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The genius of Prince Of Persia 1 (Level 1)

Blogs > 0x64
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0x64
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
Finland4544 Posts
October 24 2013 19:35 GMT
#1
Today, I took a deeper look into the game design of the very first Prince Of Persia.
For a reference I used a random play-through from Youtube. It is not specially good and it is better for us that it is not a speed run, it often shows what happens if you do stuff you do when you don't know something.

We will simply go through this level by level and make notes as the level progress.
This would end being at terribly long post so I will start with only the first level. You will also make notes on stuff that I forget or correct my mistakes. My note threshold will be held low, so some comments might just come from random design, not always from the reason I will give.

No more disclaimer and let do this.



Level 1

1. Intro, tension music effect and grid closing to dramatize the fact that the prince has been thrown to jail.
2. The layout suggest 2 things. The plane on the top hints that you can climb there. At this point going top or bottom looks equal.
3. A broken tile on the floor is there as a hint (but I don't think a beginner will grasp it)

4. The player ends up running and when he falls, there is a hint of a lose tile. The player will end up running over and maybe with bad luck fall and hurt but no fatality. This is a trade-off, this height is chosen to make clear that there is no reason to return there anymore (I know it is possible)

5. Oh a platformer where you start by going left?! The room on the right has a guard, you learn very early that you have no weapon and trying this out won't make you restart from faraway. Yet, this first level design decision is more relevant than we might think. One of the first thing that was tough the player is that the right way might be in any direction!

6. Next room introduce spikes and door opening mechanism. A simple challenge that has the player probably land on the door trigger. Is the door trigger easier to see the first time if it's near a hole? Probably not, but if for some reason you miss it, you don't have to take the jump again.

7. A room with 2 trigger. Hey! Different triggers opens different doors... Nothing deep here. A falling tile as a jump mini-challenge, if you make it fall, the return will be slightly harder.

8. A quick room in between and we arrive in a room with a new kind of trigger. Notice the very simple layout, a sign that we will teach the player something new. A falling tile was added so the we have a 2-tile jump challenge. You can't fail the first time.

9. The new trigger is not raised from the ground and it slams down the door. It is harder to notice.

10. The first 2-jump over spike. This is probably nothing, but there are no torch in this room. More focus on the spikes? Or was the layout already too crowded.

11. A skeleton, A sword, A fallen tile. Did the tile fall on the poor guys head :D? Anyway, having the skeleton set up the mood and maybe gives a reason why a sword is lying there.

12. Pick-up, music effect, palette effect on the background. Notice the blink pattern plays first, then the music echoes the same rhythm, I wonder why the delay is there, any ideas?

13. not much to mention on the return. The first sword fight is easy, I guess there is a little tension spike here for a first-timer. We'll go through the sword fighting mechanics with tougher gard

14. The last room. Dead-End, the player is taught very clearly the level completion mechanics in it's simplest form, taught the sound of the door opening, taught it opens from a normal trigger. Light and size and decoration on the door makes it also clear... This is the goal! And hey I've been thrown into a dungeon, good to find stairs up!


Level 1 has given a little taste of every basic mechanics of the game. An explorer would also find maybe a potion and secret passage on the roof, but overall we saw that falling tiles were used as hints, as terrain modifier to possibly make the way back slightly more challenging and create the mood of a dangerous dungeon. Level 2 offers some cool design stuff, and I won't go so thoroughly through it, room by room! Anyway, this is already too long for one blog post :D!

TBC

*****
Dump of assembler code from 0xffffffec to 0x64: End of assembler dump.
hp.Shell
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2527 Posts
October 24 2013 22:30 GMT
#2
Cool initiative. The sword glints to draw your eye towards it. 10. Not sure why there are no torches in this room; perhaps they forgot?

The sword fight animations were pretty cool.

As to the pick up 12., I would suggest that the animation of holding up the sword -> putting the sword away was too long for the song clip, and so they delayed the sound after the flash was finished playing. Or it could mean that light travels faster than sound.

Fun blog.
Please PM me with any songs you like that you think I haven't heard before!
DW-Unrec
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
492 Posts
October 25 2013 00:51 GMT
#3
I remember watching a video of a guy doing the exact same thing you are doing, but for megaman instead. If anyone remembers could you post it here?
miicah
Profile Joined February 2011
Australia2470 Posts
October 25 2013 01:30 GMT
#4
That might be egoraptor explaining why megaman is the best game ever.
@miicah88
coolphantom
Profile Joined August 2011
Canada17 Posts
October 25 2013 01:53 GMT
#5
Nice post. The creator gave a really good postmortem talk about the game a while ago. Here it is if anyone is interested :
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014634/Classic-Game-Postmortem-PRINCE-OF
0x64
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
Finland4544 Posts
October 25 2013 08:58 GMT
#6
On October 25 2013 09:51 DW-Unrec wrote:
I remember watching a video of a guy doing the exact same thing you are doing, but for megaman instead. If anyone remembers could you post it here?


Probably this one :D!
The principle of game design were laid out by such great designer. There are papers also about how early Mario and Zelda games were designed and they also go very deep.


Dump of assembler code from 0xffffffec to 0x64: End of assembler dump.
0x64
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
Finland4544 Posts
October 25 2013 09:01 GMT
#7
On October 25 2013 10:53 coolphantom wrote:
Nice post. The creator gave a really good postmortem talk about the game a while ago. Here it is if anyone is interested :
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014634/Classic-Game-Postmortem-PRINCE-OF


I think I have seen this but I don't remember, have to check it again.

On a different topic, the original source code were found in the attic of Mechner's parent in an old shoebox!
Here is the first part of someone who will do a code review , sound very promising, if he goes deep enough.

http://fabiensanglard.net/prince_of_persia/
Dump of assembler code from 0xffffffec to 0x64: End of assembler dump.
LastWish
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
2013 Posts
October 25 2013 16:55 GMT
#8
If I could pick a keyword per level it would be:
1. The sword
2. Fighting
3. The skeleton
4. The palace
5. The mirror
6. Fat guy
7. Green potion
8. Mouse or Stoned swordsman
9. Upside down
10. Short-cut
11. Unstable
12. The Shadow
13. The Princess
- It's all just treason - They bring me down with their lies - Don't know the reason - My life is fire and ice -
0x64
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
Finland4544 Posts
October 28 2013 08:44 GMT
#9
On October 26 2013 01:55 LastWish wrote:
If I could pick a keyword per level it would be:
1. The sword
2. Fighting
3. The skeleton
4. The palace
5. The mirror
6. Fat guy
7. Green potion
8. Mouse or Stoned swordsman
9. Upside down
10. Short-cut
11. Unstable
12. The Shadow
13. The Princess


From the official document:

0. Demo Level
1. Cell
2. Guards
3. Newskell
4. Newmirror
5. Thief
6. Plunge
7. Wtless (Weightless)
8. "329" (wtf???)
9. Twisty
10. Quad
11. Wild
12. Tower

So you are very close to the original thinking.

Dump of assembler code from 0xffffffec to 0x64: End of assembler dump.
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