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TVTranscript
00:01Once upon a time, there was a boy.
00:06I loved animated movies from an early age,
00:08and I sort of dreamed of making my own comic books
00:10or animated movies when I grew up.
00:12Who wanted to tell stories a whole new way.
00:16Jordan was a master in game design.
00:22He rotoscoped his brother's movements.
00:26And created a tale of a prince.
00:28Jordan managed to create such deep emotions.
00:33That ushered in a new age of gaming.
00:37Prince of Persia is also kind of considered
00:39one of the first action-adventure games.
00:43Sands of Time, unfortunately,
00:45it didn't really translate into the blockbuster sales
00:48that was expected.
00:50This is the story of the Prince of Persia series.
00:59The Neck.
01:00The destabilized in a new time.
01:12The End.
01:17The End.
01:20At a young age, Jordan Mechner discovers what will become his lifetime passion.
01:26I loved animated movies from an early age, and I sort of dreamed of making my own comic books or
01:30animated movies when I grew up.
01:33In 1979, a new computer from Apple gives him a chance to make his dreams a reality.
01:39When I was in high school, the Apple II computer was invented, and to me that was just the coolest
01:43way of telling a story on screen that I could actually do at home without any special skills.
01:49It was beyond my means to do an animated movie or a live-action movie that would be any good.
01:53But I could do a computer game, that would be pretty good.
01:56Within that, I create a story in a world that people who played the game could then experience and enjoy.
02:01His interest in creating games and storytelling carries over into college.
02:05I went to Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, and I ended up majoring in psychology.
02:09But mostly what I did during my four years of college was go to the movies and program computer games,
02:15which really cut into studying and so forth.
02:18It's not long before Mechner's talents are discovered by a publisher called Broderbunt.
02:23Broderbunt was probably the biggest software company of that time.
02:29And, I mean, they were publishing all kinds of games.
02:32So if you were a game maker at that time, being hooked up with Broderbunt was a pretty significant deal.
02:38While still a college student, Mechner goes to work on his first game for Broderbunt.
02:43My first game, Karataka, one of the things that inspired it were the film studies classes that I was taking
02:48at the same time.
02:49It seemed to me that games were kind of at a stage where silent films had been at the turn
02:54of the century.
02:56For that reason, Karataka was structured very much like a silent movie.
03:00And there were a lot of technical limitations that games had at that time, which silent movies also had.
03:06Characters couldn't talk.
03:07You couldn't really move the camera.
03:09Karataka comes out for the Apple II in 1984.
03:14It sells 500,000 copies.
03:17During my senior year, Karataka was published.
03:19It did very well.
03:19So when I graduated, instead of getting a regular job, as most of my friends did, I thought, well, I'll
03:24just do another computer game.
03:27Mechner graduates in 1985.
03:29One year later, he begins work on a new project.
03:31He finds inspiration in a famous silver screen archaeologist.
03:34There's a scene in the first ten minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones is running towards
03:39the ledge.
03:40He jumps and he misses it, but he grabs on.
03:42He grabs a root, you know, and he pulls himself up and rolls under the gate just as it's closing.
03:46I mean, that kind of suspense, you know, I wanted to get that into the game.
03:51Mechner wants to combine the feel of a movie he loves with an Arabian setting similar to A Thousand and
03:57One Nights.
03:57The result is a TV action-adventure game called Prince of Persia.
04:06In many ways, Prince of Persia is kind of like a sequel to Karataka.
04:12Prince of Persia took the same fluid animation and very simple, emotional, melodramatic story and combined it with kind of
04:20a modular, traps-based environment.
04:23His whole view of the thing was to really incorporate the story into the gameplay rather than, you know, stopping
04:28the game and then showing some story and then continuing with the story.
04:31He really wanted to roll that all into one thing.
04:33The challenges of making a game like Prince of Persia are daunting, but Mechner is determined to bring his vision
04:40to life.
