sometimes be the best visual cue to determine which move sequence is required in rooms with two possible orientations.
• Animated Music Video: "He's My Guy," sung by Julie Eisenhower playing Daphne's singing voice.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The home ports of the game often come with the option of having what button you need to press at what time displayed on default so as not to confuse newcomers—fortunately, the option to turn these off also exists for hardcore Dragon's Lair gamers.
  • Newer versions of the game (such as on PSN) offer a save feature that, if the player gets a game over, can immediately put Dirk in the last room saved in instead of requiring the player to play through the whole game up to that point all over again.
• Astral Checkerboard Decor: Dirk has to jump from square to square on an electrified chessboard to keep the bad knight from electrocuting him.
• Attack of the Monster Appendage: One of the first rooms you visit is slowly filled by the green tentacles of an unseen monster from upstairs.
• Badass Normal: Dirk the Daring. He has none of the magical, elemental or lethal weapons or abilities of the many, many monsters and villains he encounters in the games, armed only with a sword and his wits, yet goes through all of his adventures with virtually that alone.
• Bat Out of Hell: The Bat King.
• Big Bad: Singe the Dragon sets the game in motion by kidnapping Princess Daphne, prompting Dirk to go on a rescue mission that ends with a confrontation with Singe himself.
• Bizarrchitecture: Little about Singe's Castle, save for the main moat, the connecting hallways and the approximate 'exterior 'shape'' of a castle, makes much sense. It's just a series of disparate rooms with wildly varying design aesthetics, properties and features (some of which seem to be much larger/longer than a castle could reasonably hold) interspersed throughout Dirk's adventure. Long vertical shafts are placed next to above-ground river systems that combine rapids and whirlpools. Weird circular roundabouts are placed near long corridors with giant balls rolling back and forth. There's a random fiery field in the middle of the castle with strategically-placed bubbling cauldrons interspersed throughout it.
• Bloodless Carnage: Most monsters simply vanish into thin air when slain by Dirk's sword. The Tentacles have the decency to bleed when sliced in half. Giddy Goons, when sliced in half, have purple blood. The best death scene that doesn't involve Dirk would be Singe, and there's still no blood here.
• Boobs-and-Butt Pose: Daphne strikes one as she tells Dirk how to rescue her and slay the dragon.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: Singe actually keeps the sword that is able to kill him in the Treasure Room where he sleeps. (Of course, that only makes him an idiot as far as the storyline goes; gameplay wise, knowing this information and actually grabbing the sword and using it right before Singe toasts Dirk medium rare are two different things.)
• Brutal Bonus Level: The NES port has a bonus stage where you can try to get back any gold that the lizard king stole from you. It takes lives away and prevents you from continuing the game unless you get past it.
• Butt-Monkey: Dirk. He can be burned to death, electrocuted, drowned, hurled into bottomless pits, crushed by falling debris, crushed by tentacle monsters, swarmed by bats, engulfed by tar, dashed against rocks or walls, impaled by magic flying weapons... and it's always hilarious.
• Combat Tentacles:
  • In one room lots of green tentacles will fall from the ceiling in order to trap Dirk.
  • A lot of different enemies will try to strangle or crush Dirk in this fashion in the second game.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: Beginning in 2003, CrossGen Publishing produced a comic-book miniseries adapting the original game, with elements from the animated series included, such as Bertram.
• Cool Horse: Bertram, Dirk’s noble steed, from the cartoon series and the comic. He’s a White Stallion in the former, but has a bluish-gray coat in the latter.
• Damsel in Distress: Princess Daphne in both games.
• Dead Hat Shot: In some of Dirk's death scenes, his helmet gets left behind/claimed by whatever kills him.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Sort of. Don Bluth realized early on how unflattering Daphne's character was, not being much more than an oversexed, air-headed trophy girlfriend, and decided to portray Dirk as Dumb Muscle, so that they'd "be made for one another."
• Dirty Old Man:
  • In the 3D remake's ending, Mordroc zaps Princess Daphne in the butt. It doesn't seem to do much more than startle her, but Mordroc seems to... rather enjoy it.
