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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

#81

Post by ben7799 »

munificent wrote: post #63
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…

I'm in the same generation. 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 l…

I am a bit younger, graduated HS in 1995. But I'm essentially of the same generation and learned on the same stuff. QBasic -> Turbo Pascal -> C in high school. I made a simple video game in my senior year of high school that cemented my decision to study computer science.

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.

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

#82

Post by bitwize »

als0 wrote: post #6
mariusmg wrote: post #4

Don't let it die Ubisoft, at least do a sequel for POP 2008 :)

How does POP 2008 compare to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time?

Way different. I like it much less than The Sands of Time, since you don't really die, you just restart the last brief obstacle/battle you failed. Battles are one-on-one, and negotiating obstacles is more like QTEs where you have to push the right button at the right time based on the appearance of the section of wall, etc.

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.

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

#83

Post by gcbw2 »

munificent wrote: post #63
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…

I'm in the same generation. 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 l…

The author diaries doesn't include much on how he gained the knowledge. That is the most important part IMHO.

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

#84

Post by pmarreck »

furyofantares wrote: post #62
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. 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 u…

I remember a lot of dumbfounded looks >..<

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

#85

Post by makomk »

tialaramex wrote: post #34
londons_explore wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the 11th fastest is 25 minutes, and the fastest is 15 minutes, then probably either there aren't many players, or not many players who post speedrun times...

Note that that is a _glitched_ record. To get 15 minutes you need to not only be very good at the game, you also need to know ways in which the game isn't what it seems to be, e.g. IIRC Prince of Persia has glitches that let you avoid doing some puzzles through careful timing, and skip most fights if you know exactly how to do it. This is a runner doing a glitched run, right at the start they don't even collect the s…

There's only one glitchless run on the leaderboard, in 21m 32s of in-game time by the person with the 8th fastest glitched run. It really doesn't seem like a very actively run game and glitchless is even less so. (Also, note that the glitched record is 14m 29s in-game time and this is what runs are ranked on. Completing it in 25 minutes on the in-game timer would make you 12th fastest out of 14.)

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

#86

Post by Reedx »

Leace wrote: post #57
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...

Eh, I prefer Will Wright's perspective:

"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."

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

#87

Post by makomk »

hypeibole wrote: post #5
skocznymroczny wrote: post #2

Recently I was playing through the PC version of the original Prince of Persia again. Last time I played was as a kid and the game was very hard for me, level 5 was about as far as I could get. I trained for two days until I got so good at the game and memorized everything, that I was able to complete the entire game in one go with zero deaths. Took about 25 minutes of ingame timer to complete all stages.

That would make you 11th fastest player in the world. The world record is 15:01. https://www.speedrun.com/pop1

If the original poster had managed to somehow record their original childhood playthrough and get the recording through to the present day with sufficient quality to convince the speedrun.com moderators to accept it, they'd actually only be able to claim spot 12 on the leaderboard out of 14. You need to look at the in-game time column, not real time.

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.

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

#89

Post by tverbeure »

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…

My father was a physics professor who worked at CERN in the early nineties. He had a MIPS workstation on his desk running one of the early web browsers. (I think it was Mosaic, so it must have been around 1993?)

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.

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

#90

Post by codyjones »

Leace wrote: post #57
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...

The reviewer is not wrong, though it certainly clouded his judgment of the book. The book needed more editing.

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?

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