The Amiga Thread

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Dragon's Lair, originally released for arcades in 1983 by Cinematronics. It uses laserdisc technology, offering greatly superior graphics compared to other video games at the time. The game was ported to several other platforms, but as no home system technology of that era could accommodate the graphical quality of LaserDisc. But there was one port of the game that stood above the rest and was a faithful recreation of the laserdisc original. That version was the Commodore Amiga release from 1983. In this episode we deep dive and take a look at how Dragon's Lair on the Amiga came to be.

Rand!

[melancholy]

Rand is a great guy, don’t get me wrong. But how does a high school student get ahold of prototype hardware and a copy of the Laserdisc direct from the respective companies, fly to New York to meet with the original developers, and then arrange a team of artists to develop the game? It makes me wonder what his parents did for a living.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

He had his first game published on the C64 when he was 13 and worked on other games before Dragon's Lair, so he would have had connections and some money.

Here's an interview he did a few years ago where he talks about some of the things he worked on.

https://www.vintageisthenewold.com/inte ... eem-part-1

https://www.vintageisthenewold.com/inte ... eem-part-2

He worked on 2 of the worst games of all time after Dragon's Lair Amiga: Home Alone & Where's Waldo on the NES for Bethesda.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

https://www.winuae.net/

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Piracy was rife on the Amiga, with almost every game getting cracked by various scene groups. Developers weren't fans of this and they often left messages and rants for them in the code -- sometimes angry, but usually hilarious. Enjoy these gems!

[Hawq]

X-Copy made it so easy, think it was even given away on some cover disks at one point