Laser Lords (Game)

Laser Lords is a space adventure game developed by Spinnaker Software and published by Philips for the CD-I system in 1992. It follows the quest of an unnamed hero from Earth, appointment by the Starlord Zendo, to stop the evil Sarpedon from destroying the universe.

The game is one of the few CD-I titles that has a more positive reception and has garnered a genuine fanbase.

See also Star Tribes: Myth of the DragonLord

Gameplay
Laser Lords is easily played with one hand. It is a dialogue driven side-scroller with limited amounts of combat. The player converses with NPCs by asking HAIL and NAME, which starts dialogue both typed and spoken on screen. There will be select words which can be highlighted. Clicking on a highlighted word will bring further dialogue.

Menu
Under the WORD function of the menu subscreen, highlighted words can be remembered, forgotten or said. Any highlighted word from a conversation can be remembered and repeated to characters, though most random words will have the NPC respond with their personal generic "I don't understand" phrase.

The RECITE function will display known Virtues, which are essential to winning the game. Each planet has it's own set of virtue and each virtue has four pieces to learn. Once all four are learned, the virtue can be recited.

Second to dialogue, items also play an important role. They can be found, bought, and most often traded. The TOOLS subscreen has four functions; GIVE, DROP, USE and LOOK. Every item has a description. Many items cannot be used. Several have little to no purpose.

PICKUP will pickup any item beside the hero.

STATUS shows the energy bar and life force crystals. One full energy bar is the equivalent to a life force crystal. More life force crystals are gained throughout the game. There are also hearts, which show how many lives are left. The game begins with 9.

BEAMUP will leave the planet and return you to the spaceship in orbit.

HELP gives tutorials on the subscreen.

Claymation
Laser Lords is unique for its extensive use of claymation, both stills and animated. The clay maquettes were made by Ronald Valentine Joyce.

When flying between planets, the player will encounter different spaceships, each one to give a unique message with an animated clay figure. Some are useless while others give important hints to winning the game.

In the dialogue screen with each NPC, there is a still image of the character's face made out of clay. The dialogue is spoken as well.

The Starlord Zendo is the most prevalent clay figure and was sold on Heritage Auctions in 2020. The original cover art painting sold in the same auction for over $4,000.

Music
Although brief, the synthesizer music played in the intro, credits and when orbiting a planet was composed by Tony Trippi. Wiliam Havlicek is also credited.

Additional Credits
Animation Voices: John Reinhart, Nathalie Brown, Jerry Goodwin

Voices: Richard Adams, Nathalie Brown, Sara Chazen, Steve Demirjian, Chris Flockton, Catharine Gibson, Jerry Goodwin, Kemp Harris, Bill Havlicek, Jonathan Merritt, Lindy Nettleton, Hank Van Putten, John Reinhart, Peter Snoad, Karen Tarjan.