Prince of Persia is a fantasy platform game, originally developed by Jordan Mechner and
released in 1989 for the Apple II, that represented a great leap forward in the quality of animation
seen in video games.
After the original release on the Apple II, it was ported to a wide range of platforms.
The game influenced a sub-genre known as the cinematic platformer, which imitated the sprawling
non-scrolling levels, fluid animation, and control style.
Plot The game is set in ancient Persia.
While the sultan is fighting a war in a foreign land, his vizier Jaffar, a wizard, seizes
power.
His only obstacle to the throne is the Sultan's daughter.
Jaffar locks her in a tower and orders her, under threat of execution to become his wife.
The game's nameless protagonist, whom the Princess loves, is thrown into the palace
dungeons.
The player must lead him out of the dungeons and to the palace tower, defeating Jaffar
and freeing the Princess in under 60 minutes.
In addition to guards, various traps and dungeons, the protagonist is further hindered by his
own doppelgänger, an apparition of his own self that is conjured out of a magic mirror.
Gameplay
The main objective of the player is to complete the game within one hour.
The player must lead the game protagonist out of a dungeon and into a tower.
Doing so requires bypassing traps and fighting hostile swordsmen.
The game consists of twelve levels.
To complete a game, all twelve levels must be completed in one session.
A game session may be saved and resumed at a later time only after level 3.
The player has a health indicator that consists of a series of small red triangles.
The player starts with three.
Each time he is damaged, the player loses one of these indicators.
There are small jars of red potion scattered throughout the game that restore one health
indicator.
There are also large jars of red potion that increase the maximum number of health indicators
by one.
If the player's health is reduced to zero, the protagonist dies.
Subsequently, the game is restarted from the beginning of the stage in which the protagonist
died but the timer will not reset to that point, effectively constituting a time penalty.
There is no counter for the number of lives, but dying too many times will eventually leave
the player with very little time to complete the game.
There are three types of traps that the player must bypass: Spike traps, deep pits and guillotines.
Getting caught or falling into each results in the instant death of the protagonist.
In addition, there are gates that can be raised for a short period of time by having the protagonist
stand on the activation trigger.
The player must pass through the gates while they are open, avoiding locking triggers.
Sometimes, there are various traps between an unlock trigger and a gate.
Hostile swordsmen are yet another obstacle.
The player obtains a sword in the first stage, which he can use to fight these adversaries.
The protagonist's sword maneuvers are limited: He can advance, back off, slash or parry.
Enemy swordsmen also have a health indicator similar to that of the protagonist.
Killing them involves slashing them until their health indicator is depleted or by pushing
them into traps while fighting.
A unique trap encountered in stage four, which serves as a plot device, is a magic mirror,
whose appearance is followed by an ominous musical tone.
The protagonist is forced to jump through this mirror upon which his doppelganger emerges
from the other side.
This apparition later hinders the protagonist by throwing him into a dungeon.
The protagonist cannot kill this apparition as they share lives; any damage inflicted
upon one also hurts the other.
Therefore, the protagonist must merge with his doppelganger.
Development Mechner used an animation technique called
rotoscoping, in which he traced video footage of his younger brother running and jumping
in white clothes.
Some of the game's sword fighting sprites are from the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin
Hood.
Also unusual was the method of combat: protagonist and enemies fought with swords, not projectile
weapons, as was the case in most contemporary games.
Mechner has said that when he started programming, the first ten minutes of the film Raiders
of the Lost Ark had been one of the main inspirations for the character's acrobatic responses in
a dangerous environment.
For the Japanese computer ports, Arsys Software and Riverhillsoft enhanced the visuals and
redesigned the Prince's appearance, introducing the classic turban and vest look that was
featured in later Prince of Persia ports and games by Brøderbund.
Ports Reception
Computer Gaming World stated that the game package's claim that it "breaks new ground
with animation so uncannily human it must be seen to be believed" was true.
It concluded that Prince of Persia "captures the feel of those great old adventure films
... a tremendous achievement", and compared its impact on gaming to Star Wars on film.
The New York Times described the Macintosh version as having "brilliant graphics and
excellent sound ... Sure, you could do all this years ago on a Commodore 64 or Atari
400.
But those games never looked or sounded like this".
Reviewing the Genesis version, GamePro praised the "extremely fluid" animation of the player
character and commented that the controls are difficult to master but nonetheless very
effective.
Comparing it to the SNES version, they summarized that "the Genesis version has better graphics,
and the SNES has better music.
Otherwise, the two are identical in almost every way ..." Electronic Gaming Monthly likewise
assessed the Genesis version as "An excellent conversion of the classic action game", and
added that the game's challenging strategy and technique give it high longevity.
Despite critical acclaim, the game was initially a commercial failure in North America, where
it had sold only 7,000 units each on the Apple II and IBM PC platforms by July 1990.
It was when the game was released in Japan and Europe that year that it became a commercial
success.
In July 1990, the NEC PC-9801 version sold 10,000 units as soon as it was released in
Japan.
It was then ported to various different home computers and video game consoles, eventually
selling 2 million units worldwide by the time its sequel Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow
and the Flame was in production.
Prince of Persia would go on to influence cinematic platformers such as Flashback as
well as action-adventure games such as Tomb Raider.
In 1991, the game was ranked the 12th best Amiga game of all time by Amiga Power.
Remake and modifications In 2007, Prince of Persia was remade and ported
by Gameloft.
The remake, titled Prince of Persia Classic, was released on June 13, 2007 to the Xbox
Live Arcade, and on October 23, 2008 on the PlayStation Network.
It features the same level design and general premise but contained 3D-rendered graphics,
more fluid movements, and Sands of Time aesthetics.
The gameplay and controls were slightly adjusted to include a wall-jump move and different
swordplay.
New game modes were also added, such as "Time Attack" and "Survival".
The game has also been released on Android.
Reverse engineering efforts by fans of the original game have resulted in detailed documentation
of the file formats of the MS-DOS version.
Various level editors have been created that can be used to modify the level files of the
DOS version.
With these editors and other software, over sixty mods have been created.
Source code release On April 17, 2012, Jordan Mechner established
a GitHub repository containing the long-thought-lost original Apple II source code for Prince of
Persia.
A technical document describing the operation of this source code is available on Mechner's
website.
References
External links Official website
Prince of Persia at MobyGames Prince of Persia at World of Spectrum
Prince of Persia 1 page at PoPUW.com