  • Singe, according to the comics. Daphne's Stripperiffic costume isn't her idea, it's Singe's, and she's just the latest kidnapped maiden to have to wear it.
• The Ditz: Daphne. (Of course, Dirk isn't very smart either, so it evens out.) Played straight mostly, except when she tells Dirk what to do; she knows where the key is and how to defeat the dragon. Daphne also knows that the sword has magical powers. This Ditz is definitely smarter than she looks...
• Dragon Hoard: Singe owns a hoard in a treasure room.
• Dragons Prefer Princesses: The player's mission is to save Princess Daphne from a dragon.
• Dragons Versus Knights: The central premise of the game. You play as a knight named Dirk braving the lair of Singe the dragon to rescue the damsel, ultimately ending in a one on one battle against the dragon.
• Everything Trying to Kill You:
  • Singe's Castle in the original game, coupled with Bizarrchitecture. Everything from the gates, to sentient ghostly creatures, to ambient environmental hazards, to traps specifically placed just to squash or impale brave adventurers, is present. Dirk can barely go a single step without something, anything, trying to end him, including collapsing stairs and rooms that light on fire just by virtue of his presence..
  • Did something just flash white? It will likely kill you if you don't press the appropriate button or stick direction.
  • In the NES port, you die if you walk into a door, A FREAKIN' DOOR. Dirk doesn't just die, he changes to a pile of bones,^note which he usually does during the arcade game's Game Over scene from a door.
• Excuse Plot: Why did this dragon kidnap Daphne? Dragons like to kidnap princesses. Why is Dirk trying to rescue her? Knights always rescue princesses from dragons. Need more than that? Didn't think so. (However, both the comic book and animated adaptations give Singe a little more motivation.)
• Failure Is the Only Option: The cartoon featured "choose your move" segments offering Dirk a choice of actions, before cutting to commercial. In theory, a great idea; in practice, however, the viewer would sometimes get screwed as each option, no matter how logical at first, would still end in disaster. The writers then have Dirk choose his own strategy! Which wasn't even a choice available to him!
• Fake Difficulty: Ooooh boy... the NES version is probably the worst. Every single subtrope can be listed. The dedicated episode of Joueur du Grenier (in French) shows large portions of the pain the player has to endure.
• Fate Worse than Death: If he makes the wrong moves, Dirk can be shut into a sarcophagus by ghosts or locked into a tiny alcove by a gate (in both cases, he probably dies slowly of starvation).
• Foreshadowing: In Dragon's Lair 3D, when the player manages to find the Magic Bolt for their crossbow, Daphne suddenly sounds nervous and warns them to be exceedingly careful with it as it's a cursed object, yet it doesn't seem to pose any ill effects to Dirk in the slightest. That's because it's a lie. The "Daphne" who's been guiding him through the castle was Mordroc posing as her in order to have Dirk destroy his enemies and reclaim the Dragon Essences for him. The Magic Bolt is key in defeating him, which is why he tells Dirk it's cursed.
  • This actually is given a nod in Hollow's tale to Dirk after defeating Singe. Even though Hollow only tells Dirk of Mordroc's defeat and being sealed away, the dark wizard clearly has a crossbow bolt shot into his chest, which also hints at the crossbow being necessary to defeat him again.
• Gaiden Game: Dragon's Lair: The Legend is a Game Boy side story about Dirk recovering shattered pieces of the Life Stone after an attack on Daphne's caravan. A traitor had informed Mordroc's army of the caravan carrying the Life Stone, and one of Daphne's maids, before dying, used her sorcery to shatter the Life Stone and spread pieces of it across the land. Dirk must recover all the pieces of the Life Stone and awaken the Dormant Knight in order to face Mordroc's army.
• Giant Spider: One appears in a room where he tries to jump on Dirk's face to bite his neck.
