A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans
jordanmechner.com
jordanmechner.com
It's been almost ten years since I read it also. Was originally published as a fake blog, with all the posts backdated according the journal entry dates from the late 1980s.
I remember discovering the "blog" after a night of insomnia, lying on the couch at dawn. I couldn't stop reading. After a few minutes I called in sick to work and spent the rest of the morning consuming the journal and literally tingling with excitement and nostalgia and pure inspiration.
I can't recommend it enough.
My graduating class was 180 people (very cliquey, I had very few friends). Myself (and notably, a woman who is now a doctor) were the ONLY TWO people to take programming classes at my high school (late 80's) (it was Turbo Pascal on the earliest PS/2, for anyone who remembers). My exuberant cries of "THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!" when I first used modems and BBS's, fell on deaf ears. It was a very lonely time to be a tech nerd... and yet... witnessing everything that has happened firsthand has been absolutely amazing.
I gotta be honest, though... looking back, it was quite terrifying to be in that position. If ANY powers-that-be had dropped ANY hint of "Just. You. WAIT!" into my life at the time, it would have assuaged my insecurities tremendously.
Here I am on a Commodore 64 circa 1985 (?) during a summer program: https://i.imgur.com/dTCqbYe.jpg I believe I was coding sprites to make a very basic game at the time. Karateka had recently come out and it was inspiring!
I'm not sure how much that came into play. A lot of programmers were writing games they enjoyed - for themselves, really. If others enjoyed them as well, that was gravy.
Alternatively, imagine being a wizard when nobody around you has any idea how someone would go about understanding how the magical box functions let alone being able to make it dance with brilliant images and dynamics responses to input using “only 1s and 0s”
I actually feel like it was easier in many ways back then. There were fewer resources, yes, but also fewer distractions, fewer decisions to get stuck paralyzed on, and fewer giants to compare myself against.
I wanted to make games that looked and played like the best games I'd played. Well, that was SimCity, which had 16x16 pixel 16 color sprites. I could draw those — not as well, but at least I had the technology available. I didn't need to be able to model, texture, rig, light, and render a 3D model.
I needed a language to program in. Well, my local Waldenbooks only had a couple of books on QuickBASIC and C. I did the former at first and then switched to the latter once I realized the former was too slow. I didn't get stuck trying to decide between C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Rust, and Python. Unity, Unreal, Löve2D, Godot, GameMaker, etc.
I needed time to focus. I didn't have Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, HN, and an endless parade of free-to-play games only a couple of clicks away. I was bored and coding filled the time.
It was lonely and limited, yes, but I believe solitude and constraints are often the most important ingredients in creative work.
My father had internet access well before the web as an engineer so I was sometimes able to get stuff. I remember buying some programming books to get started and sometimes getting access to text file tutorials that must have originated from BBSes.
But yah.. that was back when our abilities to concentrate were greater, there were almost no distractions, and most of us were working alone.. no product managers, no co-workers to disagree with or have them sow doubt, almost nothing to hold back someone who was talented and motivated.
I almost feel like I got cheated as what I thought work was going to be like basically doesn't exist unless you found your own company.
During the weekend, I'd borrow the car keys, go to his office on campus, and browse the early web sometimes until 3am, printing out the pages that I found interesting for in depth reading at home.
I was blown away that you could get information from all over the world for free. My biggest concern at the time was: "what will happen when he retires 15 years from now, and I'll lose access to all of this."
I've never been accused of being a visionary.
Regardless, very interesting and inspirational, they were really pioneering times.
In contrast, this opinion from another game developer is not positive:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/647929167?book_show_ac...
One thing I found hilarious was when Jordan comments how they got a young actress to motion capture the Princess. They were the prototypical geeks of the time, and he says they were shy and very embarrassed around her. We've come a long way... :P
Also fun that Jordan got his brother to do some of the Prince's signature moves. In some parking lot or similar space, if I remember correctly.
"Jordan's journals are remarkable. I so wish I had kept a similar record.
Reading them transports me back to that place and time. We all knew this was an exciting new industry, but I don't think we had any clue what it was going to turn into during our careers. There were no schools, no books, no theories covering what we were doing. Everyone was just figuring it out on their own.
Following Jordan's creative path is a great example of how to go with your own gut instinct. It's also a great inspiration, showing how persistence and determination can lead to unexpected and wonderful results."
