Computer Games mag Interviews Don Bluth (1984)

Talks about the famous Dragon's Lair

To make up for the lateness of this month’s articles, here is another interview.

from the April 1984 issue of Computer Games magazine

The Computer Games Interview: Don Bluth

by Mark Brownstein

Meet the Godfather of Laserdisc Games

Dragon's Lair was the biggest technological leap in gaming since Pong. Laserdiscs allow designers and players to manipulate photographic-quality images, not the jagged computer-generated ones we are used to seeing, Dragon's Lair was composed of brilliant animation and fast-paced play. When it was introduced to the arcades last summer, computer game history was made.

The animation was done by Don Bluth, whose major prior project was the film The Secret of NIMH. Bluth can quite possibly be called the "Walt Disney of the 80s." His animation techniques, though more modern than the old Disney techniques, still involve completely manipulating each frame of film. Watching a Bluth film, one gets the feeling that something real is happening. By contrast, the Saturday morning cartoons use shortcut techniques, with repetitive backgrounds, minimal motion and a lack of rebl-life feel, Recently we visited Don Bluth at his studio in Studio City, California, and talked with him about Dragon's Lair, animation and the future of computer games.

CG: How did you get started as an artist?

Bluth: I'm flattered that somebody called me an artist. I think it goes back many, many years ago to when I was six years old and I saw my first animated film, which was Snow White, I became very interested in animation, not art. I only came to learn later that animation was part of the arts. So I became interested in that fantasy world that was very real, that you could get involved in, that really turned your emotions on.

I went back to see the picture many times, and became a fan of the Disney pictures, particularly the early ones. As I grew up, the child in me never did. I said, "That's what I want to do for a living." So I went to Disney, and worked there for a while when Walt was still there.

CG: Why did you leave the company?

Bluth: Mainly because when Walt Disney was there, he was the catalyst that made the company operate. Without him it's like a body without a head. So it doesn't really have the art function it had when he was there. He seemed to sense what the public would like in a story. He knew what would entertain them, He knew what would make money at the box office. So all of those visionary things that he had seem to be lacking.

CG: Let's talk about Dragon's Lair. How did you get involved in this project?

Bluth: Dragon's Lair came at a time when we were probably at our lowest ebb. We had just finished doing Secret of NIMH, which was not a box office smash. We were wondering whether we were going to go out of business, and whether all this would end with a whimper.

A man named Rick Dyer, of Advanced Microcomputer Systems, came to us one day and said, "I saw Secret of NIMH. How would you like to animate the first laserdisc game?" And I knew something about the figures in the arcade game industry at the time. It was something like nine billion dollars, compared to about three billion in the movie industry. I decided to give it a shot.

It took us about six months and $1,300,000 to produce the animation. And there's 22 minutes of animation in Dragon's Lair, If you play the game without any mistakes, you'll see six minutes of animation from beginning to end. But all the options that you have make 22 minutes.

The game was very difficult. We stumbled several times. We animated things that didn't work and spent a lot of money. When we first tested it, a lot of people looked at it and said "Oh wow," and a lot of other people looked at it and said, "but there ain't no game there."

So we came home, and we said we have to be sure there really is an exciting game. We didn't want to fall in the trap of building a game like other arcade games. This is different. This is a random access game.

CG: Why was Dragon's Lair so successful?

Bluth: What's exciting about Dragon's Lair is not particularly the game, but the vision that it opens up. Think-we won't have to look at those abysmal sticks and dots anymore! We can get Hollywood involved, start looking at photography, what our eyes are used to seeing. And it can be as entertaining, as tickling, as spine-tingling as you want it to be. That's really exciting.

CG: Does the two-second delay in access time create a problem?

Bluth: It doesn't seem to bother the players. It does seem to bother those who are watching it. When I play the game it doesn't bother me at all, it gives me a moment to relax. Space Ace is 50% faster in its decision making than Dragon's Lair.

CG: Who wrote the script for Dragon's Lair? Did you have any input other than the animation?

Bluth: When Rick Dyer and his group came to us, they brought some scripts. They had been working on this sword and sorcery thing for years. I got very much involved and suggested several changes. It became a group effort. We worked on the story together from that point.

CG: What kind of computer systems did you use to do the animation?

Bluth: We used no computers to do the animation. It's all cell animation, so it's all hand-drawn. It's a style of animation I call classical animation.

