7 ms·

The Making of Prince of Persia [pdf]

245 points by gtsnexp 4y ago

teaearlgraycold 4y ago
I’ve got the hard cover version from Stripe. As someone that also moved to the Bay Area fairly young to start his career, I identified with the author. It’s a cute book and really does a great job of putting you in his head. I found it funny that he wasn’t sure that the video games industry would last.
- solardev 4y ago
  I didn't know there was a hardcover. Thanks for sharing! It used to be one of my favorite games and this would be a great sometime read. For anyone else looking, it's $23 from Stripe: https://press.stripe.com/the-making-of-prince-of-persia https://press.stripe.com/the-making-of-prince-of-persia (sadly it's only available from Amazon) You can also get the ePub version for $8: https://www.jordanmechner.com/books/journals/?lang=en_EN https://www.jordanmechner.com/books/journals/?lang=en_EN
  - runevault 4y ago
    For reference the physical version is REALLY high quality and worth owning for simply being a very nice physical object.
    - criddell 4y ago
      I've bought a few books from Stripe Press and they are all high quality. My only complaint is that some of them use a very small (to my old eyes) font. I bought The Dream Machine from them and ended up finding an electronic version for my ereader.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - solardev 4y ago
        If I had a penny for every time I tried to pinch-to-zoom a paper book... ...I'd have enough for an ebook
      - runevault 4y ago
        Yeah I have a few books from them including Human Puzzle and one other I'm blanking on just now. All have been things that feel nice in the hand. I can see how the font would not be great if your eyes struggle with their font size choice though.
    - solardev 4y ago
      You convinced me to look for a used copy on eBay (found one). Thanks!
      - criddell 4y ago
        If you like it, check out other books from them. They're a small publisher but what they decide to print aligns pretty well with the interests of many HN readers. https://press.stripe.com/ https://press.stripe.com/
        runevault 4y ago
        Thanks for linking to this, it let me look at the list and remember Hamming's book was the other one I bought. I really need to finish reading it, but it is so dense it takes a while to get through.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - teaearlgraycold 4y ago
      It’s also much longer
- merlyn 4y ago
  > I found it funny that he wasn’t sure that the video games industry would last. At the time, video games seemed to be overly saturated, the marketplace was way down in sales and yes, people didn't know if video games were a passing fad or not. Computers were still more a hobbiest item rather than a thing everybody had.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
wiz21c 4y ago
FTPDF: But I said: “No advance, no salary, and a 20% royalty. That would be my ideal.” He came right back with: “My ideal would be no advance, no salary, and a 15% royalty.” Those marketeers...
- wyldfire 4y ago
  Today, can an indie developer command much larger royalties than this? I would think/hope so? What kind of a cut do stores like Steam take? ~30%? Does that leave the other 70% for the indie developer? I suppose the indie is still responsible for marketing and all kinds of other stuff.
danrocks 4y ago
It’s an OK book but reading it after “Masters of Doom” kind of ruined it for me.
- NittLion78 4y ago
  I liked his journals from Karateka better than those from PoP. He was much less cocky then and his innovations seemed more novel and exciting, plus you know he was squeezing a lot more out of the hardware from that time. MoD was really an amazing book, though. Highly recommend for anyone who played the game back when it was still new (or anyone interested in a case study in product management).
  - kramerger 4y ago
    I really hated that he called Another World a rip off.
  - anyfoo 4y ago
    I echo that sentiment, the Karateka journals were awesome to read.
  - tombert 4y ago
    Second on Masters of Doom; my favorite part is near the beginning, when Carmack showed Romero the smooth scrolling on a PC, and Romero is running through the office trying to show everyone, only for most of them to be largely unimpressed. I thought it was telling that the only person who really understood what Carmack had made was Romero, and it showed why they (initially) made such a good team.
- gatane 4y ago
  There is a "Masters of Doom" for Diablo 1 and D2, I have not read them yet...
jenscow 4y ago
A lot of effort had gone into the motion-capture of the characters. Having played the game back in the day, it was well worth it - the movement was so realistic. Quite funny thinking about the amount of effort required to get the equipment for this, when you consider I can literally just pull something more capable out of my pocket now.
yrgulation 4y ago
A true masterpiece. Journals of this type is what we need, to understand the actual inner thoughts of people going from 0 to 1. Much better than marketing nonsense filled by survivals bias.
fareesh 4y ago
The documentary is on YouTube and worth the watch as well
- corysama 4y ago
  If you like stuff like that, check out https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/ https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/
bschne 4y ago
I read most of the print version of this (which is very nice and I can recommend). One thing that really sticks out about this is just how much work in such a project ends up going nowhere — you record something, you try using it weeks later, you realize it's useless, you do it again differently/better, lather, rinse, repeat. I'd somehow forgotten about this and started feeling kind of bad whenever I was working on something creative-ish (using it very broadly here) and didn't know exactly where each step would lead me. This sort of firsthand account of large projects goes a great way in reminding you that that's just part of the process.
