In 1983, former Disney animator Don Bluth decided to create a video game using his stunning animation talents. Instead of the regular sprite-based games normally found in arcades, Dragon's Lair created a vivid world through some of the best animation of the time. Of course in order to store all of this animation, Laserdisc technology had to be used. While this made for some stunning visuals, it greatly limited what could be done with the actual gameplay system. There was no moving freely around levels or controlling every movement of your character. Instead a series of specific directional and button inputs were used to loosely guide your daring knight Dirk through level after animated level in his quest to save his lovely Princess Daphne. The game would go on to become a huge hit - even getting to the stage where some arcade operators started installing additional screens so people could watch games in progress - but the technology the game made use of never really took off the way some had hoped due to its high production cost and lack of playability.
