''Dragonflight'' is a 1990

role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

developed and published by

Thalion Software The company was formed by members of the Atari ST demoscene in October 1988, in Gütersloh, Germany. The main aim of Thalion Software was to produce cutting edge technology games. Despite the technical quality, sales of the games never really mat ...

for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

, and

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

. The game started development in January 1987 by two German programmers Udo Fischer and Erik Simon.

Plot

The game came with a 104-page novella that told the backstory of the game. Once abundant, the disappearance of magic and dragons has led to the world needing both to save humans, dwarves and elves from evil powers. The party consists of four characters: a human fighter, a human wizard, a dwarf fighter, and an elf all-rounder. Their quest is to find the dragons and a number of magical items.

Gameplay

The overworld is depicted from '' Ultima''-style overhead view. The dungeons are in first-person perspective. When the turn-based combat starts the perspective changes to a sideview. Combat is played on a grid map and an overhead view of the battlefield is also displayed on screen. The game is entirely controlled with a mouse.

Reception

'' ST Format'' thought the plot was outdated and documentation awful but liked the

non-linear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...

aspect of the gameplay. One ''

Amiga Action ''Amiga Action'' was a monthly magazine about Amiga video games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Europress (later IDG Media) and ran for 89 full issues, from October 1989 to December 1996. After its closure, it was merged into sister pu ...

'' reviewer said the gameplay is bland and unimaginative, another reviewer noted the combat as stiff and annoying. The difficulty was said to be too easy for RPG veterans. ''The Australian Commodore and Amiga Review'' said the game is technically excellent and compared the game favorably to ''

Legend of Faerghail ''Legend of Faerghail'' is a 1990 role-playing video game, developed by Electronic Design Hannover and published by reLINE Software for the Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS. Gameplay ''Legend of Faerghail'' is set in a medieval fantasy world. The playe ...

'', saying that ''Dragonflight'' has more depth and stronger storyline. ''

Aktueller Software Markt ''Aktueller Software Markt'' (literally ''Current Software Market''), commonly known by its acronym, ''ASM'', was a German multi-platform video game magazine that was published by Tronic-Verlag from 1986 until 1995. It was one of the first magazine ...

'' said ''Dragonflight'' is competitive with the '' Ultima'' series. ' had trouble getting the DOS version to run on a

VGA card Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can now ...

and when it worked the graphics were poor and the sound annoying. By 1992, ''Dragonflight'' had sold 25,000 copies on all platforms, making it the best-selling game by Thalion Software at that time.

References

External links

''Dragonflight''
at Thalion Software Webshrine *
''Dragonflight''
at the Hall of Light

at Atari Mania {{Thalion Software 1990 video games Amiga games Atari ST games DOS games Fantasy video games Role-playing video games Single-player video games Thalion Software games Video games developed in Germany