Between the two journals, I really recommend The Making of Kareteka instead. It's more concise, and it shows Mechner at more of a formative age. Many of the things he did are easily related to, like not knowing what path to choose in life, cutting classes, taking transit because he didn't have a driver's license, or moving out for the first time. And even though it's a diary, it ends like a good story.
Making of PoP is a hundred pages longer. Though interesting, Mechner's attempt to enter the movie industry, international travel, and the development of PoP 2 made the book unfocused. At the end it peters out and abruptly stops.
I wonder if, of the two, it gets more attention because Prince of Persia is familiar to more people?
> NOVEMBER 10, 1986
> Called Kyle Freeman in L.A. (he’s at Electronic Arts now) and asked him what he’d charge to license his Apple music subroutine.
dang et al do an amazing job of fixing links when needed and getting rid of blog spam.
Banning FB outright isn't necessary because it's not always reposted elsewhere and is far too popular. Despite still having an awful long-form reading UI/UX despite years of designs and a focus on 'groups'...
Enjoy !
We succeeded by getting the 'megahit' keyword. That was my very first session of reverse engineering.
Videos exists:
Most platformers still violate conservation of momentum and let you change direction in mid air.
Ubisoft didn't like the idea of not playing the prince himself, so they spun it out into a separate property and came up with all the other plot points (genetic memory and Assassins vs. Knights Templar).
This provides a pretty good overview of what happened.
What was originally an idea for a next-gen, open-world Prince of Persia game became what is now the Assassins.
> ... I’m asking, “OK, so what’s next?” And I was told, “Let’s do a Prince of Persia, but for the next generation of consoles.”
> At first we thought that we could do a Prince of Persia open world. We did not [yet] have the concept of an assassin fighting in an open world
> since I’d just finished a game with a prince, I wanted a different character. I wanted the prince to have a different job than just being there waiting for mom and dad to die and take their place. So I wanted to have an action character — something that in his title, it was a job where you could actually see action right away.
The world record is 15:01.
This is a runner doing a glitched run, right at the start they don't even collect the sword!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USv8OQbg73M
Nick.
25 minutes is a decently skillful playthrough, don't get me wrong, but it's not surprising that someone on here would have completed it in that time when you think about how many people would've played it back in the day and how few are speedrunning it now.
- The guillotines in PoP.
- The death animation for victims of the TOZT Napalm Unit in Marathon.
- The "red alert" warning combined with Kestrel fighter escort launching sound in Escape Velocity.
- The wolf 4 screens left in King's Quest 1 (I played this at about age 4 and did not comprehend the idea of going somewhere else. I just kept trying to outrun it)
- Ampire Bot in Robot Odyssey
- The entire Chiller[0] arcade game. I still sometimes have nightmares about it, and I've only ever walked by it once.
They both turn my stomach just thinking about them.
The butcher in Diablo 1, filled with a room of dismembered corpses.
Aztec Challenge came close in creating tension, but not enough to feel scary.
Given that DiscFerret was "new on the scene" at that point, that was pretty fun to watch (from my seat on the other side of the pond). Shame Wired didn't bother to get the facts right and their editor wasn't concerned (in the slightest) with fixing the mistakes!
Still, it was mindblowing to be even a minor part of that.
(Only saying "the team" because I can't remember the names of all involved, and I'd rather not risk missing someone out)
And then reading down Jordan mentions “the founder of Stripe Press Patrick Collision reached out to me”.
What? Really? THAT Stripe?
More evidence that there are either even more Collison brothers than meets the eye covering for eachother or Stripe has a hell of a sleep deprevation skunk works program going on . . .
Thirty years ago today, I was at my Apple II, crunching on a six-week deadline to finish Prince of Persia by mid-July to ship in September.
I know this because I wrote it in my journal. If I hadn't, those details would have long since faded from my memory, along with the 6502 hex op codes I once knew by heart.
In 1989, I could never have imagined that Prince of Persia would last this long -- much less have foreseen it being ported to a future generation of game consoles from the makers of the Walkman. (Or to the big screen by the producer of Beverly Hills Cop.)
To all of you who've played, watched, and supported PoP over the years -- thank you! I've been especially moved by the things you've shared about the ways PoP has touched your lives. Your kind and encouraging words have been an inspiration to me.
Many of you have asked when there will be a new PoP game (or movie, or TV series). If you feel that it's been a long time since the last one, you're not alone. I wish I had a magic dagger to accelerate the process -- it would have been poetic to time a major game announcement with this 30th-anniversary year. But I'm only a small part of a bigger picture.