04:50By 1986, Jordan Mechner is living in California and working hard on his newest game, Prince of Persia.
04:56Like many developers of his time, he must wrestle with limited technology.
05:01One of the biggest limitations in the earlier stuff is definitely sound.
05:05You hear about composers making music for systems in that era and it was really like composing with one hand
05:11tied behind your back.
05:12Well, the big problem on the Apple II with music was that the computer was only capable of playing one
05:17note at a time.
05:18My dad is a, you know, trans and classical pianist when he was young, so I asked my dad if
05:23he would compose the music.
05:25First for Karataka.
05:27And then for Prince of Persia.
05:30Mechner uses a new technique in animation with the help of his 15-year-old brother, David.
05:36Jordan Mechner apparently took a lot of video footage of his brother jumping up and down and running around, hanging
05:41on ledges.
05:42After that, he basically was called rotoscoping and he rotoscoped his brother's movements.
05:48And he really studied that very, very hard and tried to really emulate almost perfectly his brother's movements.
05:55I wanted to create a character that would have weight.
06:00When you were running, you had momentum.
06:01And if you then pushed the joystick in the other direction to turn around, the character's arm would kind of
06:05flail behind him.
06:06Because it's hard to turn around when you're in that fast in one direction.
06:10The whole breakthrough in terms of technology, which is the rotoscope, helped everyone to gather around this magnificent character.
06:21He was the very first one to be so well animated.
06:23As Prince of Persia gets closer to completion, Mechner's talents become more and more apparent.
06:28Jordan was a master in game design, level design ingredients, building the right learning curve, the right difficulty curve.
06:39The time limit on Prince of Persia is what kind of heightened the whole experience of the game.
06:47You're sweating, you're wondering if you're going to make it or not.
06:50You have no weapon and you've got to find the weapon.
06:53Clock's still ticking.
06:55The whole time, the game has this incredible tension.
07:01The most appealing thing was how simple all the elements that Jordan managed to bring together to create such deep
07:10emotions.
07:12The AI of the enemies was also pretty advanced for a game like that.
07:16I mean, you were out in a full-out sword battle with these guys.
07:19It wasn't just like hack slash and then they're out of your way.
07:21You engaged in kind of a lengthy sword battle with these guys and hope to put them away just in
07:26time for you to keep going.
07:29Broderbund releases Prince of Persia for the Apple II in 1989.
07:33It's funny, the big worry with Prince of Persia I was because I programmed it on the Apple II and
07:36when it came out in 89, the Macintosh had already been introduced.
07:40It didn't seem like very many consumers were ever going to see it simply because Apple II games weren't really
07:46being bought in stores anymore.
07:48What really saved Prince of Persia was the console versions that came out in the following years.
07:53The first Prince of Persia game is a huge success, not only because it created a palette for the rest
08:00of the video game industry to work off of, but also it was ported to so many different systems and
08:05there were people playing that all over the place.
08:10Prince of Persia will go on to sell two million copies.
08:15Meanwhile, Mechner decides to take a break.
08:18And at that point, I'd spent a good part of my youth writing computer games and I was kind of
08:23eager to get out and experience the world and have adventures and so forth outside of the industrial park in
08:27Northern California where it seemed like I'd been forever.
08:32So I went back to New York, went to film school, then I lived in Paris to make a film.
08:38But he doesn't step out of games completely.
08:41When Birdman came to me, he wanted me to do Prince of Persia II, my first reaction was, no, I
08:47don't want to program another game, it's too hard, it takes too long.
08:50We were able to work out an arrangement whereby I didn't have to program it, I would just come up
08:55with a story, I would do storyboards, and then they had their own team of engineers and artists who would
09:01do what I saw as the hard work, which I had had to do on Prince of Persia I.
09:05So this was great because I was actually living in Paris and I was able to send back and forth
09:09everything they needed to keep working on the game.
09:12Mechner spends the next four years shooting a short film and working on a sequel to Prince of Persia.
