The Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985 - 1993 (Mechner Journals Series) 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 moment to moment insights and stories in this book are fantastic. Despite having never made a mega hit video game, I really felt a familiar feeling reading through these journals. There's an ever-growing, lingering doubt that comes with being young, and creative, fresh out of college. A real sense of not knowing what you want, or what the future holds. It's heartening in a way to know people you admire feel similarly.There's also just the fun historical context of the whole thing. Having games we consider archaic or quaint being hailed as amazing 3D marvels of their time. A little slice of a pre-internet world, rapidly evolving. Almost makes you want to make a video game.

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.

A very interesting and fascinating read. It provides a nice complement and context to the original game. The anniversary edition is beautifully crafted book and the additional material and notes significantly increases its value.

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.