Don Bluth’s DRAGON’S LAIR Finally Slays on the iPad

With his new studio, Don Bluth Productions, Bluth continued to make darkly toned films like the ones he was involved with at Disney, he established a much more cinematic animation style and pushed the boundaries of technology. In 1983 he teamed up with game designer Rick Dyer, to produce the first full motion video (FMV) based game called Dragon’s Lair. The mechanics involved letting the player control a cartoon-animated character via timed reactions to on-screen directions. The groundbreaking pieces to this game were the smoothly animated graphics and the fact that it was powered by laserdisc media. Leapfrog 27 years into the future and that same watershed piece of interactive media is available to download and play on the iPad.

For $4.99 you play the original bumbling hero, Dirk the Daring, in his attempt to rescue Princess Daphne from the evil dragon Singe. Dragon’s Lair along with its sci-fi follow-up Space Ace have been available on the iPhone for sometime, but the iPad provides a far better view of one of the most beautifully animated video games, that if navigated through correctly, also plays as a beautifully animated short film.

You can download Dragon’s Lair HD here in the App Store.