- nerdface 4y ago
  We often forget that if something took one hundred attempts, then we've learned ninety-nine ways something won't work. Those failed attempts do go somewhere in the progress of project, they're just not apparent to the observer.
  - dcow 4y ago
    And while this happens at the company scale (1/100 startups succeed) I’m wondering why it doesn't happen at the software scale. Why aren’t product teams trying out many ways to meet users needs, scrapping, iterating, prototyping, and then finally building? Most of the time it’s: I want this feature, build!
    - Someone 4y ago
      Because perfect is the enemy of good. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good) And it’s not just that perfection takes longer to achieve; the estimate of how long it will take to reach it will be less reliable than that of multiple smaller steps. Because of that, I think one can even argue good is the enemy of good enough. As a simple example, a product is more likely to see the addition of, first, one report, than a second, a third, etc, than the addition of a good report builder. For the former, each step is relatively simple, and first value will be delivered sooner. For the latter, you’ll have to answer questions about what the full range of to be supported reports would look like. Even if you, up-front, know you’ll need to support tens of different kinds of report, it may be hard to argue that you need a report builder even if that seems to be the better choice to get to the end result. If you do end up with a report builder, it likely will be one designed by and written for developers. As an example, look at headers and footers in Excel, where, I think to this day, you have to type && to get a single &: https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2018/sep/excel-headers-ampersand.html https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2018/sep/excel-h....
alpb 4y ago
Thanks for keeping the streak going. https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jordanmechner.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jordanmechner.com
aix1 4y ago
I really enjoyed this video of Jordan describing the creative process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ozxnrs0BP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ozxnrs0BP4
shahar2k 4y ago
I was at a friend's halloween party around 2010 (with a bunch of ex-USC people) and there was a guy quietly sketching in the corner, I walked over and immediately recognized his drawing style. "are you Jordan Mechner?" I followed his sketch blog at some point. we had a short conversation, I told him how much I loved The last express (he joked I might be the only one) and I didnt mention how young I was when I discovered prince of persia. Really great guy, quiet, unassuming and just nice. Interesting party that night, I met another game industry person I admired as well as some other fascinating folks.
- anyfoo 4y ago
  The Last Express seems to have some kind of a renaissance in the past few years. It's about 25 years old buy now, which definitely fits the "retro" category, and as part of that people into computer gaming history rediscover it and laud it for what it is.
  - jslakro 4y ago
    That game tried to satisfy the personal aspirations of Jordan as a filmaker. A risky bet on narrative and realtime puzzles
    - shahar2k 4y ago
      true but also in many ways it was successful, within the limits of what could be done at the time. the way every event on the train keeps going regardless of whether you're there or not is something that nowadays you'd associate with a game like Outer wilds, a wonderful physics sandbox of a puzzler, but Last express did it with FMV and point and click! it's damn impressive and I bet a remake using something like metahumans could be interesting.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dclowd9901 4y ago
There's some real superheroes in game dev for anyone out there looking for inspiration -- Mechner, John Carmack, Lucas Pope, Chris Sawyer. They seem to be not just good at programming, but _everything_. I absolutely love reading dev diaries from folks like this.
ddingus 4y ago
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-7-jordan-mechner/id735180050?i=1000441628041 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-7-jordan-mechn... John Romero did an interview with Jordan that goes into early Apple 2 days. It is a good complementary listen to this PDF.
lstodd 4y ago
I think this classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Gosplan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Gosplan should have a link here.
dang 4y ago
Related: The Making of Prince of Persia (2011) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17845937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17845937 - Aug 2018 (70 comments) The Story Behind the Making of Prince of Persia (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8406626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8406626 - Oct 2014 (1 comment) Making of Prince of Persia now available as an ebook - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3134411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3134411 - Oct 2011 (14 comments) The Making of Prince of Persia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=952029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=952029 - Nov 2009 (9 comments) Edit - and why not: Prince of Persia in JavaScript - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29710538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29710538 - Dec 2021 (226 comments) Prince of Persia open-source port based on the