I did it with a pen and paper over several months

The mechanics of that game were more like a very fast choose your own adventure than the traditional move joystick left, spaceship go left mechanics.

Because the graphics were coming off a laser disk, they didn’t generate on the spot. There were predetermined outcomes to every move.

When people figured this out, information started to collect in the magazines, and the game became beatable.

I wasn’t great at Dragon’s Lair, but I got super far on Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp.

Cries in Sinistar. “Run, coward!!!”

It wasn’t that hard if you kept feeding it quarters. It took a lot of trial and error, but having infinite lives means it was eventually beatable.

I remember Dan from game grumps being really good at that game.

My older brother’s friend worked at an arcade. He opened up the panel and loaded this game up with credits for me. I still never got close to beating it

The only arcade that had that game charge $2 or something like that for each credit. I tried it once and then never again.

There was a remaster that was put out a few years ago: steam, gog. It was a nice piece of nostalgia finding it. From playing it on arcade difficulty and comparing it against the easier settings, it was pretty obvious this game was meant to suck up quarters. You just had to have everything memorized.

It’s simple: they didn’t.