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A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

jordanmechner.com

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Re: A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

#51

Post by Kurtz79 »

stevepike wrote: post #19

The book he references ( https://www.amazon.com/Making-Prince-Persia-Jordan-Mechner-e... ) is a collection of journal entries he wrote while making the game. It's been about ten year since I read it, so the details are fuzzy, but it's a very raw retelling of the process of making a game basically entirely alone and before the internet. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who writes software.

Is it not available outside of the book anymore? I remember reading it on a website, years ago.

Regardless, very interesting and inspirational, they were really pioneering times.

Re: A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

#52

Post by Waterluvian »

lostlogin wrote: post #46
abakker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment when a Wight burst in your cluster of archers in Myth, and the game voice just said “casualties”. The butcher in Diablo 1, filled with a room of dismembered corpses.

Thanks for that, they were awful. The alien chatter from Marathon is up there too and hearing that close by was terrifying. The rocket launcher noise offset it a bit. More recently, the Half-Life face suckers were pretty bad.

I don't think I've ever heard a more satisfying rocket launcher sound effect than Marathon. That game had fantastic sound engineering.

Re: A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

#53

Post by JKCalhoun »

pmarreck wrote: post #45
stevepike wrote: post #19

The book he references ( https://www.amazon.com/Making-Prince-Persia-Jordan-Mechner-e... ) is a collection of journal entries he wrote while making the game. It's been about ten year since I read it, so the details are fuzzy, but it's a very raw retelling of the process of making a game basically entirely alone and before the internet. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who writes software.

Imagine being a lone nerd before the Internet and not only being filled with self-doubt, there was no social network to assure you that "your people" were even actually out there. 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 earl…

> Imagine being a lone nerd before the Internet and not only being filled with self-doubt, there was no social network to assure you that "your people" were even actually out there.

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.

Re: A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

#54

Post by philpem »

I remember, back in my university days, being somewhat loosely involved with the "POPsource" (Prince of Persia source code recovery). The team drove down to Jordan Mechner's place with a DiscFerret and a bunch of other magnetic media reading gear.

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)

Re: A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

#55

Post by mratzloff »

Fun fact: the original Assassin's Creed game was originally a sequel to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time called Prince of Persia: Assassin. In the original concept, you protected the prince instead of playing the prince himself, playing in an open-world environment.

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).

Re: A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

#56

Post by iamnotacrook »

jmkni wrote: post #40
duggan wrote: post #39

There is a post published on Jordan's blog covering this, might be easier to read (no Facebook login nag): https://www.jordanmechner.com/prince-of-persia-30th-annivers...

Thanks, noticing an increase in Facebook posts to HN, not loving it!

Yes, it would be nice if HN stopped just having a link to another site as the article, and instead had a little abstract of what you're going to see there. In the case of links to (un)popular sites (is there a version of 'infamous' for stuff that's popular but sucks?) enough text so that it's possible to search for alternative/original sources would be just swell.

Re: A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

#57

Post by Leace »

stevepike wrote: post #19

The book he references ( https://www.amazon.com/Making-Prince-Persia-Jordan-Mechner-e... ) is a collection of journal entries he wrote while making the game. It's been about ten year since I read it, so the details are fuzzy, but it's a very raw retelling of the process of making a game basically entirely alone and before the internet. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who writes software.

> I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who writes software.

In contrast, this opinion from another game developer is not positive:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/647929167?book_show_ac...

Re: A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

#58

Post by unwind »

scoutt wrote: post #47

I was a kid, but I remember disassembling the game with my dad to see if there was a way to kill that fat swordman mid-game, that killed us every time. We succeeded by getting the 'megahit' keyword. That was my very first session of reverse engineering.

That is some mighty impressive parenting! Really cool, thanks for sharing.

Re: A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

#59

Post by [deleted] »

pmarreck wrote: post #45
stevepike wrote: post #19

The book he references ( https://www.amazon.com/Making-Prince-Persia-Jordan-Mechner-e... ) is a collection of journal entries he wrote while making the game. It's been about ten year since I read it, so the details are fuzzy, but it's a very raw retelling of the process of making a game basically entirely alone and before the internet. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who writes software.

Imagine being a lone nerd before the Internet and not only being filled with self-doubt, there was no social network to assure you that "your people" were even actually out there. 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 earl…

[deleted]

Re: A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans

#60

Post by nitrogen »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #53
pmarreck wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine being a lone nerd before the Internet and not only being filled with self-doubt, there was no social network to assure you that "your people" were even actually out there. 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 earl…

> Imagine being a lone nerd before the Internet and not only being filled with self-doubt, there was no social network to assure you that "your people" were even actually out there. 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.

I think the previous commenter might be talking more about their own isolation rather than the global effect on the rate of software production. It's something many of us who come from communities that are later on the tech adoption curve can relate to.
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