DOS version disassembly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29316058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29316058 - Nov 2021 (96 comments) Prince of Persia has been released for the Atari XL/XE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28983738 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28983738 - Oct 2021 (17 comments) Fanmail from Romero (Doom) to Mechner (Prince of Persia) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972396 - April 2020 (1 comment) (<--- this is charming ----) How Prince of Persia Defeated Apple II's Memory Limitations [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22650980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22650980 - March 2020 (57 comments) A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20293779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20293779 - June 2019 (96 comments) Prince Of Persia Code Review (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19478499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19478499 - March 2019 (49 comments) Prince of Persia Ported to the BBC Micro - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16725362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16725362 - March 2018 (17 comments) Prince of Persia: Sands of Time free download for Ubisoft's 30th birthday - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912358 - June 2016 (20 comments) Prince Of Persia Code Review - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5917888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5917888 - June 2013 (30 comments) Prince of Persia – HTML5 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5223470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5223470 - Feb 2013 (39 comments) 'Prince of Persia' creator Jordan Mechner on telling stories in 48k or less - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3901599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3901599 - April 2012 (5 comments) The Geeks Who Saved Prince of Persia’s Source Code From Digital Death - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3871080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3871080 - April 2012 (17 comments) Prince of Persia source code released (Apple II assembly) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3851605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3851605 - April 2012 (70 comments) Jordan Mechner, Creator Of Prince Of Persia, Finds Original Source Code - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3776280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3776280 - March 2012 (1 comment) Prince of Persia creator finds lost source code 23 years later - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3772233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3772233 - March 2012 (67 comments) Prince of Persia C64 - Development Blog - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3286101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3286101 - Nov 2011 (2 comments) Prince of Persia for Commodore 64/128 released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3118358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3118358 - Oct 2011 (51 comments) Prince of Persia source code documentation [1989] [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961713 - Nov 2009 (15 comments)
hnthrowaway0328 4y ago
Just wondering do we have similar books for more modern games that more or less focuses on the technical/design details? By saying "modern" I mean games in the 90s and beyond. I have already read the following books: - Masters of Doom - The three Fabien books (just briefly as I'm not very technical)
- hbn 4y ago
  Andy Gavin has a fairly extensive series of posts on his blog about the creation of Crash Bandicoot that I quite enjoyed. Goes over the process of even choosing to be on the PlayStation at first (over other systems), the design process, limitations they ran into, and some of the ingenuity put on display to pull off some fairly impressive technical feats. https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/ https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/
  - hnthrowaway0328 4y ago
    Thanks! I did read his blogs but forgot to mention in the original post. I must say, I find these "Game dev in restrained env" books/blogs really fun to read!
lizardactivist 4y ago
Had a lot of fun playing this back in the day on the PC. The game was relatively simple as far as content goes, but it never felt repetitive or monotone. The making-of also reminds me of Eric Chahi and his work in Another World, and how pioneering it was.
jope12 4y ago
For people liking this book, this here might also be interesting: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2001502/Book/Its_Behind_You-The_Making_Of_A_Computer_Game https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2001502/Book/Its_Behin... Direct link: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/zxdb/sinclair/entries/2001502/ItsBehindYou-TheMakingOfAComputerGame.pdf https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/zxdb/sinclair/entries/200150...
lelandfe 4y ago
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/war-stories-how-prince-of-persia-slew-the-apple-iis-memory-limitations/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/war-stories-how-princ... ArsTechnica did an awesome "War Stories" edition with the same Jordan Mechner on how they got around memory limitations on the Apple II. It's like a video side bar to this PDF.
coderdd 4y ago
I recall reading it, and strangely I felt that making of the game is just a side-happening, while the author was on pursuit to get into movie industry rather. Am interesting contrast, given most people know and are amazed by the game in retrospect.
vivegi 4y ago
Wow! That brought back memories.

