To create the animation for my game Prince of Persia (1989), I videotaped my brother David (then age 15) in our high school parking lot in Chappaqua, NY. More behind the scenes at www.jordanmech... French : www.jordanmech...
This is so recognizable, it's awesome. Jordan, how does David feel about having become a true legend in video game history? His moves are unmistakable to anyone who loves the work of pioneers such as yourself, it must mean something to him :)
Thanks! My brother has become a legend in so many other ways since (starting with becoming a 5-dan Go master at the age of 18), that climb-up from a dead hang is the least of his accomplishments. But I think he's forgiven me :)
This game took the best part of 4 years to develop if the dates are anything to go by - 4 years of love and passion, and the result shows in the final game. A game which turns 35 this year... wow, I feel old just typing that out. :)
The first game i played in my life. I was a little boy, in Argentina, with my first pc, and you, your brother, and the prince of persia, made me so happy. you gave me so many hours of dedication and started my love for videogames and development. so thank you for bein there in my childhood 👏🏽
Best part of being a kid in the early 90s, when videogames and movies were pure magic!! Now, kids give everything for granted and have long lost the ability for wonder. I loved your games back then, it was like reading a book: not all colors were there, but they were...
So true. When we read a comic or graphic novel, our imagination fills in what's between the panels. A more photorealistic rendering with greater fidelity is, ironically, more forgettable, because our minds contribute less.
The is pure love. I can't believe this is real. I grew up playing bootlegged POP1 from floppy disks in late 80s on a monochrome XT (green screen) in a third-world country. There was no concept of user-manual to provide context. Heck, I could barely read English. This game is a myth of my childhood and so many other kids of my age, who won't stop raving about it.
It's incredible to see these things now. Jordan Mechner, I remember seeing your name on that loading screen as a child and thinking "This Jordan Mechner is a GENIUS!". I was not wrong. Congrats on being you, and making countless amazing memories for people. I still remember the first time I saw this game boot up. I was already mesmerized at the title screen and the incredible music. Amazing!
@@JordanMechner Wow, that's actually quite incredible as it's so perfectly part of the game. I just finished a PAX Australia expo where I help run the Classic Gaming area and had an iMac with PoP permanently running for 3 days. Everyone knew it, even the younger ones.
Time when games were made with love, there was truly a concern about delivering a quality game, paying attention to animations, simulations, and sounds.
This is incredible! I just downloaded the demo for an Nintendo switch. I’m so excited for the reboot. I played this game when I was a kid and I loved it.
I was born in 2008 but I don't know why I've played this game for like almost 5 years like till 2013-14 so yeah I'd really love to play this and CS:Go(I played cs:go and realised how good it still is )again it made my childhood and thanks for somehow making me see this
Год назад
Thank you so much for making this game. It was a very nice part of my childhood, first run it in my dad's company's XT Clone (nec v20) with an amber Hercules monitor that now have in my house. I love the noises of the ST-238r HDD makes when load this marvelous game. Greetings from Argentina!
Haha nice... Seagate... I remembered testing the conservation of angular momentum in a rotatory chair with one ST238 in each hand... Nerdiest moment of a nerd
6 месяцев назад
You gave me an idea!!! And i still have some faulty ones...@@briozzoluciano
I started practicing parkour since the PS2 trilogy. I liked all of your games tho, Jordan - i love the SNES version! Thanks, Jordan. Always my favourite saga! Marked me so much.
The Apple 2 version was my first dark magic moment in front a screen when I was kid. I wasnt be able to play du to my age but the animation was so hypnotic. You are with Eric Chahi the cool kids of that time. It's imprinted in my memory. :)
seeing that beginning running clip that i've known for years and then seeing those line errors actually almost made me cry that just makes me worried about the other footage that you might've not shown yet (like the extended jumping and climbing clips)
Haha nice... Seagate... I remembered testing the conservation of angular momentum in a rotatory chair with one ST238 in each hand... Nerdiest moment of a nerd
I am absolutely impressed by the amount of hardwork that went into the making of this iconic game. I was really addicted to this game ever since I was a kid. You, sir, are a legend, and so is your brother!
