Now for a commentary-free gameplay video of this game! Enjoy!
In Dragonfire for the Atari 2600, you have to go from castle to castle and get all the treasure avoiding the various fireballs being shot at you by the dragon in each one.
There are two sections. The first is a side-scrolling section where you must get from the right side to the left while avoiding fireballs. Left and Right on the joystick runs left and right, Down ducks, and the fire button jumps. There is only one safe zone, and that is at the far right of the screen, as the fireballs cannot travel there. Be ready to jump over the low fireballs and duck under the high ones, and remember that the fireballs can shoot out from the left side of the screen when you least expect them to. If you get fried, you'll lose a life, and you'll start back at the right side of the screen. You start out with seven lives with no way of getting any extra ones, so you'll need to play very well to get a high score in this game.
The second is inside the castle. You start where the door is, and the dragon will be at the bottom of the screen moving back and forth, shooting fireballs towards the north side of the screen. You'll want to pick up all of the treasures while avoiding the fireballs that the dragon spits at you. You start out at the closed door in the lower-right corner, and as soon as you start moving left, you'll come out of the room and you'll be susceptible to the dragon's fire. Some treasures will definitely be worth more than others, but the main goal is to collect them all regardless of point value. If you need to hide from the dragon's fire, you can move back into the entrance to use it as a hiding place, but the instant you move left, you'll leave the room and you'll have to face the dragon again. When you collect the last treasure, the exit will appear in the upper-left corner, and when you get to that door, you'll enter the bridge section of a different-colored castle, and you'll have to do this all over again, and with each castle you reach, the difficulty will be increased. If you get hit by any of the dragon's fireballs, you'll be sent back to the entrance. Move around to leave the entrance as soon as your ready.
The game ends when you lose all seven of your lives, and your final score will flash on the screen. If you want to play again on the same game variation you were playing, press the fire button.
The game select switch allows you to start on either the first level (green dragon), third level (blue dragon), fifth level (red dragon) or the seventh level (orange dragon), and also allows you to pick between the one- and two-player modes. The first number selects the game level that you start on, while the second number indicates whether you are on the one- or two-player mode.
The dragons range from green (the easiest) to white (which is nearly impossible). You'll need to be very fast and very crafty to get past the white dragon.
When you're on the bridge, you want to get to the other side as quickly as possible, but you also want to anticipate when the flames show up so you don't accidentally get blasted. As for the dragon rooms, using the entrance as a hiding place can definitely save your bacon on more than one occasion, so don't be afraid to use it to get away from the dragon's fire.
Imagic made a fast, frantic game for the Atari 2600 with this one. It's just a shame that this game came out in 1982, and if it came out a few years ago, this would probably a game that people would be talking about to this day. Alas, it's one of the titles from later in the console's lifespan, and as a result, it's more of a hidden gem than anything else. Still, the game looks, sounds and plays much like you would want an Atari 2600 game to play, even though running around on the bridge can be a bit slippery, and this is one game in the Atari 2600 and from Imagic that's worth checking out for the on-your-toes gameplay that it provides, especially if you get pretty far in the game.
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