245 points by gtsnexp 4y ago

I’ve got the hard cover version from Stripe. As someone that also moved to the Bay Area fairly young to start his career, I identified with the author. It’s a cute book and really does a great job of putting you in his head. I found it funny that he wasn’t sure that the video games industry would last.

solardev 4y ago
I didn't know there was a hardcover. Thanks for sharing! It used to be one of my favorite games and this would be a great sometime read. For anyone else looking, it's $23 from Stripe: https://press.stripe.com/the-making-of-prince-of-persia https://press.stripe.com/the-making-of-prince-of-persia (sadly it's only available from Amazon) You can also get the ePub version for $8: https://www.jordanmechner.com/books/journals/?lang=en_EN https://www.jordanmechner.com/books/journals/?lang=en_EN
- runevault 4y ago
  For reference the physical version is REALLY high quality and worth owning for simply being a very nice physical object.
  - criddell 4y ago
    I've bought a few books from Stripe Press and they are all high quality. My only complaint is that some of them use a very small (to my old eyes) font. I bought The Dream Machine from them and ended up finding an electronic version for my ereader.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - solardev 4y ago
      If I had a penny for every time I tried to pinch-to-zoom a paper book... ...I'd have enough for an ebook
    - runevault 4y ago
      Yeah I have a few books from them including Human Puzzle and one other I'm blanking on just now. All have been things that feel nice in the hand. I can see how the font would not be great if your eyes struggle with their font size choice though.
  - solardev 4y ago
    You convinced me to look for a used copy on eBay (found one). Thanks!
    - criddell 4y ago
      If you like it, check out other books from them. They're a small publisher but what they decide to print aligns pretty well with the interests of many HN readers. https://press.stripe.com/ https://press.stripe.com/
      - runevault 4y ago
        Thanks for linking to this, it let me look at the list and remember Hamming's book was the other one I bought. I really need to finish reading it, but it is so dense it takes a while to get through.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - teaearlgraycold 4y ago
    It’s also much longer
merlyn 4y ago
> I found it funny that he wasn’t sure that the video games industry would last. At the time, video games seemed to be overly saturated, the marketplace was way down in sales and yes, people didn't know if video games were a passing fad or not. Computers were still more a hobbiest item rather than a thing everybody had.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

wiz21c 4y ago

FTPDF: But I said: “No advance, no salary, and a 20% royalty. That would be my ideal.” He came right back with: “My ideal would be no advance, no salary, and a 15% royalty.” Those marketeers...

wyldfire 4y ago
Today, can an indie developer command much larger royalties than this? I would think/hope so? What kind of a cut do stores like Steam take? ~30%? Does that leave the other 70% for the indie developer? I suppose the indie is still responsible for marketing and all kinds of other stuff.

danrocks 4y ago

It’s an OK book but reading it after “Masters of Doom” kind of ruined it for me.

NittLion78 4y ago
I liked his journals from Karateka better than those from PoP. He was much less cocky then and his innovations seemed more novel and exciting, plus you know he was squeezing a lot more out of the hardware from that time. MoD was really an amazing book, though. Highly recommend for anyone who played the game back when it was still new (or anyone interested in a case study in product management).
- kramerger 4y ago
  I really hated that he called Another World a rip off.
- anyfoo 4y ago
  I echo that sentiment, the Karateka journals were awesome to read.
- tombert 4y ago
  Second on Masters of Doom; my favorite part is near the beginning, when Carmack showed Romero the smooth scrolling on a PC, and Romero is running through the office trying to show everyone, only for most of them to be largely unimpressed. I thought it was telling that the only person who really understood what Carmack had made was Romero, and it showed why they (initially) made such a good team.
gatane 4y ago
There is a "Masters of Doom" for Diablo 1 and D2, I have not read them yet...

jenscow 4y ago

A lot of effort had gone into the motion-capture of the characters. Having played the game back in the day, it was well worth it - the movement was so realistic. Quite funny thinking about the amount of effort required to get the equipment for this, when you consider I can literally just pull something more capable out of my pocket now.

yrgulation 4y ago

A true masterpiece. Journals of this type is what we need, to understand the actual inner thoughts of people going from 0 to 1. Much better than marketing nonsense filled by survivals bias.

