Due to hardware limitations of the era, artists were greatly restricted in the detail they could achieve using that technique; the resolution, framerate and number of frames were severely constrained.

You control the actions of a daring adventurer, finding his way through the castle of a dark wizard, who has enchanted it with treacherous monsters and obstacles.

In the mysterious caverns below the castle, your odyssey continues against the awesome forces that oppose your efforts to reach the Dragon's Lair.

Comedic aspects of the game include bizarre-looking creatures and humorous death scenes, and the portrayal of the player character as a clumsy, easily scared and reluctant hero.

A team of game designers created the characters and locations, then choreographed Dirk's movements as he encountered the monsters and obstacles in the castle.

This device went through many incarnations from a rudimentary computer using paper tape (with illustrations and text) to a system that manipulated a videodisc containing mostly still images and narration.

Dyer's inspiration allegedly came during his viewing of The Secret of NIMH, whereby he realized he needed quality animation and an action script to bring excitement to his game.

Since the studio could not afford to hire any models, the animators used photos from Playboy magazines for inspiration for the character Princess Daphne.

Since some original sequences did not fit in the ports for those systems, they were re-released only in a virtual sequel called Escape from Singe's Castle: Various home computer adaptations of Dragon's Lair were released during the 1980s and 1990s, but because of (at the time) high memory consumption due to the detailed animation of the games, not all scenes from the original game were included.

The game was made up of unused scenes from the LaserDisc version, though some portions (such as the lizard king and mud men) were shortened.

The games were also updated to include higher quality video, authentic scene order and a new difficulty selection to make it more challenging.

Digital Leisure worked with a small independent game developer, Derek Sweet, to release a CD-ROM 4-disc box set for Windows-based PCs.

In late 2006, Digital Leisure released Dragon's Lair HD, which features an all-new high-definition transfer from the original negatives (as opposed to just sourcing the LaserDisc).

The Commodore 64/128 version of the game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon #133 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column.

[28] Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the 3DO version a 7 out of 10, praising the superior graphics and short load times.

Though they concurred that it was an arcade-perfect conversion, they concluded that "People who like the stand-up version or enjoyed any of Don Bluth's other titles [...] will be in heaven, otherwise it's probably best avoided.

"[31] Dragon's Lair initially represented high hopes for the then-sagging arcade industry, fronting the new wave of immersive LaserDisc video games.

[41] Dragon's Lair received recognition as the most influential game of 1983, to the point that regular computer graphics looked "rather elementary compared to top-quality animation".

[50] It was listed by Cash Box magazine as America's third highest-grossing arcade game of 1983, below Ms. Pac-Man and Pole Position.

[52] In Japan, Game Machine listed Dragon's Lair on their October 1, 1984 issue as being the eleventh most-successful upright/cockpit arcade unit of the month.

[53] One element of the game that was negatively received was the blackout time in between loading of scenes, which Dyer promised would be eliminated by the forthcoming Space Ace and planned Dragon's Lair sequel.

[55] In 1995, Flux magazine rated the arcade version 47th on its Top 100 Video Games writing: "A somewhat frustrating movement-timing factor, but still fun to play and watch.