The Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985-1993

Not quite as strong as Jordan's journals about Karateka, but still worth it. If you read both of Jordan's journal books and were around in that era, this book gives you a real sense of the personal challenges and decisions independent developers were faced with in the ever-chmahing landscape of home computers, consoles and handhelds. It's a fascinating insight into Jordan's personal journey as a creative producer and technical artist. The focus on Prince of Persia wanes a little in the final chapters, but still a worthwhile read if you know the game and we're around back in the day when it was released.

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 processI 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.

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.

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!"