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 not to be confused with the official arcade sequel Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp. It was released in 1987 by Software Projects.

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 (with the name of the scene they are based on from the original Dragon's Lair in brackets)

The Rapids (Underground River)
Avoid the boulders in the first section by following the "helper" arrows, dodge the moving whirlpools in the second section.
Boulder Alley (Boulder Trench)
Jump over the pits and avoid the giant boulders
The Throne Room (The Throne Room)
Avoid the electric sparks, jump over the electric disk and finally sit on the throne.
King Lizard (Pot of Gold)
Travel through the flickscreen maze to find the pot of gold and your sword (which is stuck to the pot). Avoid the Lizard King's attacks until you are armed.
Metallic Flying Horse (Flying Barding)
Guide the mechanical horse to avoid the walls and flames.
Lightning Room (Fire Room)
Avoid the lightning and try to escape the flames.
Checkerboard Corridor (Tilting Room)
Watch your footing as the tiles disappear and the bats attack.
Mudmen (Mudmen)
Avoid the mudmen and jump off the cliff to safety!

In the 16 bit versions there are eleven different levels (PC version has some more scenes, and does not have the "running in the labyrinth" scenes)

Tilt
Watch your footing as the tiles disappear.
Horse
Guide the mechanical horse to avoid the flames.
Walkway
Jump while the floor crumples.
Smithee
In the castle's blacksmith shop, be careful to moving objects that attack you!
Ropes
Act like Tarzan but avoid the fire on the ropes!
Lizard
Chase the flying gold pot that got your sword, and use it to fight the Lizard King!
Knocker (This scene does not exist in the original Dragon's Lair game!)
Beware! There's a monster at the door!
Goons
Defeat the Giddy Goons!
Mudmen
Avoid the mudmen and jump off the cliff to safety!
Labyrinth (This scene does not exist in the original Dragon's Lair game!)
Run across a labyrinth. When you reach the end of it, there's a cemetery: beware of the hands that try to catch you!
Crypt (This scene does not exist in the original Dragon's Lair game!)
Run again across a labyrinth. When you reach the end of it, you'll fight the Shapeshifter to save Daphne.

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

External links

• Escape from Singe's Castle at the Internet Movie Database
• Escape from Singe's Castle at Lemon64
• Escape from Singe's Castle at World of Spectrum