There is one PoP announcement I can make, and am happy to share with you. Stripe Press, an imprint specializing in books about innovation and technological advancement, will publish a hardcover collector's edition of "The Making of Prince of Persia" -- my 1980s original game development journals, newly illustrated with notes, sketches, work-in-progress screen shots, and as many visual features as we have the bandwidth to add by our target "gold master" date of September 2019 (30 years after Apple II PoP signed out of Broderbund QA). Oh, and there'll be an audiobook.
What I cherish about books:
For me as a kid who dreamed of creating mass entertainment, in the pre-internet days, when you still needed a printing press to make a book and a film lab to make a movie, the Apple II was a game-changer: a technological innovation that empowered every user to innovate. Suddenly, I didn't need adult permission (or funding) to tell a story of adventure that might reach thousands -- and ultimately millions -- of people.
That direct connection between author and public is still possible today for small indie games -- and for books. By contrast, making a major movie or AAA game requires millions of dollars and hundreds of people. It's a thrilling ride, and the rewards can be great, but by nature it's beyond the scope of what one person or even a tight-knit creative team can accomplish alone.
So it felt very much in the magical 8-bit spirit when Stripe's co-founder Patrick Collison emailed me to propose this book, and less than two months later, we're doing it. For me personally, in the midst of longer-term projects whose announcement is still a ways off, it's refreshing to add one whose timeline is reckoned in months rather than years.
In 2012, when the PoP source code disks I thought I'd lost turned up in my dad's closet, I discovered that an incredible retro-gaming fan and archivist community has been keeping the flame of early game development knowledge alive. The Internet Archive and Strong Museum of Play (which houses work materials and artifacts from my past projects) are already on board to help us make the collector's edition of "The Making of Prince of Persia" as feature-rich as possible.
As we move toward beta, we'll document and share our progress online via facebook, Instagram and Twitter. With luck, we'll be able to bring boxes of printed hardcover books to PAX East in spring 2020 -- 30 years after the PC release of Prince of Persia (which is the one most people remember). I hope to see many of you there in person.
Until then, here's a fateful time-capsule post (and photo) from the week PoP went alpha, thirty years ago. Reading it now, the drollest part is that I still thought (as usual) I was about two weeks from the finish line.
And then there's the mullet.
----- July 26, 1989
Left a stack of disks three inches high on my desk for Brian. Eleven for sales, three for QA, plus seven more. Hope they work.
I played the whole game straight through for the first time ever, start to finish, cheat keys turned off. Made it with seconds to spare (my hour ran out while I was fighting the Grand Vizier).
You know what? It was fun!
There’s a level of tension generated when you know you can’t cheat, which is completely absent from the normal playtesting I do. By the time that final battle rolled around, I had a solid hour invested, and damned if I was going to lose!
Still a few bugs -- two weeks of work, like I said -- but it’s a game, and a damn good one. I’m content. I’m ready to go river rafting.
The book for me is about spirit of working on your own projects, about curiosity and passion on whatever you choose to pursuit.
The first time I saw it was when me and my brother were in a store with my mom and saw this game running on a PC in the computer section. It must've been the first game I ever saw with 256 colour VGA graphics.
That evening we told my dad about this amazing game we saw in the store with graphics that looked like real people.
I think it was also the first time I saw a 3 1/2" disk. We still had a 286 at home with 5 1/4" floppy drives.
It also later became the first game I ever heard with Sound Blaster music and sound effects at a friend's house. That evening I told my dad how the music sounded like real music.
I also remember us giving our old computer to my grandma for word processing and she telling us that she tried to play PoP but got chopped up by the blades every time because she had to close her eyes when she tried to go through because she was too afraid.
Edit: Also, unlike the linearity of SoT, PoP 2008 has areas that can be tackled in any order and you can go back to any area you've previously cleared: it's kinda open-world.
More like a big hub, with the various levels connected to it, but without any loading screen between the hub and the levels.
On the upside, it's based on pre-Islamic, Zoroastrian Persian mythology rather than the more typical "Arabian Nights" style setting of previous PoP games, which was really interesting and different at the time.
I think I would enjoy a Sands of Time style game set in a PoP2008 world.
So he probably did pretty nicely for himself.
It got me to start my own journal. It also gave me the perspective of how long a road it can be to finish a passion project.
I regret nothing!
What a legend.
A9 is LDA #, load accumulator immediate. I've forgotten all the others, but will never forget that one.
I have a laminated copy, wallet-sized 6520 opcode page from an Apple II programming manual, just in case I need it.