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How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

theguardian.com

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Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#101

Post by namenumber »

dekhn wrote: post #95
curtisblaine wrote: post #9

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.

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 techn…

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.

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#102

Post by zem »

achairapart wrote: post #5

Just reading "Prince of Persia" and in my head starts playing the oriental background music (by pc speaker! No sound card back then, at least for me). Also, the steps, the gates and all other sound FXs. Most people are/were fascinated by the fluid animations, but this game was perfect from every angle.

it's the colour scheme that I remember most strongly. I still think "very prince of persia" when I see certain colour combinations, especially cream and purple.

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#103

Post by [deleted] »

bluedino wrote: post #82
ecocentrik wrote: post #72

The developers of Prince of Persia still talking about the game more than 30 years later seems very bizarre to me. I remember a game called Flashback having very a similar graphical sprite animation innovation around the time PoP was released and I remember it being very fun to play, but nobody talks about it the same way. What's the deal with Price of Persia?

If you liked Flashback, try an earlier release (also from Delphine software) called Out of this World/Another World

[deleted]

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#104

Post by kirubakaran »

bentcorner wrote: post #4

I will always have a soft spot for the original Prince of Persia. It was one of those games I played constantly as a child, although only when my dad would let me use his Apple ][c. I only realize it now but it had some very unique game mechanics that even today you don't see very often (ok maybe that's a bit of a stretch but the mechanics were novel to me back then): - Notably you have 60 minutes to finish the game.…

Pardon my nit but it was stylized `Apple //c` fwiw, not `][c`. That was just `Apple ][` and `Apple ][+`.

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#105

Post by bryzaguy »

ecocentrik wrote: post #72

The developers of Prince of Persia still talking about the game more than 30 years later seems very bizarre to me. I remember a game called Flashback having very a similar graphical sprite animation innovation around the time PoP was released and I remember it being very fun to play, but nobody talks about it the same way. What's the deal with Price of Persia?

I had Flashback on Sega Genesis as a kid. For whatever reason, I was unable to get past the first obstacle. I had a similar experience with Myst. After a while I came back to those games and now they are two of my all time favorite games. I was excited to see The Last Night revive the rotoscope style but sadly it was never finished. I saw Replaced picked up the mantle so I created an account and purchased it on Steam before realizing it's windows only and I'm macOS :(

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#106

Post by aidenn0 »

glimshe wrote: post #40
jdw64 wrote: post #38

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

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.

Bionic Commando is that game for me. My best time is just under 16 minutes, but I'm generally the worst at video games of any of my friends; it's one of the few platformers I've beaten at all on the NES.

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#107

Post by frollogaston »

qsera wrote: post #60
kruffalon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because you have to use your imagination. Just like active recall (essentially guess consciously before checking the answeris) a better way to learn I think the less detail their is in the story (book, game, movie, etc) the more you have to do yourself and so it becomes your own experience rather than someone elses.

Yea, that is it. It is sad that people easily write off memory of nice things as "nostaliga"! Somethings really were nice.

This is like how people keep claiming Zelda Ocarina of Time is just nostalgia, but I first played it in like 2014 (after playing the others) and immediately considered it the best Zelda game.

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#108

Post by Timwi »

holoduke wrote: post #71
Lethalman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was also incredibly difficult. As a kid I couldn’t go beyond the first level. It was also difficult to attack the enemy at the right time. But still it was an amazing experience whenever I played it. I felt the pressure and the need to start again like no other game nowadays. But maybe that’s just because I was a kid.

pop.exe -megahit is what I remember to cheat. Then ctrl combinations for powers.

It’s megahit, no hyphen. Also the exe is called prince.exe in my copy of the game but it’s possible there were other versions.

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#109

Post by msephton »

aaroninsf wrote: post #100
bentcorner wrote: post #4

I will always have a soft spot for the original Prince of Persia. It was one of those games I played constantly as a child, although only when my dad would let me use his Apple ][c. I only realize it now but it had some very unique game mechanics that even today you don't see very often (ok maybe that's a bit of a stretch but the mechanics were novel to me back then): - Notably you have 60 minutes to finish the game.…

My favorite easter egg by far in this domain, was the Apple II version of Karateka. The game came on a floppy disk; if you inserted it in the drive upside down (the Apple II only used one side of the medium) you found (unusually) that the game would load, but was rendered upside down. It was fully playable. Non trivial given the way those games were written!!!

This is mentioned in the Karnataka history. Apparently it was trivial to implement and discovered somewhat by accident. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/-i-prince-of-pe...
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