The Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985 - 1993 Paperback – December 22, 2011

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.

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.

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.

If you've ever designed something significant from scratch, you'll find a lot in here that you can relate to. It's a wonderful story, and this edition is wonderfully put together and illustrated (all the Stripe Press books seem to be very good books, very well designed and made).

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!"

There isn't much that's in-depth about this book. Most of it passes with Jordan talking about what's happening as the first Prince of Persia game makes its way into production and saying how he feels about it. There's little to nothing about the coding challenges that (one imagines?) must make up at least part of the development process - but maybe Jordan just never found it hard to do. That's just another aspect in which the book lacks substance though - you don't learn how it is that Jordan came to have his programming skills. Or how he came to decide what features he would put into each level of the game. Tantalisingly, there are some notepad sketches of graphic elements that, if you played early versions of PofP, you will recognise, but you don't ever get close to his thinking re the actual creative journey. So it's just not quite the book I wanted it to be and has little else as compensation.

I really enjoyed the insight into the creative process and the corporate publishing house pain that Jordan went through to develop one of my favourite games. But the book is a lot less about PoP than the title suggests. If you’re interested in reading about Jordan’s life in the years during and after PoP with a wee bit of information about how he went about completing PoP, then have at it. If you are hoping for a deep dive into how he developed the game or solved programming problems, you might be better just to email and ask him.With all that being said, It was still an entertaining read, just not what I was expecting.

Prince of Persia was the first videogame I ever finished, having only really played arcade games up till then. Played it on a monochrome CGA laptop, but still the great gameplay and wonderful story shone through. Been a fan of the series and Jordan Mechner ever since.The book chronicles Jordan's life through the development of PoP and PoP2. It's an interesting look back to how the idea for the game began and grew, in the midst of the life of an up and coming game developer in his youth. A must read, especially for fans of the game.

I bought this book entirely on the basis that I played Prince of Persia on my Amiga back in the early 1990s, and figured that the book was worth a punt.It certainly was. I got the nostalgia kick I was looking for, but the bonus is that Mechner is a good journal writer. The reader gets an insight into the tribulations of game development and there's a real sense of the sheer effort of will required to get things done. It's honest at times - often so honest that I wonder whether it's a good idea, legally speaking, for Mechner to write this stuff.Overall, thoroughly recommended for fans of the game, or those just interested the auteur creative process.

(from my goodreads review)If you picked up this book looking for pretty pictures of Jake Gyllenhal and co on location and amusing anecdotes from the cast and crew of the movie Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, you'd be sorely disappointed. This is not that book. This is a book about the original video game that spawned a host of original remakes, which later provided inspiration for the movie. Every story has a beginning, and this is the beginning for the Prince, in his earliest iteration.For fans of the recent Ubisoft series of games, this might make an interesting read (provided you can put your console/computer controller down long enough to read) and is an excellent insight into how the original Prince of Persia was created. Although not exactly a detailed account into the mechanics or decisions that were made to create such a classic game, this book does provide a look into Jordan Mechner's thoughts on the process and how he struggled to balance his dreams and ambitions. In essence, isn't that a story we all personally know?The more I read through this collection of journal entries, the more I wanted to root out my copy of the DOS PoP and play it (which I did about halfway through the book). Twenty three years on, and the game is still a thrill to play and I don't think I've played a game recently that has given me the same shivers I got whenever the pixelly Prince needed to make a particularly haring jump. This is lasting power, and hats off to Mechner for getting past all the politics he describes here to get this made and have it enter legendary status (in my books at least).In the end it's a wonderful story of how, through hard work, perseverance and personal drive, you really can achieve all that you set out to achieve. I think this was quite an inspiration and highly recommend it for anyone who loves the Prince of Persia game(s) (new or old), or anyone who enjoys a good biographical look into the mind of a successful professional (although, at the time he wrote this section of his journal, Mechner wasn't an out-and-out success yet).