09:19Prince of Persia, The Shadow and the Flame comes out for the PC in 1993 and outsells the original.
09:28In 1997, Mechner branches out and releases an adventure game called The Last Express.
09:34The game is praised by critics, but sales are sluggish.
09:38So it was kind of this bizarre labor of love, this project that took us four years to do, and
09:43ultimately there was not a huge market for adventure games in 1997,
09:47especially adventure games that took place in 1914 on the Orient Express.
09:52The game is beautiful, I love the project, I think all of us who worked on it are very proud
09:55of it,
09:56but it didn't have the kind of success that the Prince of Persia games did.
09:59With the disappointing performance of The Last Express, Mechner feels like he's done with games.
10:12On September 17th, 1999, Red Orb Entertainment releases Prince of Persia 3D for the PC.
10:19A Dreamcast port is also made, called Prince of Persia, a Radiant Knights.
10:24Mechner's involvement with the games is minimal.
10:27I went on from Last Express to write movie screenplays.
10:30I did a little consulting for them on the project at the beginning,
10:32but ultimately that was a Broderman project that later became a Mattel project.
10:39Well, Prince of Persia 3D kind of came out under the radar.
10:41Nobody really paid that much attention to it.
10:45Mechner decides to take another break from the game industry.
10:48Freaker!
10:49To make a documentary.
10:50I took a few years off from making video games and focused on my other love, which is film.
10:56The project was a documentary about a neighborhood of Los Angeles that was destroyed in the 50s to build Dodger
11:02Stadium.
11:02It's called Chavez Ravine, a Los Angeles Story.
11:07Meanwhile, a French company called Ubisoft picks up the rights to the Prince of Persia franchise
11:11and calls on their studio in Montreal, Canada to work on reviving the series.
11:17In secret, we were already working on very early prototype and first mock-up for the game.
11:22Jordan and I met for the first time at E3 2001.
11:25And we immediately discussed the idea of making a rebirth for this license.
11:35In July 2001, two months after I met with Jordan,
11:39I invited him here to show him what the team had made at that time.
11:44And when he saw those mock-ups, those little AVIs we've made, he was totally flabbergasted.
11:53And I will remember all my life Jordan's words saying,
11:57this is reawakening the joy of making a video game to me.
12:01I think we all saw this as a terrifically exciting opportunity to take something that was so old that we
12:06loved and make it new again.
12:08We had, you know, the godfather of the license and the action-adventure genre telling us, go ahead.
12:14And then we started.
12:16After eight months in development, Jordan came in as the official scriptwriter and he rewrote a new story, totally new,
12:25and worked with us until the end.
12:28Ubisoft Montreal looks to other games for influences on how to make Sands of Time truly unique.
12:34Ego was one of our main influences.
12:38And then we had an example of the type of game we were trying to make already.
12:43And also Tony Hawk, Pro Scudger, that was another, where you can really, you know,
12:48you just play and try stuff and be good at it and have really a spectacular character.
12:57One feature that truly sets the Sands of Time apart from other games is the player's control over the flow
13:02of time.
13:03Wouldn't it be cool if instead of dying,
13:06you could turn back time,
13:09rewind,
13:10and then replay from that point.
13:12That way you could play continuously and only rarely would you die and interrupt the fun of playing.
13:17We wanted to have our own technological breakthrough.
13:20I could turn back time.
13:23Which is all the control time features, the real-time rewind.
13:34The prince himself gets an update.
13:36We always knew that he was going to be a really agile, acrobatic guy.
13:41He's not, like, muscle-bound.
13:43He's more the kind of clever trickster.
13:47Developing a character who looked at the way that the character felt to play,
13:50you know, that was the challenge.
13:52We had to have an attitude that would make gamers today really want to be the prince and play in
13:56that world.
13:58I'm very happy with the design we came up with.
14:00As does the gameplay.
14:02A lot of 3D games are kind of, they're beautiful, but they're kind of clunky to actually play.