fareesh 4y ago

The documentary is on YouTube and worth the watch as well

corysama 4y ago
If you like stuff like that, check out https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/ https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/

bschne 4y ago

I read most of the print version of this (which is very nice and I can recommend). One thing that really sticks out about this is just how much work in such a project ends up going nowhere — you record something, you try using it weeks later, you realize it's useless, you do it again differently/better, lather, rinse, repeat. I'd somehow forgotten about this and started feeling kind of bad whenever I was working on something creative-ish (using it very broadly here) and didn't know exactly where each step would lead me. This sort of firsthand account of large projects goes a great way in reminding you that that's just part of the process.

nerdface 4y ago
We often forget that if something took one hundred attempts, then we've learned ninety-nine ways something won't work. Those failed attempts do go somewhere in the progress of project, they're just not apparent to the observer.
- dcow 4y ago
  And while this happens at the company scale (1/100 startups succeed) I’m wondering why it doesn't happen at the software scale. Why aren’t product teams trying out many ways to meet users needs, scrapping, iterating, prototyping, and then finally building? Most of the time it’s: I want this feature, build!
  - Someone 4y ago
    Because perfect is the enemy of good. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good) And it’s not just that perfection takes longer to achieve; the estimate of how long it will take to reach it will be less reliable than that of multiple smaller steps. Because of that, I think one can even argue good is the enemy of good enough. As a simple example, a product is more likely to see the addition of, first, one report, than a second, a third, etc, than the addition of a good report builder. For the former, each step is relatively simple, and first value will be delivered sooner. For the latter, you’ll have to answer questions about what the full range of to be supported reports would look like. Even if you, up-front, know you’ll need to support tens of different kinds of report, it may be hard to argue that you need a report builder even if that seems to be the better choice to get to the end result. If you do end up with a report builder, it likely will be one designed by and written for developers. As an example, look at headers and footers in Excel, where, I think to this day, you have to type && to get a single &: https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2018/sep/excel-headers-ampersand.html https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2018/sep/excel-h....

alpb 4y ago

Thanks for keeping the streak going. https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jordanmechner.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jordanmechner.com

aix1 4y ago

I really enjoyed this video of Jordan describing the creative process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ozxnrs0BP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ozxnrs0BP4

shahar2k 4y ago

I was at a friend's halloween party around 2010 (with a bunch of ex-USC people) and there was a guy quietly sketching in the corner, I walked over and immediately recognized his drawing style. "are you Jordan Mechner?" I followed his sketch blog at some point. we had a short conversation, I told him how much I loved The last express (he joked I might be the only one) and I didnt mention how young I was when I discovered prince of persia. Really great guy, quiet, unassuming and just nice. Interesting party that night, I met another game industry person I admired as well as some other fascinating folks.

anyfoo 4y ago
The Last Express seems to have some kind of a renaissance in the past few years. It's about 25 years old buy now, which definitely fits the "retro" category, and as part of that people into computer gaming history rediscover it and laud it for what it is.
- jslakro 4y ago
  That game tried to satisfy the personal aspirations of Jordan as a filmaker. A risky bet on narrative and realtime puzzles
  - shahar2k 4y ago
    true but also in many ways it was successful, within the limits of what could be done at the time. the way every event on the train keeps going regardless of whether you're there or not is something that nowadays you'd associate with a game like Outer wilds, a wonderful physics sandbox of a puzzler, but Last express did it with FMV and point and click! it's damn impressive and I bet a remake using something like metahumans could be interesting.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

dclowd9901 4y ago

There's some real superheroes in game dev for anyone out there looking for inspiration -- Mechner, John Carmack, Lucas Pope, Chris Sawyer. They seem to be not just good at programming, but _everything_. I absolutely love reading dev diaries from folks like this.

ddingus 4y ago

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-7-jordan-mechner/id735180050?i=1000441628041 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-7-jordan-mechn... John Romero did an interview with Jordan that goes into early Apple 2 days. It is a good complementary listen to this PDF.

lstodd 4y ago

I think this classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Gosplan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Gosplan should have a link here.

