Dragon's Lair

• Title — Dragon's Lair • Developer — Motivetime • Series — Dragon's Lair • Platforms — Nintendo Entertainment System • Genre — Cinematic platformer • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer • Programmer — Andy Williams • Artist — David Percival • Composer — Mark Cooksey

• Illustration — The Drawbridge, the first level of the game Dragon's Lair is an action-adventure side-scrolling platforming game. Players control Dirk the Daring who must complete levels to defeat Singe the Dragon and rescue Princess Daphne. As Dirk, players can walk, crawl, or jump forward, and he has an array of weapons that he can discover and use to dispose of enemies. Dirk also disposes of two meters, which allows him to generate light and take damage, respectively. The game is divided seven areas of the castle and four main levels to play—the Drawbridge, the Entrance Hall, the Gold Mines, the Hall of the Grim Reaper, and Singe's Cavern. Each level is interconnected by a hub level called the Elevator Shaft, which leads to the three other levels and a unique level consisting of one room where the player can recover their gold from the Lizard King, though this specific encounter is notoriously difficult in contrast of his encounters in the other levels. The game supports multiplayer, where each player controls Dirk by turn to achieve a higher score than the other player. The game also features an arcade-style leaderboard system, though it resets when turning off the console.

PAL and Famicom versions have faster gameplay than the original North American release due to improved framerate. Both versions also use 256KB ROMs compared to the US's 128KB ROM. Furthermore, the PAL version has also additional enemies in The Entrance Hall level: spiders, flying insects, and a giant snake boss at the end; new death animation (when Dirk gets flattened); splash screens that appear as the player enters each level (beside The Dungeon stage); and The Elevator Shaft area has increased difficulty with added projectiles flying around, touching one is instant death. The Japanese and PAL versions play most of the songs faster. Also, a part of the ending theme was changed. The 30 Life Code was added exclusively to the PAL and Japanese versions. It gives 30 lives to the player after they gain a high score and enter "BATS" as their name. The player will get the extra lives in their next game.