Dragon's Lair III: The Curse of Mordread

This article is about the 1993 game. For other meanings, see Dragon's Lair III.

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Dragon's Lair III: The Curse of Mordread is a video game created by Don Bluth Multimedia and published by ReadySoft Incorporated, a direct sequel to its 1990 home computer release Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp. The game was released for the Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS in 1993, and, like its predecessor, recreates animation from the arcade version of Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp along with levels inspired by content cut from the original game. The game introduces new antagonist Mordread, who shares many similarities with Mordroc even recycling his voice clips previously recorded by Hal Smith.

A video game not fully animated by Don Bluth's studio, it is unknown if its events are canonical as Mordread and the cutscenes from the game are never acknowledged in subsequent games or media.

Official Description

"After destroying the evil wizard Mordroc in his bid for marriage to your beloved Daphne in Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, Mordroc's evil sister Mordread is demanding revenge. You, as Dirk the Daring, must test your skills as you are thrust into a frantic quest through time to save Daphne and the children. But you must hurry before the evil witch Mordread traps them forever in the Vortex of Eternity.

Dragon's Lair III: The Curse of Mordread brings the classical animation style of Don Bluth to your computer featuring full-screen animation, digitized sound and new animations not included in the original laser disc arcade game."

Story

Mordread, the evil twin sister to the now-deceased wizard Mordroc, seeks revenge on Dirk the Daring by imprisoning his family in the Vortex of Eternity. She seals Dirk's homestead and Princess Daphne inside an orb that she holds in her staff. Dirk, who was not in his home, sees this and chases Mordread, upon which she duplicates Dirk's Time Machine then escapes on it with Dirk chasing her on the original machine. The two come upon the same time periods that Dirk chased her brother in, such as Wonderland and Beethoven's Creative Gust. The two then appear on Blackbeard's pirate ship, where Dirk is promptly attacked by its pirate crew as he makes his way down the ship. Dirk catches up to Mordread, who quickly escapes as Dirk once again uses his Time Machine and chases after her.

Their final encounter takes place in the Land of Time, where Dirk is attacked by clock henchmen after Mordread's Time Machine crushes a clock house. Dirk chases the witch into the golden Vortex Castle, evading the castle's Alarm Clock guards to reach the Vortex Chamber. Upon the throne of the Chamber, two incarnations of Father Time (a white bearded old man and baby new year) fire energy bolts at Dirk. As Dirk dodges the bolts and the pursuing Alarm Clock guard, Mordread sneaks under Father Time's throne in order to drop the orb imprisoning Daphne into the Vortex of Eternity. When Father Time shoots his beams at Dirk, The knight grabs a reflective panel that ricochet two bolts into Mordread, abruptly aging her backward and forward before finally turning her into dust. Dirk catches the falling orb, exits the castle, and warps back to his home on the Time Machine. Now safely home, Dirk destroys the orb to restore the cottage and Princess Daphne, who embraces him with a kiss.

Game Manual

Introduction

A year has passed since Mordroc's demise at the hands of Dirk the Daring. Having pursued the evil wizard through the depths of time, Dirk confronted Mordroc in the chamber where Daphne lay in a deep, magical slumber. Using the wizard's own magic against him, Dirk managed to get the Ring of Death onto Mordroc' s finger. Expanding like a balloon, Mordroc floated into the air where Dirk was able to pop the bloated wizard with one mighty swing of his sword. True love's kiss brought Daphne out of her trance, and together Dirk and the princess returned to their home in the enchanted forest, prepared to live out the rest of their lives in peace and happiness. Or so they thought.

Billows of smoke began to rise from the enormous, copper cauldron occupying the center of the castle tower room. Waving her hands purposely through the air, Mordroc's sister, the witch Mordread, caused the thickening cloud to spin wildly, flashes of multicolored light producing eerie, flickering shadows along the walls. Reaching into her black dress, Mordread tossed a blue powder into the boiling liquid in the cauldron. Smoke stopped pouring out of the cauldron, and a strong, unnatural wind whistled through the room, blowing Mordread's dress and stark white hair streaming behind her. The spinning cloud began to thin, leaving a glowing haze to linger in the air, slowly pulsing red, blue and green, suspended above the cauldron despite the fierce wind.

The witch yelled out over the continuing gale, "Bing, bang, boom!"

Electric charges exploded through the thin fog, claw like flashes trying desperately to grab whatever might be within reach. "Zing, zang, zoom!" Mordread's hoarse voice boomed, causing the floor and walls to shake. From within the cauldron another burst of energy snaked its way up into the air, colliding with the magical electricity still grasping through the haze. Where the two mystic forces met, a glowing orb appeared, spinning as wildly as the wind blew, and within the golden orb an image began to take shape.

