Leet Gamxrz
2009-02-xx
by Darknut
Jordan Mechner has a blog
For those who don't know, he's the elder game developer behind Prince of Persia, among others. So yeah, I just discovered he has a blog, which is pretty cool, but what makes it important is that he's re-posting from an old journal that he kept back in the 80s while he was creating Prince of Persia. It's awesome being able to read all his notes and thoughts during the evolution of the game. There are even some videos showing early builds of the game and the home movie footage used to create the animation. But I find the text is the most compelling. It's a little bit incredible to read through.
This should be instantly recognizable if you're a serious gamxr.I'm a little surprised that he procrastinated so much while making the game. He'd go do something else for six months at a time. And at one point he says he worked "really hard" on the game during one week: over 40 hours! It's interesting to compare this testimony to the work ethic of myself and others and today's game industry.
It's funny to hear him negotiating for his cut of the profits and comparing the experience to his previous game Karateka. It hasn't been conceivable for one guy to singlehandedly create the next killer app since the 80s. Plus he did it all in assembly language. This is something I can appreciate. We easily forget how the culture of the comptuer world has changed, but it all comes back when he talks about signs of the times, such as the Apple II hardware he's working on. It's also funny to hear pop cultural references of the time and realize that, at least part of the time, he's just a normal guy.
I think that kids today take computers for granted so much and are so used to the monotony of Windows and modern video games that it's hard for them to have that spark of excitement about the potential of computers that was more prevalent during the 80s. It's harder to imagine a kid today having the creativity and drive to create something original completely alone using movie cameras and assembly language or whatever it takes.
In closing, I'd just like to say: Jordan Mechner, thank you for sharing your stories. And you kick ass.
Update: It seems Jordan Mechner has removed his blog, and you have to pay to see it now. If it was this way from the beginning, it would have been okay, but since it used to be free, that makes this what we would call a dick move.
