Roads? Where we're going we won't need roads…

January 30, 2009 3:46 PM

Prince of Persia 1985!

Jordan Mechner has a some interesting stuff on his Blog.

posted by P.o.B. (17 comments total)

Heh. At first I thought the kids did a really good imitation of the game then I realized what "reference" meant.
posted by GuyZero at 3:51 PM on January 30

There's a weird double-interlaced frame of a face and a videogame scene between the jump-off-the-wall and the run-and-slide, if you pause and scroll you can see it.

Oddly I wasn't blown away until that little step-step landing after the long jump. That blew my mind.
posted by Skorgu at 4:00 PM on January 30

Avril gave me a picture. It’s really quite beautiful; it’s got that magical Arabian Nights storybook feel to it. Ed Badasov, Brian and Greg Hammond all flipped over it. It’ll lose a lot in the transition from super hi-res to double hi-res, but I can use the original in the MS-DOS and Amiga versions. It took her 29 hours: $1,015.

How were such graphics made in 1989? I dig the screen and all, but 29 hours? Was that pixel-by-pixel painting?

The old journal is keen, but the background graphic is annoying.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:10 PM on January 30

I lost my coffee at the same point Skorgu did. Until then I didn't recognize the 'animation'.
posted by rokusan at 4:12 PM on January 30

That is so cool!

I'd heard before that the animations were based off a video of his brother, but I never thought I'd actually get to see it.


Also, I now can't help but read your post in a hammy Italian accent.
posted by lucidium at 4:14 PM on January 30

I'll be he went on to become an international parkour star.
posted by ...possums at 4:18 PM on January 30

This is so. Awesome.
posted by ooga_booga at 4:20 PM on January 30

Filthy light thief, I think that would basically have been drawn pixel by pixel. Possibly with some automatic flood fills and two-colour gradients (See Deluxe Paint). But even the gradient in the sky looks hand-drawn.

Picture a similar image, but drawn to today's standards of resolution and detail. I imagine it would still take at least that long. And obviously the 29 hours includes any elements that were worked on but ultimately discarded.
posted by lucidium at 4:21 PM on January 30

Where's the reference of him falling on spikes?
posted by Green With You at 6:45 PM on January 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

I was a more productive pixel-pusher in Studio/8 than I am now in PS CS4. Just sayin'.

Memories are dimming but I think Studio/8 was out by March 1989 (the Mac II had been out for ~2 years already).

Oh yes, there will a FPP from me on this Mac II anniversary, my pretties.
posted by troy at 7:10 PM on January 30

Here's the 1988 reference video for the sword scenes. This was filmed at Brøderbund by my friend Robert Cook.

Trivia - Jordan's brother David is a very good Go player.
posted by zippy at 7:33 PM on January 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Really cool. But that concrete looks painful.
posted by bardic at 7:34 PM on January 30

Huh, I met Jordan's sister when she was in medical school, and she claimed that she had been the source of some of the animation for Karateka. Really.
posted by blahblahblah at 8:12 PM on January 30

Whoa, this brought back memories. Had this game on my Tandy 1000 I bought from an ex-bf back in 1991.
posted by marble at 8:44 PM on January 30

She claimed that she had been the source of some of the animation for Karateka.

So... she stood still, batted her eyelashes and then got swept away to the next level? Over and over and over again?
posted by rokusan at 8:51 PM on January 30

This game was extremely attractive. I didn't know these videos existed but I'm not at all surprised that those gorgeous animations were drawn from life.
posted by grobstein at 9:29 PM on January 30

Incredible. I played the hell out of the game on my Apple II back in the day.
posted by wastelands at 11:45 PM on January 30