Dragon's Lair II Enhancement Web Page Pop-up Text If your browser is not compatible with the pop-up text on the DL2E web page, you can find all the pop-up text below. This is not a readme file for DL2E. There is no readme.txt file for DL2E. Game information is at the DL2E web page. http://www.dragons-lair-project.com/tech/enhancements/dl2e.asp --------------------------------- ENHANCEMENTS OVER THE LELAND GAME --------------------------------- Level progress is saved ----------------------- Time Warp has very long levels. Way too long to be starting over again when you lose a life. This may be a reason why the Leland game failed in the arcades. You can't expect people to put up with losing their progress and starting over again after completing 49 moves in a row, as can happen with the Leland game. When you lose a life in DL2E, the game will resume at the failed move, and you will try it again. (Exception: The first couple moves of the game will push you forward to the next move if you fail.) Seamless magic items -------------------- Leland called them 'treasures', but research identifies them as 'magic items' at the time of their creation. The sequences of Dirk collecting the items were animated to provide seamless video transitions, both at their starting and ending points. Dirk always returns to his starting position after picking up an item. The concept was for the normal game events to freeze in time, then play the animation of the item collection, and then resume the game at the same instant where it was frozen. The above video demonstrates how smoothly DL2E allows this to happen. In contrast, Leland somehow thought it would be better if, after the item was collected, the game backed up to an earlier point instead, (causing the item to appear again and flash again, even though Dirk had just picked it up), so that the player could be forced to complete the alternate joystick move that was also flashing at the same time as the item. This made a waste of the effort that went into making the segments capable of flowing seamlessly. Item collection not mandatory ----------------------------- In DL2E, collecting the magic items is important for scoring and earning extra lives, but it is not required to finish the game. In the Leland game, if you miss any, you are denied entry to 'level 7', and you are sent back to replay the levels where you missed them. If you miss them all, you must basically replay the whole game. Ridiculous! More death scene variety ------------------------ For any particular move of the Leland game, only one death scene can possibly be shown for any of the incorrect joystick/button inputs. In other words, if you make a wrong move, then you will always see the same death scene no matter what your input was. DL2E will usually queue up multiple potential death scenes during the same move and allow different incorrect inputs to have different results. For example, move left towards a dinosaur and get eaten, or move right towards a ledge and fall off. The Leland game never does this, and it assigns the same death scene to all of the incorrect joystick/button inputs. When appropriate, DL2E will even show different death scenes for the same joystick direction depending on the timing of it, to make sure that Dirk will never get killed by something that has not appeared on the screen yet, (nor by something that has already left the screen), as can happen with the Leland game. No reversed resurrections ------------------------- It's a general consensus that the horizontally flipped resurrection scenes on the Leland laserdisc look bad. DL2E will never show you these clips. The original Time Warp film includes reversed footage of only two scenes (Wonderland & Eden), and per the animators' usual practice, just like they did with the reversed scenes in Dragon's Lair, the resurrections for those two scenes were not reversed on the film and were left intact. (This is why they are not reversed on the laserdisc.) None of Time Warp's other scenes were reversed on film. This time around, the animators realized that the footage could be digitally flipped when the laserdiscs were pressed, and they could fill the film reels with more varied content instead. But when Leland was ultimately charged with digitally reversing the remaining scenes, they allowed the resurrections to get reversed along with them. They 'didn't get the memo' that resurrections are never supposed to be reversed! DL2E will always show you a proper-looking resurrection. No text overlay on video ------------------------ Leland obscured the video with text overlays generated by the laserdisc player during the game and also during the attract demo. DL2E does not obscure any video as it plays. Alternate climactic battle -------------------------- Using Dexter, DL2E offers the lost alternate scene, which was designed to be triggered upon collecting all the magic items during the game. (details below) ----------------------------------------- ENHANCEMENTS OVER THE CINEMATRONICS GAMES ----------------------------------------- Extra lives awarded for score ----------------------------- DL2E does not offer a 'continue' feature when the game is over. For an arcade game, a continue feature is not too much different than an unlimited lives setting. Some arcade games are designed to be virtually impossible to complete without adding coins to continue, but the Don Bluth games are not very long games, and they should not be 'churned' through with unlimited lives. (As demonstrated by people who churned through the DVD versions and then put them on ebay the same day they bought them.) These games deserve better, and they should remain a challenge. In fact, the traditional DIP switch option for unlimited lives is not even included in DL2E! (So there!) But it is still acknowledged that Time Warp is a harder game than Dragon's Lair or Space Ace, and that limiting players to only 3 or 5 lives may not be reasonable. So, the ideal compromise was to award extra lives for score, at intervals that can be selected with the DIP switches. The available settings are very flexible, and the feature can also be turned off completely. The 'pay-as-you-go' setting of Dragon's Lair offered the option to award an extra life with a mid-game coin drop, but other than that, DL2E is believed to be the first time that extra lives have been awarded for score in any version of a Don Bluth game... and it actually works out really great! The feature breathes a refreshing new interest and purpose into the entire scoring concept. New feedback sounds ------------------- DL2E uses the same three original sounds from the on-board sound chip, (the coin chime, the joystick dink, and the joystick buzz), and two new sounds have also been added! There is a new dink that plays when an incorrect joystick/button input has been accepted. You can hear it in the first video at the top of the page at time 0:12. DL2E will only play the traditional dink sound when a correct joystick/button input has been accepted, and the buzz sound will only be played when an input is not accepted. This means that, for the first time ever with this arcade