Prince of Persia

Publisher: Various
Developer: Brøderbund
Origin: US
Original Release: 1989
Format: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari ST, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Gear, Mac, Master System, Mega CD, Mega Drive, NEC PC-9801, NES, PC, PC Engine Duo, Sam Coupé, Sharp X68000, SNES, Sinclair Spectrum

A brief glance at the pantheon of consoles and computers listed above is all that is needed to confirm Prince Of Persia’s enduring appeal. Across generations of people and formats, continents and cultures, from 1989 onwards the game enjoyed a full decade of almost continual ports and re-releases. A feat made all the more remarkable because the original title was the work of essentially just one person.

“It was 1985, I’d just graduated from college and I was torn,” recalls game programmer and designer (and latterly screenwriter and documentary maker) Jordan Mechner.

“My first game, Karateka, had been a hit – it had paid off my student loans, the royalties were rolling in and I was in the lucky position of being able to choose what to do next.”

Designed while he was still attending Yale University in Connecticut, Karateka was a martial arts game that laid much of the groundwork for Prince Of Persia, with its mix of scrolling and flip-screen adventuring and rotoscoped animation. But despite his new ideas for advancing the formula, videogames were far from Mechner’s only interest, either then or now.

“What I really wanted to do was make movies and be a screenwriter,” he admits. “I was afraid I couldn’t do both, that if I started on another game it would become my life and I’d end up never pursuing my other dream.”

After spending his first year out of university cogitating on videogame concepts and trying to write a movie script, Mechner eventually accepted an offer of a job with Brøderbund. Although the publisher was still hoping for a sequel, the success of Karateka allowed him to insist on complete creative freedom. Platform puzzlers such as Lode Runner and The Castles Of Dr Creep offered some inspiration for his next project, but cinema provided more stimulus.

Influenced by Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Harrison Ford’s iconic portrayal of a new breed of less impervious action hero, Mechner wanted his new game’s character to be similarly pioneering. “In most platform puzzle games at the time, characters were weightless. It was an abstract representation of jumping and falling. It never felt real.”

Although the similarities between Raiders’ opening ten minutes and the final game are obvious, it was not just the game’s action elements in which Mechner wanted to innovate – he also demanded emotional involvement. “I felt that human, dramatic quality was what had made Karateka work. It was kind of my speciality and I wanted to take it further.”