Thayer's Quest

Thayer's Quest is a laserdisc adventure game initially developed by RDI Video Systems in 1984 for their unreleased Halcyon console and later in arcades as a conversion kit for Dragon's Lair. 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 .

Plot

The player controls Thayer, an apprentice magician on a quest to recover the five magical relics that make up the Hand of Quoid ("kwod") before the evil wizard Sorsabal can find them and cement his rule over the five kingdoms. During the game, Thayer only visits three of the kingdoms and finds their relics.

Gameplay

The game was fully animated like Dragon's Lair but required more than simply choosing when to fight or which way to dodge in accordance with the animation. Instead the player had full control over Thayer's movement to different areas and was required to find and use a variety of magical objects to overcome enemies and obstacles like in most later graphic adventure games. There were many ways to mess up and permanently lose the game. You also have several branching paths, with some changing some characters dialogue. The RDI'S Computer voice will sometimes give you hints, your score and when you lose a life in certain scenarios, such as if you chose a path that led to your death.