• Going in Circles: Zigzagged. Dirk has to go through a lot of areas twice (and in the case of the elevator scene, more than that), but there's always a subtle difference to getting through it the second time, usually involving the stage being flipped from left to right (which can lead to moments of Damn You, Muscle Memory! if you reflexively go right instead of left to avoid a collapsing floor or dodge a monster).
• Gory Discretion Shot: Some of the death animations cut to Dirk's sword or helmet hitting the ground rather than showing what actually happened.
• Headless Horseman: Dirk has to dodge him and is unable to use his sword due to the Horseman casting a spell on it.
• Heart Container: Two different pedestals, one with a red heart (Health), one with a blue orb (Mana), are usually hidden in obscure, out of the way locations in 3D and take careful observation in order to find them. They increase the length of Dirk's health and mana meters respectively
• Heroic Mime: Dirk, for the most part. He only ever says four words, two in each game. In Dragon's Lair he says, "Uh oh!" during the flaming ropes scene, and "WOW!" upon seeing Daphne, and "D-Daphne? Yahoo!" when finally rescuing her in Dragon's Lair II.
• Hollywood Drowning: Certain Game Over sequences involve this happening to Dirk.
• Impact Silhouette: One death in the Smithy scene has an anvil hitting Dirk square in the torso causing him and the anvil to crash through the wall behind him. This leaves a Dirk+anvil shaped hole.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Two deaths in the Smithy scene involve magic weapons - a sword and a spear - plunging so far into Dirk's chest that the tips come out of his back.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The magic sword which can kill Singe. It's in the final level of the game and is implied to be the only weapon powerful enough to slay the dragon.
  • It's given even more of an upgrade in 3D, where it is again necessary to defeating Singe...at about two thirds of the way through the game. However, it does do additional damage to enemies and can command the powers of the Dragon Essences, as Hollow explains to Dirk, which gives him the necessary strength to defeat Mordroc's black dragon form.
• In Memoriam: The 3D remake is dedicated to Raquel Dionne Johnson.
• Iris Out: The game over sequences end with a traditional "contracting circle" iris out on whatever grisly fate has befallen Dirk this time. Or if you manage to beat the original game, you get one in the shape of a Heart Symbol after Daphne kisses Dirk.
• Kaizo Trap: If you set the game to Hard after you beat the Bat King, the bats will still get you no matter what.
• Literally Shattered Lives: One death scene in the Flying Barding level has Dirk and the barding literally shattered when hitting a wall.
• Living Statue: The Smithy qualifies as one. He remains inanimate while Dirk fends off the flying sword, mace, anvil, and spear, only coming to life to attack Dirk when the latter tempers his sword in the fires of the forge.
• Magma Man: In the Lethal Lava Land section some fat, humming... humanoids made of red lava will jump out of the craters and go after Dirk. If they catch him they jump with him in a nearby crater, turning him into one of them.
• The Many Deaths of You:
  • The hilarious death animations are part of the game's appeal, and take a lot of the sting out of its infamously-difficult nature, to the point that you may actually purposely fail a level just to see how Dirk will bite it this time. Wanna see?
  • This even carried over to the TV adaptation. Before every commercial break a narrator would ask the audience what they'd try to get out of the problem facing Dirk, then after the break show the consequences of the different options. Usually he'd succeed by doing something the narrator hadn't suggested.
• Metroidvania: 3D eschewed the "choose your own adventure" style narrative and transitioned to this style of gameplay. Dirk explores all of the dragon's castle, returning to various areas with new abilities gained from the Dragon Essences in order to explore the other sections he hadn't been able to get to before. Various hidden paths and rooms will generally reward him with more supplies or increases to his Health and Mana meters.
• Ms. Fanservice: Daphne, who wears diaphanous clothing, and apparently that bubble is pretty cold inside. Considering she was rotoscoped from a porn actress, it's not surprising.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: The princess's outfit has a deep v-shaped neckline that reaches her navel.
• Nipple and Dimed: Singe's lair must be very very cold judging by how, er, "perky" Daphne's chest is.
• No Animals Were Harmed: At the end of the credits of the 3D remake, it reads "No game developers were harmed during the making of this game".
