The Making of Prince of Persia (Mechner Journals Series Book 2)

It's been awhile since I read a book that I liked so much. Prince of Persia was a game I grew up with, like many people out there. And Jordan's name recently popped up in the press again when he found the Prince of Persia source code and was able to extract it from the vintage discs. Perhaps the perfect time to jump into his memoirs. This really is an amazing recount of Jordan's life during this period of time, as well as how this game came to be. You don't often get a behind-the-scenes tour like this one, let alone years later. Reading this happened at a good time for me personally, as I had just moved to San Francisco. So reading about a person living here, but years prior, it became pretty surreal. And theirs a huge nostalgic power surrounding prince of persia in general for me. So please, factor the bias into my fantastic review. But, in all honesty, these memoirs are extremely well-written. The story has a way of sucking you in. After reading it, you feel like you experienced it yourself, or could at least make a moderately accurate made-for-tv movie detailing the events. It's worth the money, it's worth your time. I'd recommend it to gamers and non-gamers alike. It's just a solid piece of literature, and it applies to a wide audience, I can't imagine someone reading this and not enjoying it.

I remember very well those countless hours I spent playing Prince & Prince 2. I played it on various PCs I had access to back then, 20 years ago. I played it slow and I played it fast, in black&white (monochrome), and in color, with a beeper, and a soundcard. Before I had a soundcard, I made myself a Covox, soldering a bunch of resistors together, and Prince was the very first game I tested my poor-man digital sound interface against. It was mind-blowing when I first heard the game samples. In the next few months I went as far as ripping then the samples out of the game and writing a few songs myself featuring voices from the game. In brief, Prince left quite a mark and it's really unforgettable - it brought me & my friends so much happiness and joy. So I was really thrilled to read through this book and know how the game was actually done. It's unbelievable by modern standards! I was always amazed by how games were written single handedly back then, but I still couldn't believe what I just read now. Aside from extremely interesting descriptions of the development and product management process, the book is full of invaluable insights about the life of a programmer, and the internals of a game publisher. It brought back all those memories from 20-25 years ago when I was a kid hacking around, "cracking" nearly all the games I had for "infinite lives". I "fixed" all the games I had, myself (so that I could play them till the very end), but Prince. To the best of my recollection, I used to play Prince without cheating :) It also reminded me of how I dreamed of writing games myself (and I actually wrote some very bad ones!) only to discover I don't really have neither talent for that, nor stamina. I'm currently involved in a software company, and I have certain relation to project & product management, and seeing how our guys code, I can really appreciate the confessions of this diary. Huge kudos to Jordan for publishing it. I had this thought so many times through this book - it would have been extremely sad if Jordan didn't have enough strength and tenacity to finish the game back then! I was almost like "Please please finish it, dude! We really need it!" all the way through the chapters :) Again, it's still unbelievable after so many years how really groundbreaking the game became.

Though I purchased and devoured this book in the hopes that it would dive deep into the specific technical challenges of building a rather vast game on a limited platform, Mechner's journals run the gamut from trying to get the best video transfer of self-recorded footage of the prince running or jumping to his quest to get a screenplay produced. Ultimately, the book was an interesting look at what it was like for Mechner to take on this enormous task completely by himself and the emotional tribulations he underwent while balancing the development of the game against the development of himself as a young person with time and money and no clear idea of how he wanted to spend either. If you are looking for a technical breakdown of the game and its workings, the source code is out in the wild and plenty of analysis has been done; that is not this book. This is an inside view of its inspiration, creation, and Mechner's journey through it.

I finished this book in two sittings - it was very engaging, and easy to read. It was fun reading about the circumstances of a game that introduced ground-breaking advances to the field, especially when the book details how the game was almost ruined by bad marketing personnel. I found it a little tiresome to read about the author's happy-go-lucky approach to, "Hey, I'm building a game with features never before seen in the computer industry, but gosh, is it really as good as people say it is? If so, how come other people keep preventing this game from reaching the success it deserves, and why don't I have the courage or conviction to step up? And BTW, this is going to be hailed as the best computer game I've ever made! But, do I really want to be writing games? I want to be writing screenplays and directing movies! I want to socialize with all the other young, energetic people who believe they will leave their marks upon the world! But, am I going stir-crazy doing this game programming stuff? Do I even have a love interest? I think I might, but I convenient left out all the details about it in my journal! Now I can't remember!"

