Today’s spotlight is a bit different from my usual pieces as it is for a book. Collecting For Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace is as complete a collection as possible on the various versions, artwork and paraphernalia associated with the classic series from Rick Dyer and Don Bluth. While the series may not be huge in the public eye today, there is still a lot of love for Dirk.
The Many Faces of Dirk and Dexter:
Dragon’s Lair is the classic interactive adventure game from the 80s and was the first game to introduce the concept of Quick Time Events, long before the term was coined by Shenmue.
What helped solidify Dragon’s Lair’s popularity was the amazing visual design from legendary animator: Don Bluth. Out of all the games from the 80s, Dragon’s Lair’s visual design still holds up thanks to the quality of the art and animation.
Dragon’s Lair would eventually have one official sequel with Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp and the spin off — Space Ace. And from those 3 games, came all kinds of versions, art and collectibles which the book goes into detail about.
As an old school gamer and lover of great animation, I knew about the games and some of their history, but the book goes into far greater detail than I knew. I had no idea that there were so many versions of the three games made and that publishers and developers made “sequels” that were just more scenes from the arcade version.
The book is filled with “did you knows?” about the games such as hidden scenes, easter eggs and promotional materials, along with a look at the high end collectibles for the truly hardcore collectors.
Speaking of hardcore, Collecting for Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace is definitely aimed at the hardcore fans of the series. Outside of a few pages in the intro, there is no deeper look at the design or history of their developments, or any interviews with Rich Dyer or Don Bluth.
If you are not already at some level a fan of these games, the book doesn’t go into enough detail about the games that would give a newcomer any insight into the games themselves. But as evident by the sheer amount of collectibles associated with the games, there is a dedicated fan base already for all things Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace related which the book was definitely aimed at.
It’s rare outside of the few mega game franchises like Mario, Call of Duty or World of Warcraft for there to be so much paraphernalia available on a game series, but Dragon’s Lair was at the start of the game industry.
If you are a fan or collector looking for how these games has impacted popular culture, Collecting for Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace is an interesting look at an otherwise overlooked area of collecting.