• No Name Given: Singe the Dragon, the villain, is not named in the actual game—that would be given to him in the supplemental material, then spoken aloud later in follow-up material.
• Notice This: In some (but not all) levels, an object in the room will flash to indicate that Dirk should move toward it. There are a few Red Herrings that flash as well, though...
• Oh, Crap!: In the Swinging Ropes of Fire room, Dirk will murmur "Uh-oh..." when he notices that the platform he steps onto when entering the room is receding into the wall, then again if you wait too long to grab the second or third ropes, as the fire on the rope reaches his hand, causing him to let go and plunge to a fiery death.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder:
  • In all versions of the game, excluding the NES version. Unless Dirk catches fire, which will kill him in just one touch, of course. The NES version is only technically an aversion, as Dirk has 11 hit points... and almost everything in the game that can deal damage will do 11 hit points' worth.
  • Averted in the 3D remake; Dirk actually has a health bar in that game.
  • It's also played straight by the enemies. Almost all of them, including the big bad Black Knight, the giant Bat King and the skeletal Crypt Keepers will get vanquished in a single sword strike.
• Pendulum of Death: One deathtrap requires Dirk the Daring to traverse a passageway where three of these swinging blades await to One-Hit Kill Dirk, who must Press X to Not Die to dodge these blades.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Dragon's Lair for the Coleco ADAM and Commodore 64 turn some of the animated sequences into action-oriented levels, such as the Falling Platform, where you must not only jump on and off the platform to avoid falling into the pit, but also must keep yourself from being blown off by an Air Genie.
• Press Start to Game Over: You could lose all your lives in a hurry, especially since the level order is randomised and, in the arcade version, dying will send Dirk to a different level, making it common to face the most difficult levels in the game within seconds of pressing Start.
• Press X to Not Die: Pretty much the Trope Maker and Ur-Example, only it didn't even tell you what to press or when (though it did have the occasional flashing hint - although the flashing hints mixed genuine clues with Schmuck Bait). Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp on the other hand had every possible correct move flashing (including the treasures that needed to be collected).
• Red Herring: Several rooms feature flashing/glowing items which might seem to indicate that Dirk should go after them, but which actually lure him to his doom.
  • When Dirk is caught up in the gale in the Wind Room, a diamond can be glimpsed through a hole in the wall; there's nothing but a sheer, fatal drop on the other side of the wall.
  • In the Sliding Stairs room (AKA the YMCA room), after the second set of stairs turns into a sharp incline, both the hatch on the left of the screen and the chain on the right of the screen will flash. The hatch leads to safety, but the chain will release a torrent of water that washes Dirk into the bottomless pit in the middle of the room.
  • In the Checkerboard Corridor, there are two doors, one at the front of the room and one to the left that opens after Dirk dodges the fire and collapsing floor. The door at the front of the room leads to a small alcove; if Dirk enters it, a gate will close behind him, trapping him there.
  • The Room of Fire has a door at the back which opens and closes, usually a sign that this is Dirk's intended exit. If he tries to enter it, he will be consumed by flames; the actual exit is behind the bench to the left of the room.
• Regional Bonus: The European and Japanese releases of the NES game run much more smoothly thanks to using more adequate cartridge hardware than the North American release.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent:
  • Not only is the Lizard King abhorrent, he fights dirty. He attacks Dirk after a magic pot of gold snatches Dirk's sword and flies away with it, meaning you have to dodge his attacks while chasing down the sword, and can only get a shot at him when you recover it. Not as easy as it sounds, and when you manage to kill this guy, you're gonna feel as good as Dirk seems to, judging from his expression.
  • The dragon, Singe, qualifies as well, kidnapping Daphne and, in the cartoon and comics, more clearly being the reason Daphne is dressed so scantily.