I have never finished this game but if there is one game that will always linger in my head it will always be Prince of Persia. Awesome is how i describe this video seeing how the jumps and movement was done.😊😊😊
Having recently been seriously disappointed by the clunky shooting controls in GTA San Andreas, and rather unimpressed by the intellectual opacity of Myst's puzzles, I find there are many things I quite loved about older games at the time that don't hold up when one revisits them. However, the grace and fluidity of the Prince's animations still have something arresting about them. I think what's most interesting to me with these behind the scenes recordings (assuming that we are seeing all the relevant ones), is not the similarity to David's movements but the difference. In other words, while the template for the movement is clearly captured in David's actions, Jordan editorialises to produce a distinctive final product in the game. Whether these edits exist for either technical or aesthetic reasons or both (I am too ignorant about the process to know), they add a 'snap' to the Prince's movements that is not present (understandably so!) in the recordings of David. This snap, to me, is the most deft part of this, because it adds polish and smoothness without making the animation robotic or otherwise less authentic. Crucially, it leaves in just enough of the human imperfections of David's movements that we can believe the Prince is not some freakish superhuman who faces no risk, but a heroic man pushing himself to his limits as he faces a terrifying gauntlet. So, as I see it, the success of the Prince is a lot more than just coming up with the idea of using rotoscopy and finding a clever way of integrating that into the game. Knowing *what* to trace and what *not to* when editing the movement is what is most impressive. There are probably many who could have done the tracing itself just as skillfully, if not more so, and they would have been able to maximise the fidelity to David's original movements. What they would likely be unable to replicate, however, is the discerning artfulness in Jordan's kinetics, which is what makes this game timeless. Thank you for sharing this, Jordan, and for all your work. Edits: typos! I hate phone keyboards!
Thanks for that thoughtful comment! You're right, it was (and is) a fine balance between "realism" and ease of control. The movements had to be accelerated, exaggerated and made more responsive so as not to frustrate the player. (And as a practical matter, it took David so long to actually climb up onto that ledge from a dead hang, to reproduce it literally would have required more of the Apple II's limited RAM than the entire game !)
@@JordanMechnerYou are most welcome! Thank you for replying! I don't work in this field at all, but it does seem like art direction is a far more reliable source of timeless quality than fidelity to realism. Newer games from big studios seem to run against this insight, however. Is there somewhere you have shared your thoughts on contemporary game design and art direction? Something longer form than your Twitter account? I am curious about how someone with your approach appraises current trends.
@@superchaddi Hi, I have a website at jordanmechner.com where I've kept a blog and posted various articles and other materials over the years. Also links to my books. I hope you find something of interest there!
I just found your work. What you did is awesome. I want at least 50% of the energy you had at that moment. I mean... I did know the game, but not all the techniques and effort were behind it
Thank you Jordan Mechner for this gem, it was the very first game i saw my dad play on his windows 97 pc when i was kid. I even have a video recording of me playing the game for the first time and jumping with joy when i made the jump over the spikes in level 1 😂. Thank you for making those fond memories possible sir!
I remember playing this on the Commodore Amiga circa 1992. It was mesmerising and addictive! The music, the graphics and everything are a great blast from the past. ❤
Thanks for showing this fascinating footage. Prince Of Persia was part of my childhood on DOS and Gameboy roughly 30 years ago. Best wishes from Germany!
Absolutely incredible. Writing a listicle about the most influential game designers for my work, had to include you cuz we all played the hell out of PoP as kids, and seeing this really made my day. Also, now I'm inspired to rotoscope a personal animation project. All the best.
Hi, you can see my comments on my website at www.jordanmechner.com/en/games-movies/the-sands-of-time/ (a few different blog posts address that in more detail). Thanks!