dang 4y ago

Related: The Making of Prince of Persia (2011) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17845937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17845937 - Aug 2018 (70 comments) The Story Behind the Making of Prince of Persia (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8406626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8406626 - Oct 2014 (1 comment) Making of Prince of Persia now available as an ebook - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3134411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3134411 - Oct 2011 (14 comments) The Making of Prince of Persia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=952029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=952029 - Nov 2009 (9 comments) Edit - and why not: Prince of Persia in JavaScript - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29710538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29710538 - Dec 2021 (226 comments) Prince of Persia open-source port based on the DOS version disassembly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29316058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29316058 - Nov 2021 (96 comments) Prince of Persia has been released for the Atari XL/XE - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28983738 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28983738 - Oct 2021 (17 comments) Fanmail from Romero (Doom) to Mechner (Prince of Persia) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972396 - April 2020 (1 comment) (<--- this is charming ----) How Prince of Persia Defeated Apple II's Memory Limitations [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22650980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22650980 - March 2020 (57 comments) A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20293779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20293779 - June 2019 (96 comments) Prince Of Persia Code Review (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19478499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19478499 - March 2019 (49 comments) Prince of Persia Ported to the BBC Micro - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16725362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16725362 - March 2018 (17 comments) Prince of Persia: Sands of Time free download for Ubisoft's 30th birthday - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912358 - June 2016 (20 comments) Prince Of Persia Code Review - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5917888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5917888 - June 2013 (30 comments) Prince of Persia – HTML5 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5223470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5223470 - Feb 2013 (39 comments) 'Prince of Persia' creator Jordan Mechner on telling stories in 48k or less - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3901599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3901599 - April 2012 (5 comments) The Geeks Who Saved Prince of Persia’s Source Code From Digital Death - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3871080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3871080 - April 2012 (17 comments) Prince of Persia source code released (Apple II assembly) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3851605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3851605 - April 2012 (70 comments) Jordan Mechner, Creator Of Prince Of Persia, Finds Original Source Code - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3776280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3776280 - March 2012 (1 comment) Prince of Persia creator finds lost source code 23 years later - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3772233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3772233 - March 2012 (67 comments) Prince of Persia C64 - Development Blog - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3286101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3286101 - Nov 2011 (2 comments) Prince of Persia for Commodore 64/128 released - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3118358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3118358 - Oct 2011 (51 comments) Prince of Persia source code documentation [1989] [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961713 - Nov 2009 (15 comments)

hnthrowaway0328 4y ago

Just wondering do we have similar books for more modern games that more or less focuses on the technical/design details? By saying "modern" I mean games in the 90s and beyond. I have already read the following books: - Masters of Doom - The three Fabien books (just briefly as I'm not very technical)

hbn 4y ago
Andy Gavin has a fairly extensive series of posts on his blog about the creation of Crash Bandicoot that I quite enjoyed. Goes over the process of even choosing to be on the PlayStation at first (over other systems), the design process, limitations they ran into, and some of the ingenuity put on display to pull off some fairly impressive technical feats. https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/ https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/
- hnthrowaway0328 4y ago
  Thanks! I did read his blogs but forgot to mention in the original post. I must say, I find these "Game dev in restrained env" books/blogs really fun to read!

lizardactivist 4y ago

Had a lot of fun playing this back in the day on the PC. The game was relatively simple as far as content goes, but it never felt repetitive or monotone. The making-of also reminds me of Eric Chahi and his work in Another World, and how pioneering it was.

jope12 4y ago

For people liking this book, this here might also be interesting: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2001502/Book/Its_Behind_You-The_Making_Of_A_Computer_Game https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2001502/Book/Its_Behin... Direct link: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/zxdb/sinclair/entries/2001502/ItsBehindYou-TheMakingOfAComputerGame.pdf https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/zxdb/sinclair/entries/200150...

lelandfe 4y ago

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/war-stories-how-prince-of-persia-slew-the-apple-iis-memory-limitations/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/04/war-stories-how-princ... ArsTechnica did an awesome "War Stories" edition with the same Jordan Mechner on how they got around memory limitations on the Apple II. It's like a video side bar to this PDF.

coderdd 4y ago

I recall reading it, and strangely I felt that making of the game is just a side-happening, while the author was on pursuit to get into movie industry rather. Am interesting contrast, given most people know and are amazed by the game in retrospect.

vivegi 4y ago

Wow! That brought back memories.