• Rewrite: Daphne in the original game is (infamously) a Damsel in Distress who wears a scantily-clad outfit, spends her entire screentime in a Boobs-and-Butt Pose, and gives cartoonishly-obvious advice to Dirk ("This cage is locked... by a key!") that does little to make her out to be anything but The Ditz. Later works would heavily rework this scenario to make so that she was forced to wear the outfit by Singe, and that being in the "cage" made her much less intelligent than she actually is, as she would be more proactive in later works.
• Scare Chord: The game over screen.
• Schmuck Bait: One room is nothing but a table with a potion on it labeled "Drink Me". In a castle where every single inanimate object has been magically enchanted to kill you ^note  If you let Dirk drink the "Drink Me" potion, it magically turns him into dust and the potion becomes the water in his body . Interesting fact: if you lose all your lives on this scene, the table will have a loaf of bread instead of the potion and the sign will say "Eat Me". Which still counts as a Schmuck Bait. Even more interesting fact: Losing your final life in this scene in the Xbox 360 and Steam versions gives you the "Eat Me" achievement.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Some of Dirk's screams are pretty high-pitched.
• Shout-Out: Dirk seems to have been modeled off of Sir Kay from The Sword in the Stone.
• Squashed Flat:
  • In the Boulder Trench/Rolling Balls screen, one of Dirk's death animations involves him being run over by one of the coloured balls in the trench, resulting in him being flattened and plastered over the outside like a decal.
  • In the Pool of Water room, the final obstacle sees Dirk trapped between two closing pedestals. If the player does not get him out, he tries to use his feet to hold the top pillar up, but they close together with him in the middle.
• Stepford Smiler: Maybe Daphne is a little overconfident or just trying to Think Happy Thoughts when Dirk finds her. Whatever the case, she doesn't seem to be frightened in the least, even though she's eager for him to get her out.
• Stripped to the Bone:
  • In the NES version, many enemies and obstacles (and DOORS!) do this to Dirk regardless of the HP meter.
  • The Game Over sequence in the arcade original (but not the sequel) features Dirk fading into a skeleton, which promptly collapses into a pile of bones.
• Stripperiffic: Daphne and her little sheer black dress. Lampshaded in the comic: Singe has a legion of maidens he's transformed into vain bubbleheads who all dress like that, and Daphne just happens to be his latest acquisition. She does seem embarrassed about it and as they ride away at the end she's wearing a robe over it.
• Take a Third Option: In the Saturday morning cartoon version before cutting to commercial the narrator would ask the viewers what they'd do to get Dirk and his friends out of the problem they were facing, then show the various outcomes before showing what he actually did to get out of the mess. Invariably it was a possibility the narrator hadn't actually mentioned.
• Third Is 3D: Zigzagged. The original Dragon's Lair III is in 2D, Dragon's Lair 3D is a 3D remake of the first game, and Dragon's Lair III by Digital Leisure is footage of Dragon's Lair 3D mixed with the earlier gameplay style.
• Thong of Shielding: Daphne's "dress" is actually a g-string teddy with a transparent black silk robe over it.
• Treasure Room: The final room is Singe's treasure hoard, with Daphne in her orb prison as the main "exhibit". Dirk spends the first few seconds trying to keep collapsing piles of treasure from rousing the sleeping dragon.
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: When an action doesn't have a preceding cue. Also applies to the Commodore 64 port.
• Updated Re-release: Oh boy, where to begin... Considerably, EVERY "direct-to-video" port was superior to the arcade original in the sense of having new scenes. Of course, it can't be compared with Dragon's Lair 20th Anniversary Edition which not only does include loads and loads of bonus material, but also loads and loads of Dummied Out scenes. Escape From Singe's Castle for Amiga also has completely new scenes which are... Oh come ON, may anyone trace these for the new release already?!
• Wild Take: Though not as "wild" as most examples, you can see Dirk's eyes bug out when he first lays eyes on Daphne.
• Yet Another Stupid Death:
  • The direct-to-arcade versions indeed do qualify, but the NES port takes it to new heights. The castle door that kills Dirk instantly should only he contact with it? Everything's trying to kill you indeed.
  • In the PAL Super NES version, you can even die in the password screen.