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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

#31

Post by shevy-java »

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.

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#32

Post by CamouflagedKiwi »

ant6n wrote: post #25
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.…

Well thanks to the 60 minute game play and no saves, you only ever see the first four/five levels or so. It’s a great game, but that particular mechanic is …kind of annoying.

I remember it having saves? I'm not sure if that was an addition to the PC version or if I'm getting it mixed up with the sequel (which definitely did have them, but was also quite a bit harder so it _really_ needed them)

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#33

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Lethalman wrote: post #18
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.…

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.

I don't think it was just because you were a kid, if I recall correctly the controls were incredibly unresponsive. Probably a technical reason, that they couldn't or didn't want to interrupt an animation easily, but still.

Years later though, and games like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter have a similar sluggishness / unresponsiveness to them. But it doesn't feel as unfair in those games.

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#34

Post by Cthulhu_ »

lukan wrote: post #20
bschwindHN wrote: post #14

Such an absolute classic. My brothers and friends and I played this so much when we were kids that we had a notebook written up to overcome the game's "DRM", which required you to find a letter in a particular page/paragraph/sentence in the game's manual. You then drank the potion with the right letter floating over it. If you got the wrong one, you died and had to restart the game, but this was only at the end of le…

"The first time we got to the skeleton that comes to life and fights you, my heart was absolutely pounding. I didn't expect that kind of thing from a game, and you walk past a few other skeletons that don't move at all so the game conditioned you to kind of ignore them or just treat them as part of the environment. " Skyrim did that also pretty well. The first draugh zombies/skelletons lying km the catacombs are just…

But Skyrim ended up overdoing it, to the point where it's in every tomb (and there's a lot of them), so you end up expecting it and stab every corpse first.

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#35

Post by normie3000 »

timzaman wrote: post #2

Just buy - The Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985-1993 (Book #2 in the Mechner Journals Series) By Jordan Mechner highly recommended as 90s gamer

I read this and Masters of Doom back-to-back. Both very enjoyable, and great contrast between the two.

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#36

Post by nvader »

meerita wrote: post #22

This was the first game I ever played on a PC, and it will always have a place in my heart. I first played it on an 8086 PC-compatible machine with an amber monochrome CRT monitor (the kind usually paired with MDA or Hercules-style graphics, where everything appeared in those beautiful orange shades). Later, my father bought a 386 PC with a VGA graphics card capable of 256-color modes, which on my monochrome display…

My first exposure to Prince.exe was in the computer lab at school, which has a tiny set of DOS games, including digdug, space invaders and some typing game.

I remember when I was around 6 or 7, a boy a couple years older (and therefore, seemingly infinitely wiser) sharing the folk advice: "Play the other games first, don't play Prince of Persia too early or it will ruin all the other games for you"

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#39

Post by nvader »

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.

My favourite Easter egg about karateka:

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

Re: How we made hit video game Prince of Persia

#40

Post by glimshe »

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.

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