Green trees and yellow flowers appeared under a bright, midday sun, swaying slowly in a warm, summer breeze. A thatched roof, white house sitting in the center of a grassy clearing, the smoke of a cooking fire rising from the small chimney. At the side of the house a smiling hero swings an axe, chopping a fallen tree into fire wood. The front door to the house opens and a beautiful princess steps out, calling to the hero that supper is almost ready. Dirk the Daring walks to Princess Daphne and they embrace in a passionate kiss.

Mordread sneered, blue and red light reflecting off the witch's glistening, grey skin, "The two lovers, hero and princess. The two evil ones who destroyed my brother!" The witch tilted her head back and began to chant in a low, barely audible voice. The cauldron's contents once again began to churn, spitting forth another blast of energy. causing the haze to thicken and the two faces inside the orb began to waver. As the fog grew darker, a different image materialized inside the orb, a strange golden land, filled with spinning arms on hundreds of clocks. At the center of the image stood a tall, shining, gold castle, clock topped towers stretching high into the sky.

"The Vortex of Eternity will be the reward for your despicable deed. An eternal curse from which there is no escape. Never growing older, never dying, trapped forever!" Mordread took from a nearby table her magic wand, a large glass bubble atop a long, iron rod. First waving the wand several times overhead as she chanted, the witch plunged the glass end into the cauldron. Abruptly the wind ceased, instantly sucked back into the cauldron, and as Mordread raised her magic wand the dark fog leapt into the glowing glass bubble, sparks shooting off in all directions.

"And with this enchanted wand I will imprison you, house and all, to be transported to the Vortex." Arms held high, the witch Mordread began to cackle a wicked laughter as the wind and smoke returned, emanating from the magic wand. Spinning around the room, centered where the witch stood, the smoke circled closer and closer until Mordread was obscured from view. With a loud clap of thunder, witch, wand, smoke and wind disappeared, leaving only the sound of Mordread's sinister laughter to echo throughout the shaking tower.

Gameplay

Much like in Dragon's Lair and Time Warp, The player controls Dirk's actions by commanding him with the correct inputs necessary to advance the game forward to the next scene. Unlike Dragon's Lair II, the game does not display highlights to the direction the player needs to move Dirk, likely due to the constraints of the hardware the game was published on.

Cancelled Sequel

ReadySoft's 1993 Catalog included a letter from company president David Foster promising a home computer release of “Dragon’s Lair IV” in the fall of 1993, which never came to fruition as the company soon shifted its resources to porting the arcade games onto the CD-ROM format. Bluth’s studio created storyboards for an original opening sequence that featured the apparent return of Mordroc to trouble Dirk and Daphne in their family's cottage, eventually resulting in Dirk once again boarding the Time Machine to revive Daphne from the wizard's spell. David Foster later recalled: "Dragon's Lair IV never came to be. We were going to do it but ultimately felt that the spinoffs were getting a bit tired and we never went through with it. By this time, CD-ROM was becoming popular and so we moved our efforts into producing a full version of the game on CD.”

Trivia

• The game was not fully animated and used sprites as its main resource.
• The Pirate's Ship stage, planned for Time Warp but never completed, makes its animated debut in abbreviated form.
• Aside from the reused scenes such as Wonderland and Beethoven's Studio, many sound effects and voice clips from the first two games were reused, especially Hal Smith’s previously recorded dialogue.
• As in Readysoft’s prior home adaptation, the collectible Treasures from the Time Warp arcade levels are not present.

External Links

Readysoft Game Manual

References

	Video Games	[view]
Arcade Coin-Op Cinematronics: Dragon's Lair · Space Ace Leland Corporation: Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
Home Computer COLECO: Dragon's Lair Software Projects: Dragon's Lair · Dragon's Lair Part II: Escape from Singe's Castle ReadySoft: Dragon's Lair · Dragon's Lair: Escape from Singe's Castle · Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp · Dragon's Lair III: The Curse of Mordread · Space Ace · Space Ace II: Borf's Revenge
Home Console & Handheld MotiveTime: Dragon's Lair (NES) · Dragon's Lair: The Legend · Dragon's Lair (SNES) Oxford Digital Enterprises: Space Ace (SNES) Dragonstone Software: Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair Digital Leisure: Dragon's Lair Trilogy Other: Franky, Joe & Dirk: On the Tiles · Dragon's Lair (GBC)
DVD & PC CD-ROM Digital Leisure: Dragon's Lair III