hardware, each of the joystick feedback sounds will always have only one clear and distinct purpose. There is also one other new sound. A bonus chime will play when an extra life is awarded for score. You can hear it in the video at time 0:34. Variable scoring tiers ---------------------- The DL2E scoring system (fully explained in its own section below) may seem simple at first, but it's actually very dynamic. Every move of the game is worth a base 500 points, but you can increase that value by collecting magic items. This makes collecting items a key component towards earning extra lives. If you never collect an item, then you will perpetually earn 500 points for every move, and the difference really adds up! The scoring of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace is completely static. It always awards the same scores in the same places. Bonus score display ------------------- An increasing bonus score is awarded for collecting magic items, but instead of just adding the amount directly to your score total as usual, DL2E uses the score display to show you the bonus you are receiving! Watch the video of Dirk collecting magic items above. When Dirk picks up an item, its value flashes in the display. With the gameplay frozen at this point, it can easily catch the eye, and the player has ample free time to take notice of it. Coins and credits display ------------------------- If start is pressed while the game contains only partial credit, DL2E will display a message to tell the player that more coins are needed, instead of doing nothing like Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. When set to free play, DL2E will not show '02' in the credits display like DL & SA. It will show dashes to indicate that credits are not active. Longer attract mode ------------------- The original Dragon's Lair and Space Ace games provide only about 12 seconds of still images between each attract mode demo. That's not much of a rest from the demo sounds, and the DIP switch setting to play the sound only every 8th time is quiet for too long! DL2E has a much better balance. The DL2E attract mode has 3 pages of text instead of 2, and each page displays for longer, totaling about 30 seconds. The result is that DL2E is quiet for about 40% of the time during normal attract mode cycles. Additionally, in consideration of this longer delay, the DIP switch setting to reduce the audio now plays the attract sound every 4th time instead of every 8th. The result of this is roughly 4.5 minutes of silence between demos with sound, compared to about 6.7 minutes of silence when Dragon's Lair plays sound every 8th time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ALTERNATE SCENE (spoilers will slowly progress through all remaining text) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The role of the magic items --------------------------- Leland called them 'treasures', but research identifies them as 'magic items' at the time of their creation. For collecting all the items, the concept was for Dirk to receive some type of aid with safeguarding Daphne and defeating Mordroc. Somehow, all the items together in Dirk's backpack are capable of affecting how the game's final events will unfold (even though Dirk never actually uses any of them.) Exactly how are the items able to do this? That's a good question. But with the word 'magic' used to describe them, somehow it's all OK. The length of the alternate scene --------------------------------- The alternate scene is shorter, about half the length of the common scene. The number of moves that Dirk makes is also proportionately less. Comparison with the common version ---------------------------------- In order to be able to describe how the alternate scene differs, the more common ending must also be spoiled. Here is a summary of the common version: When Dirk finally confronts Mordroc, Mordroc places the Death Ring on Daphne's finger, and she transforms into a large banshee (monster) and tries to eat Dirk. While dodging many attacks, Dirk eventually manages to pry the ring off of her finger, and he flings it onto Mordroc's finger using his belt. Mordroc bloats up while the banshee begins to revert to Daphne. Dirk destroys Mordroc with his sword, and Daphne returns to a normal, sleeping state. At this point, some small dacaryii (little pterodactyls) start flying in to serve as Dirk's final annoyance for the remainder of the game. Dirk swipes at one of them as he stands above Daphne. This marks the ending point of the popular climax, and this is also the same ending point for the alternate version. From there, both versions are designed to transition into Dirk kissing Daphne while she sleeps, followed by their return home. A detailed summary ------------------ Spoiler! Full scene details: Like the longer scene, the alternate scene also begins with Mordroc placing the ring on Daphne's finger and Dirk throwing his sword into Mordroc's arm, but then Daphne disappears, and the ring remains on the platform where she was standing. As Dirk jumps over to grab the ring, he accidentally kicks it down to an area beneath the platform. He jumps down to get it, and the structure begins to crumble. Dirk removes his belt and loops it through the ring just as everything crumbles away. Mordroc shouts and takes aim at Dirk with his finger, and he fires down a magical bolt of energy. Dirk jumps away from it and twirls the ring on his belt like a sling. As Mordroc points at Dirk to fire another shot, Dirk flings the ring onto Mordroc's finger, and Mordroc bloats up. Everything begins crumbling, and Dirk jumps away as Mordroc's body explodes. Dirk finds Daphne sleeping, and rocks fall from above, wiping out the remains of Mordroc. Dirk stands above Daphne, and the dacaryii (little pterodactyls) start flying in. Dirk swipes at one of them, and from there, the game continues with Dirk kissing Daphne while she sleeps. Design analysis --------------- Admittedly, the longer scene is more spectacular than the alternate, and with that in mind, someone might be inclined to suggest that playing the longer scene should be the reward for collecting all the items, and that the shorter scene should be played if any items were missed, but this is simply not how it goes, as confirmed personally by producer Gary Goldman. The items need to trigger the shorter scene. Dirk's reward for collecting everything simply cannot be that his wife transforms into a monster and attempts to kill him. Obviously, in Space Ace, the concept of 'energizing' is to provide a more challenging and spectacular game and to get more score, but that concept (having a longer scene as a reward) doesn't translate to what's going on in Time Warp, and it just doesn't support the story or Daphne's well-being, or otherwise make any sense from Dirk's point of view. Dirk's reward must be the alleviation of hardship and the protection of his wife. And just to let you know, it has been painstakingly devised, through the design of the DL2E scoring system as outlined above, that the highest possible scoring game of DL2E occurs with collecting all the magic items and playing the shorter climax!