spyro the dragon is a platform game developed by insomniac games and published by sony computer entertainment for the playstation on september 10, 1998. the first game in the "spyro" series, it stars the title character, a young purple dragon named spyro, and his dragonfly friend, sparx, who must journey across the dragon kingdom in order to defeat gnasty gnorc, who has overtaken the 5 dragon homeworlds by trapping the other dragons in crystal and turning their hoard of gems into an army of minions for his bidding. "spyro the dragon" is an open-ended 3d platformer, featuring large, sprawling levels in which the player must locate collectable items, among which are gemstones, crystallized dragons, and stolen dragon eggs. spyro's abilities as a dragon include fire breath, a head-on charging attack, and a mid-air glide which he can use to scale large distances, all of which must be used strategically in order to find items and defeat enemies.