Escape from Singe's Castle
Escape from Singe's Castle, also known as Dragon's Lair Part II - Escape From Singe's Castle, is a computer game for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum home computers. Later, Readysoft made the Amiga, Atari ST and PC versions. The game is sometimes referred to as Dragon's Lair II, but is different than the official arcade sequel Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp. It was released in 1987 by Software Projects.
| Escape from Singe's Castle | |
|---|---|
 Cover art for the 8-bit version | |
| Publisher(s) | Software Projects (8 bit), Readysoft (16 bit) |
| Series | Dragon's Lair |
| Platform(s) | Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, Mac OS |
| Release | 1987 (8-bit) 1991 (16-bit) |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Gameplay
Players control Dirk the Daring, the player character from Dragon's Lair, who has returned to the lair of Singe the dragon in order to claim a pot of gold (to save Daphne again in the 16 bit version). Singe has laid traps throughout his lair, forcing players to guide Dirk across a number of differently themed screens in order to steal the gold and escape.[1] In the 8 bit versions there are eight different levels.
Development
Software Projects had licensed the Coleco Adam version of Dragon's Lair to be released on 8-bit home computers, but due to the limitations of memory size and media space very few scenes could be contained in the conversion. Therefore, a second game entitled Escape from Singe's Castle was created to contain some of the missing scenes. Some retained the original control method of only allowing a directional movement at the right time. Other sections had a smaller, more controllable Dirk.
The Commodore 64 cassette version features the same loading system as the original Dragon's Lair conversion - the next game level loads while the player attempts the current level.
The Amiga version had a hard disk install option that supported the first Dragon's Lair conversion; a user that owned the first and second games could install scenes from both, resulting in a single bigger game.
References
- Walker, Andy (April 1987). "Reviews - Escape From Singe's Castle - Dragon's Lair II". Crash. No. 39. Newsfield Publications Ltd. p. 120. Retrieved 2016-04-23.