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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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...

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)

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.

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

For people liking this book, this here might also be interesting:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2001502/Book/Its_Behin...

Direct link: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/zxdb/sinclair/entries/200150...

I think this classic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Gosplan

should have a link here.

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.

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.

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

Related:

The Making of Prince of Persia (2011) [pdf] - 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 - Oct 2014 (1 comment)

Making of Prince of Persia now available as an ebook - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3134411 - Oct 2011 (14 comments)

The Making of Prince of Persia - 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 - Dec 2021 (226 comments)

Prince of Persia open-source port based on the DOS version disassembly - 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 - Oct 2021 (17 comments)

Fanmail from Romero (Doom) to Mechner (Prince of Persia) - 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 - March 2020 (57 comments)

A 30th anniversary note to Prince of Persia fans - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20293779 - June 2019 (96 comments)

Prince Of Persia Code Review (2013) - 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 - March 2018 (17 comments)

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time free download for Ubisoft's 30th birthday - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912358 - June 2016 (20 comments)

Prince Of Persia Code Review - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5917888 - June 2013 (30 comments)

Prince of Persia – HTML5 - 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 - April 2012 (5 comments)

The Geeks Who Saved Prince of Persia’s Source Code From Digital Death - 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 - April 2012 (70 comments)

Jordan Mechner, Creator Of Prince Of Persia, Finds Original Source Code - 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 - March 2012 (67 comments)

Prince of Persia C64 - Development Blog - 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 - Oct 2011 (51 comments)

Prince of Persia source code documentation [1989] [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961713 - Nov 2009 (15 comments)

The documentary is on YouTube and worth the watch as well

Wow! That brought back memories.