CG: How many people did you use to make Dragon's Lair?

Bluth: Our production staff was about 70 people. That includes all the artisans.

CG: Do you see any future simultaneous introduction of arcade and home games?

Bluth: Yes, I do. But if I were going to go into the home market, I would make games specifically for that audience, the same as I would make PG and G-rated films. They're two different things. I'd make the game slower, more relaxed for the home. The game in the arcade is a frenetic game. Everyone in the arcade is keyed up, busy, they're usually there with a girlfriend or boyfriend. It's all a big circus.

CG: Do you think computer-generated graphic video games are dead?

Bluth: It is my opinion that they are. They're still plugged in on life support, but I think those things died the first few months since Dragon's Lair's release.

CG: Do you think computers will put animators out of business?

Bluth: That question is the same as "Will machines ever put people out of business?" I think the answer is no.

CG: What about computer-assisted animation? You can define a character, give him him ten or fifteen different movements.

Bluth: That's valid. I've done a lot of poking around with computer-generated graphics and animation, and it's as difficult to do as cell animation, it costs almost the same, around $90-$100,000 a minute. It's a tool, like any other tool. If it's used wisely in the hands of the artist, it can be very effective. If you don't know how to use it, it's just a waste of money.

My first goal is to get the viewer to look at this and jump up and down. I want him to get excited. He's paying fifty cents, I want him to enjoy that. So I'm going to give him everything I know how. Whatever tools I have to use, whether it's a computer or putting in a car tied onto the end of a rope and dragging it through town, I'll do it.

CG: Tell us about Dragon's Lair II.

Bluth: I tried to get something that we haven't seen before, so it doesn't look exactly like Dragon's Lair, I thought it would be interesting if Daphne looked just as beautiful as ever; there's absolutely no sign she's been through anything. And Daphne is beguiled or taken away again by the Wizard and put into a trance. The Wizard plans on marrying Daphne and making her the queen of the Underworld.

But to marry her, he has that famous ring called the Ring of the Nebelungen, which is the big ring that Wagner wrote about. If you have this ring you have power over anything in the world, but you must forsake all love. So the Wizard has this ring. It's locked tight in a box with a timer and when it opens, he can put it on her finger and she becomes his. He has to keep her out of Dirk's hands until that box can be opened, then he can marry her.

Now this is what the Wizard does. He gets Daphne and doesn't just move her around in space, he moves her around in time, so she goes through history and the future.

Dirk goes back to the castle, where he finds a time machine. And it says, "I know where they'll be because that Wizard was my brother when I was alive. When there's trouble in history, that's where you'll find the Wizard."

So they begin to travel throughout the halls of time, encountering the Wizard. And the Wizard has all these allies, the evil men in time. We'll see Blackbeard the Pirate, King Henry the Eighth, and Black Bart out West. A lot of different textures will be in here as Dirk travels around, trying to get Daphne back.

I have a surprise in the game that I'm not even going to reveal right now. It's not a technique, exactly, but I think it's going to be fun for everybody.

CG: Other than Dragon's Lair, which video games do you like to play?

Bluth: I really have not played video games as much since I started making them. I love Donkey Kong. I liked Frogger, for some reason. I guess because it's a game of timing, I thought that was a fun game. I'm not as attracted to Ms. Pac-Man. I like Pac-Man. It's a board game, but your viewpoint never changes, you're always looking down at this board. The interesting thing with the laserdisc games is that because of photography, your point of view is always changing, which means that you have to keep thinking. You're reorienting yourself all the time.

CG: Why do you think the Secret of NIMH didn't achieve the success of Dragon's Lair?

Bluth: I used to lament this until I realized that Bambi, Pinocchio and Fantasia did not make money on their first release. The reason, I think, is that the audience has to be prepped to see an animation film. If they're not prepped they don't know what they're looking at.

CG: What's the future of laser games?

Bluth: I think we have a long way to go. People are very gregarious, we're fun-loving and we love playing games just like all the animals do in the animal kingdom. But we've got brains and we have reason, so the games have to be sophisticated. They have to touch familiar cords inside us, and the game designer's job is a big one-it's very challenging. He must design a game that appeals to the human psyche and will offer a challenge, while at the same time not rob him of his ego. We'll see games that are very different from what we've seen in the past.

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