I enjoy 'documentary-style' books on old software applications and development teams (for example, Masters of Doom by David Kushner), but was a little hesitant at purchasing this book, since it seemed to be more-or-less a journal of Prince of Persia's author, Jordan Mechner (spoiler alert: it is). Reading through the book, it had some low points, to be sure, and could've been edited to take out a little bit of the rawness... but in some ways, those parts made the book feel more authentic, like 'inclusions' in a diamond. I loved playing both Prince of Persia and Prince of Persia 2 on my family's old Macintosh, and the book goes into great detail on the trials and tribulations Mechner himself went through in building the game, getting it on IBM, working on contracts and deals for ports to other platforms, etc. While I'm not a huge fan of the more modern PoP titles and movie franchise, the original games were so good, especially considering the limitations of the early 90's desktop computers. This book recaptured some of the moments of adrenaline I had when playing the game, and was also an interesting look into the video game industry in the 90s. It's also pretty awesome that you can go look at the original Prince of Persia source code (if you're a programmer, especially doing games, it's neat to see how barebones the actual code was in the 90s!). I would recommend this book to anyone doing freelance or small team programming, especially in games, and also anyone who grew up playing the Prince of Persia games and having a bit of a shudder on hearing the 'sha-clunk!' of the spikes raising up through the floor!

The Making of Prince of Persia is about the trials and triumphs behind Jordan Mechner's first Prince of Persia as well as his personal journey breaking into the the filmaking/screenwriting industry and the key figures directly responsible for his success. I found it to be an interesting read although closer towards the end of the book I found myself skipping through diary entries about his filmaking/screenwriting endeavors as I was more interested in the creative process behind PoP and the challenges that would appear as part of that process I can say that after reading it, I was quite struck by how many places Jordan traveled to around the world. I never knew he traveled so much or that he had been actively pursuing a career in the entertainment industry (did you know he met Halle Berry on set?) I also wanted to learn more about the inner workings of the staff at Broderbund and happened to get myself a digital copy of the book "Software People: An Insider's Look at the Personal Computer Software Industry " by none other than Doug Carlston, Jordan's former boss at Broderbund. Should you get a copy of this PoP book, be sure to get your hands on Doug Cartston's book too because if you do, it will GREATLY help you understand Broderbund's corporate culture and introductory history of the IT industry and the history of programming from late 70's to 90's.

Good look into the gritty details of early game development

Es un regalo increíble

This is an art piece of book printing. I used to play this game with my grandfather.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. It journals the journey of perseverance from nothing to shipping a great game, told from the point of view of a newbie game developer with big aspirations. While mostly a description of the progress with the game, it also describes the young developer's struggles beginning a new adult life in a new city, his frustrations dealing with team members at work and his shifting focus as he feels unsure what he really wants from the future. It is also a surprisingly long journey, showing the determination needed in creating something new.

This is not a "making of" in the marketed sense of it. You won't find pretty pictures, nice drawings and joyful explainations of a perfect game in a perfect world. It's a diary, of Jordan Mechner own hand, compiling his state of mind during all the process of Prince of Persia. From its early pre-production to its final delivery ... years after its initial release. This is an excellent read for game designers and POP fans. Because it's a testimony to a whole game creation, with an heavy emphasis on two points usually minimized in standard game-design litteracy : - the team, and how it can work with you (sometimes) and against you (as told through most of the pages). Especially when they're not game freaks - the self, and its way-underestimated capability to make you procrastinate, go in circles, and send you after dreams you should know they will disappoint you in the end We really feel the anguish, despair, frustration, angst, revolt and joy of the author, giving an exclusive insight of what happens in a creative mind. An excellent read, and probably a excellent therapy for everyone trying to fulfill his/her project against all odds, his/her own laziness included. The kindle edition is fine. No bugged layout, fullpage drawings, no mispelling.

An insightful and raw peek into the life of a young game developer in his 20s working on the hit game Prince of Persia before he knew it was a hit. Through the course of the journals Jordan battles with situations that will be painfully relatable to anyone who has worked in or around games in their teens / twenties, particularly solo developers (or small teams). Since it's almost entirely unedited, you get an unfiltered look at Jordan's thoughts as he struggles to reconcile his desire to create hit video games in a time before anyone cared about games, with his desire to make movies in a time where everyone was desperately trying to make movies. Read it in one sitting, great read!

The only thing I didn't like is that the white color on the cover is very delicate. A must buy for any videogame lover.