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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

#61

Post by pmarreck »

nitrogen wrote: post #60
JKCalhoun wrote: post #53

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. 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.

Yes.

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

#62

Post by furyofantares »

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.

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”

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

#63

Post by munificent »

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…

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 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.

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

#64

Post by vidarh »

phjesusthatguy3 wrote: post #25
Waterluvian wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of gaming things scared me as a kid but are also some of my fondest memories of overcoming my fears. Some included: - 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 id…

- The skeletons stabbing you to death in Beyond the Forbidden Forest (C64) - 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. [0] http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/chiller/

The original Forbidden forest I think was the first game I ever found creepy/scary. It did a lot better job at creating an atmosphere fitting the subject matter than most other games of that era that were very arms-length in presenting peril to the character on screen without making it translate.

Aztec Challenge came close in creating tension, but not enough to feel scary.

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

#65

Post by dmix »

iamnotacrook wrote: post #56
jmkni wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would piss off the content creators no doubt. Let people have the traffic for the content they create.

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'...

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

#67

Post by ra88it »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #51
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.

Correct - website is gone now, replaced with the book.

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

#68

Post by marapuru »

mratzloff wrote: post #55

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 poin…

Thanks for sharing this. Do you have a source for this fact? :)
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