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Posted by msephton 2 days ago

How we made hit video game Prince of Persia(www.theguardian.com)
250 points | 101 commentspage 3
curtisblaine 14 hours ago|
I have a soft spot for Prince of Persia, but I have an even softer spot for Karateka, its (rotoscoped) predecessor on an ancient green phosphor Apple //e, a computer (and an age) where everything seemed possible.
dekhn 2 hours ago||
Seeing and hearing Karateka for the first time on an Apple II+ was a life-changing experience for me. Along with Ultima III, it made me want to be a game developer (I was in 4th grade, so around 12, at the time). Everything about the game is just so smooth and well-done- it has a plot, a progression, good animation and realistic sounds. I was pretty unhappy for years around the fact that I didn't understand the technology (machine language instead of BASIC, Apple's very funny graphics implementation, doing sound and animation simultaneously) to make games like that.
namenumber 1 hour ago||
If anybody wants to see how that entire creative process went, there's a "game" called "The Making of Karateka" on Steam that is a nice interactive experience telling the story of Jordan Mechner's start in the games industry and how Karateka came to be.

It's a fun media experience with a lot of playable prototypes.

nvader 11 hours ago|||
My favourite Easter egg about karateka:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFe28MNCG7o&t=17

magpi3 12 hours ago|||
Yeah, Karateka deserves more than a simple aside here. It's amazing that he made that on his own as a college student. I loved that game.
bluedino 5 hours ago|||
Oh, Karateka. I had the flawed Atari 7800 version as a kid.
larodi 14 hours ago||
The first two games to fall in love with - Karatéka and then Alley Cat.
phodo 12 hours ago|||
In 7th grade social studies, I did a report for a class project, and printed the Karateka opening screen on my apple image writer as the cover page. I got an A+ because of that cover!
prmoustache 8 hours ago|||
Desperately trying to jump on that bin to avoid the dog only to be pushed back by another cat peering over...

simple but good times

BrtByte 9 hours ago||
Prince of Persia is one of those games where the technical limitations are almost inseparable from the magic
pyb 11 hours ago||
Gobsmacked to learn that this was originally developed on the Apple II. I always thought of PoP as a 16-bit type of game.
pjmlp 14 hours ago||
Yeah, plenty of "wasted" hours playing that game.
jdw64 11 hours ago||
this game was so difficult that I never managed to clear it all the way to the end. I played it in the school computer lab, and it was one of the popular games... I can't remember the names of the others
glimshe 11 hours ago|
I once beat it in 27 minutes. I didn't know it was supposed to be hard at the time! I briefly checked speed run records now and that time would have put me in the top 50 "no glitches" ranking!

I'm not that good at games... For some reason PoP leveraged some brain circuitry I have with questionable evolutionary value.

jdw64 10 hours ago||
That's impressive. You clear this game... that puts you in contrast with me, who can't even become a 'prince' in a game
the_af 8 hours ago||
Like I suspect many here reading the story, I grew up with Prince of Persia and remember it fondly as one of my favorite games from my youth.

It's very interesting to see the filming material used for rotoscoping the characters.

I find it very funny that when they filmed the actress doing the princess (it's cool to see her doing the swirl with her skirt to face the Prince!) they were young nerdy men interacting with an attractive young actress, and they were pretty shy about it! I think Jordan Mechner recounts this somewhere, probably his book about the making of PoP.

(The book is something I really want but never decided to pull the trigger, go figure. Maybe because I already read a lot of it way back when it was a free blog?).

wdaher 8 hours ago|
Assuming we’re talking about the Stripe Press book: if you email me and if you have a US address I’d be glad to mail you my totally unread copy which is mostly just gathering dust for me. (Email in profile.)
the_af 7 hours ago||
I really appreciate the offer. I live in South America, so this is a no-go.

How come you didn't read it? Did you lose interest?

wdaher 2 hours ago|||
It's just been one of those "I just haven't gotten around to it yet" aspirational acquisitions. It seems very interesting and maybe I'll eventually get around to it.

It's more the satisfaction of (a) doing a small nice thing for a stranger on the Internet while also (b) freeing up a little shelf space is also worth the ~$5 it would cost me to mail it to someone.

bookofjoe 6 hours ago||||
https://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/the-making-of-pr...
the_af 6 hours ago||
Thanks! I've no problem buying the Stripe Press book, as I've said I simply haven't pulled the trigger yet. I don't mind the price, it's just that most of it I've already read back when it was freely available in Mechner's blog.

If I do buy it, I prefer the physical book with photos rather than a Kindle version.

I'm not actually asking for help here, just musing.

(Again, thanks for your reply anyway).

catlikesshrimp 4 hours ago|||
Aren't there low cost courier services in your country which all they do is bring your stuff from the US? In my country, bringing packages from amazon, ebay, etc cost 2.5$ for a pound.
the_af 3 hours ago||
Sure, but why buy from someone in HN? Amazon ships to my country.

As I said, I'm not looking for help here. I do know where to buy the book and I can afford it. I just haven't decided to buy it (yet) for the myriad of reasons people sometimes refrain from impulsively buying all the things :)

Also, I'm afraid of buying it and then never reading it, like it happened to the other commenter.

jgalt212 9 hours ago||
It's a great and novel game, but how many more retrospectives do we need?
christkv 5 hours ago||
This is a great interview with Jordan Mechner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQVB7tP1JIg
shevy-java 12 hours ago||
At that time it was a really great game. I played it a lot in my younger days.

Nowadays games are often epic like a mega-long movie. But it no longer feels like a game to me. Often the prompts and UI has been dumbed down to appeal to the masses. That may be a good strategy, but if I then compare it to old games such as Prince of Persia, they lost playability in the process. I can not want to be bothered to play such games, even aside from any time constraints I already have. Those "games" don't interest me into actually playing it.

On top of that there are milking steps such as play-to-win and other shenanigans. I can't support such evilness. I have also seen how they exploit younger people into addictive habits that way.

alansaber 11 hours ago|
My dad's favourite game. Still held up 30 years later, I played the shit out of this on IPad.