Rick Dyer (video game designer)

Last updated
Rick Dyer
Born
United States
Occupation Video game designer, writer, realtor
Years active1982–present
Known for Dragon's Lair

Rick Dyer is an American video game designer and writer best known for creating Dragon's Lair . [1] [2] [3] He founded RDI Video Systems, the developer of Dragon's Lair , Space Ace , and also Thayer's Quest , which was a conversion kit for Dragon's Lair. [4]

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Dyer next designed the video games Kingdom: The Far Reaches and Kingdom II: Shadoan, [5] the former being a remake of Thayer's Quest and the latter a new game based on it.

Dyer is also known for being the person responsible for RDI Video System's Halcyon gaming console, named after the 2001: A Space Odyssey AI 'HAL 9000'. [6] He also appeared on multiple news networks for the technological advances the LaserDisc system offered between 1983 and 1985 as the figurehead for RDI systems. [7] Despite the TV appearances and being branded as 'David' among videogame companies in a David and Goliath comparison, Rick Dyer Industries (RDI) Systems went out of business in 1985 and the console was never released. [8] In the late 1980s, he designed a line of fitness equipment called Powercise. One of his last major successes in the gaming industry was the development of Time Traveler in 1991.

Rick Dyer became a realtor for Apple Tree Realty based in Julian, California. [9] [10]

Works

YearName
DirectorWriterProducer
1983 Dragon's Lair NoConceptYes
1984 Space Ace NoNoYes
Thayer's Quest a.k.a. Kingdom: The Far ReachesYesCreatorYes
1991 Time Traveler NoCreatorNo
1996Kingdom II: ShadoanYesCreatorYes

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<i>Space Ace</i>

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Cinematronics

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Time Traveler or Hologram Time Traveler is a LaserDisc interactive movie arcade game. It was designed by Dragon's Lair creator Rick Dyer, and released in 1991 by Sega. Its plot is that an American old west cowboy named Marshal Gram travels to various timelines to rescue Princess Kyi-La and defeat the evil time lord Vulcor. The game is best known for its arcade cabinet which displays a "holographic" like projection, produced using optical technology from Dentsu.

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<i>Thayers Quest</i>

Thayer's Quest is a LaserDisc video game initially developed by RDI Video Systems in 1984 for their unreleased Halcyon console, and later released in arcades as a conversion kit for Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. In 1995 it was ported to home consoles and PC under the title Kingdom: The Far Reaches. The arcade machine had a membrane keypad for controls instead of a joystick. To help players learn the daunting—for an arcade game—controls, a small holder containing instructional leaflets was attached to the cabinet. A sequel, Kingdom II: Shadoan, was released in 1996.

Digital Leisure, Inc. is a Canadian publisher of software. The company formed in 1997 with the aim to acquire, remaster and publish numerous classic video-based arcade games such as the Don Bluth-animated titles Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp and Space Ace. Over time, they have acquired the publishing rights to various full motion video games, which they have re-released on a variety of modern formats. In more recent years, they have produced original games as well.

Princess Daphne (character)

Princess Daphne is a fictional character from the Dragon's Lair series of video games. She was created and designed by Rick Dyer and Don Bluth and introduced in the original Dragon's Lair in 1983.

<i>Dragons Lair</i> (1983 video game)

Dragon's Lair is an interactive film LaserDisc video game developed by Advanced Microcomputer Systems and published by Cinematronics in 1983, as the first game in the Dragon's Lair series. In the game, the protagonist Dirk the Daring is a knight attempting to rescue Princess Daphne from the evil dragon Singe who has locked the princess in the foul wizard Mordroc's castle. It featured animation by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth.

<i>Dragons Lair</i>

Dragon's Lair is a video game franchise created by Rick Dyer and Don Bluth. The series is famous for its Western animation-style graphics and convoluted decades-long history of being ported to many platforms and being remade into television and comic book series.

References

  1. "Review: 'Dragon's Lair' returns on Blu-ray Disc - CNN.com". www.cnn.com.
  2. Fox, Matt (December 1, 2012). The Video Games Guide: 1,000+ Arcade, Console and Computer Games, 1962-2012, 2d ed. McFarland. ISBN   9781476600673 via Google Books.
  3. "Rick Dyer, Shadoan and the Frontier of Animated CD Entertainment". www.awn.com. Archived from the original on August 4, 2009.
  4. "Thayer's Quest". Dragon's Lair Project.
  5. "The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers". dadgum.com.
  6. "RDI Halcyon" via www.youtube.com.
  7. "Rick Dyer and Halcyon - from 1983 1984 - RDI" via www.youtube.com.
  8. Rochefort, Simone de (October 27, 2017). "Something out of science-fiction: A short history of Dragon's Lair". Polygon.
  9. "Apple Tree Realty - Rick Dyer". April 21, 2017. Archived from the original on April 21, 2017.
  10. "Rick Dyer - , Real Estate Agent - realtor.com®". www.realtor.com.