Level 1

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=433272

Conference talk by the creator

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014634/Classic-Game-Postmortem-PRINCE-OF

Old games were also programming wonders, here is a code review

http://fabiensanglard.net/prince_of_persia/



Apple 2, 1989


DOS, 1990


Macintosh, 1992 (That's when I had the chance to finally play this game!)

I wanted to show a little bit of the graphical evolution of the game.
The Macintosh version ended up using graphics that were created for Prince of Persia 2.
The game I played pretty much looked like this:

The wonderful thing was that it would run as well on my Mac SE in black&white, the art was solid and the code very efficient.
While playing at a friends house, the game pretty much looked like this:


The difference was also huge on the music side, that again set the difference between the PC and the Mac version.
The SNES version managed quite nicely the music side.

Later, more modern adaptation of this title were made, POP: Sands Of Time for Playstation (Or was it for XBox?) shipped with a secret version of POP1 with 3d graphs.

Anyway, Let's go to analyze the shit out of level 2!

Level 2

1. First screen, we notice on the right, two fallen tiles, a dead end. This two falling tile are repeated straight in the second screen. Not really relevant, just making the first screen less boring.

2. Falling tile + guard fight, hey that fight feels already more exciting! Drama added! Notice how the guard also blocks your attack.

3. A way to explore down, if I remember correctly, there is a health potion hidden there.

4. Third screen, first time we have spikes on the same level as you are running. First potion you are forced to notice. Doesn't particle effect call you?

5. 4th screen, quite a straightforward jump timing challenge, not fatal. Notice the fallen tiles, this time to indicate that there is a way up the roof.

6. 5th screen, again has something to tell us. You missed a secret passage!!! If you'd found the secret, you might have wondered why was there even this little dead end to the left.

7. 6th and 7th room are simple, probably just about pacing and diversity. "we are in a well guarded p(a)lace".

8. 8th room. The poison potion.. This one has a teaching lessons. You want to introduce the concept of particle colors have a meaning: Red is Healthy. White is bad (or at least hazardous).
The good potion is given first, so if the player has only one life left, he doesn't do kill himself on the first encounter with the poison. This poison potion is overall a pretty gimmicky design, as it serves no purpose anymore once the player knows the negative effect.

9. The shut down tile is there again a added juice, do you bother to jump over, just a little gamble but so far the game has been fair and you have no reason to think you might get permanently stuck. This is a long term thing the game is trying to teach, a teaching needed at Level 8. Level 8 would simply not work if you could get trapped before or that you would have not had plenty of door slamming behind you and not being a problem.
Level 8 is the one where you get stuck and you just have to wait near the door that a mouse comes and press the door trigger.

10. 9th room, jump and attack guards. This is before the time where from these position you would just press a kill button and a crazy murder animation would do everything for you. Our player will fail badly here and jump to close to the guard, almost getting killed. That's again a new situation tough to the player. The player is now forced to learn about the delays of getting up.

11. Next the secret way to the big health potion... Hey Bigger is Better right? Red particles means good too, yay we are talking on two levels. The color code has been taught, the meaning of size is intrinsically understood. You just do put big health potion and have them give less effect than the small ones.
I don't remember what was to the right...

12. 3 room in a raw with little challenges, reminding the basics.

13. 2 ways to go. but the interesting thing to notice is that now the door triggering mechanism is in the nearby room, with a sound clue. Just one step harder.
What I find interesting is that the way taken by the player is one that is design for an explorer, one that will see a button and press it before knowing why.
The other way, is design for the one going straight, he will first see the end level door and then explore to find the button. Just my theory, might be also just random level design that felt cool.


The end of the level has elements that enhance the feeling of rising the dungeon.
Also I wanted to point out that the level's major direction is to the left.
The first level was a left-right, back and forth direction. The third level goes a bit around, with the end to the left.
4th level again to the left...
5th end also towards the left...

I feel this left going is a symbol of getting back to what you love, getting your life back.
People says that the going to the right in platformer is a metaphor of time and life passing.
I'd just be interested to know if this is just random or was it deliberately so.

Make me a wiser panda!