14:06So we wanted to have the mechanics and the camera so taken care of that it could become second nature
14:10to the player.
14:10You could just hit buttons and do a sequence of moves and have this incredible acrobatic thrill of movement.
14:17What they really succeeded with with The Sands of Time is creating a very seamless animation that really makes you
14:24feel like you're controlling the character.
14:26These animations aren't just pre-scripted things, but you're causing this animation to happen.
14:31Ubisoft releases Prince of Persia The Sands of Time for the PC, Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube on November 6,
14:382003.
14:39The Sands of Time, unfortunately, is one of those games that was a critical success.
14:45It had great reviews.
14:46It said it was an excellent game, but it didn't really translate into the blockbuster sales that was expected.
14:53To the point that even a couple months later, Ubisoft bundled Splinter Cell with Prince of Persia.
15:00You buy Prince of Persia and then you get a free Splinter Cell.
15:03After a relatively slow start, Prince of Persia The Sands of Time sells more than 2 million copies worldwide.
15:09The way that, let's say, the gamer have appreciated the game has been really, really good for us.
15:16We were very surprised.
15:19The Prince has returned, and his new adventures are just beginning.
15:31After its 2003 release, Prince of Persia The Sands of Time is showered with praise and sweeps the 2003 AIAS
15:37Awards.
15:38And the award goes to Prince of Persia.
15:40Prince of Persia.
15:42Prince of Persia.
15:43Prince of Persia.
15:44Prince of Persia Sands of Time.
15:46Prince of Persia received eight prizes.
15:48It was a little bit embarrassing after, like, the fifth, when he had to come back all the time on
15:55the stage.
15:55Thank you very much.
15:56Thank you all.
15:57Thank you very much.
15:58Thanks, guys.
15:58Thank you again for that award.
16:00That was beautiful.
16:01Thank you very much.
16:02Winning awards in a place like DICE really goes to show that your peers respect you.
16:08The people in the industry that you work with really respect what you've done with the game, which I think
16:13is a huge honor to have.
16:17Work on a sequel titled Prince of Persia Warrior Within begins immediately.
16:21When we started the project, we looked over the sands of time.
16:25We didn't want to change everything because the recipe was good in the sands of time and improve what can
16:31be improved.
16:32The team sets out to make a darker, grittier game.
16:35The prince himself has changed.
16:37He's evolved.
16:38He's the same character, but he's grown up.
16:40He has grown up.
16:42He's much more mature.
16:43And everything around him also has mature.
16:47There's a good landscape that you're going to see in the game.
16:50There's no texture.
16:52I have to put all the textures, do the modeling, refining, because it's all edgy like this.
16:57There is a link in the story between the sands of time and why you're within.
17:01In the first game, he made an oil mistake, opening the hourglass.
17:04By doing that, he screwed up the timeline.
17:07He called upon himself his own incarnation of fate, which is what we call the hacka.
17:13Which is based on the true Persian mythology.
17:16So this is the hacka, one of our big bosses.
17:19And the idea was to give him more of a badass walk.
17:22I'll go in and add some up and down to give him more bounce because he's such a big guy.
17:27The hacka is the quarry of time.
17:29It's a huge beast that cannot be killed.
17:34Prince is about this size next to him.
17:36The hacka's job is to kill prince.
17:39So the sad news is that the prince is going to die.
17:42He cannot change fate.
17:43He has to die.
17:44So, of course, as a hero, he will try to find a way to change that.
17:50The prince's full idea is to rewind time before even the creation of the sands of time.
17:57Because no sands of time, no the hacka.
17:59And no the hacka, happy, happy joy.
18:02In the game, we're going to travel through time.
18:05This one is like in the present.
18:07But no, he can also travel in the past for centuries.
18:12Which enabled us to go a little bit earlier in time.
18:15So, we could visit some different kind of environments.
18:18We were going to ancient Persia rather than the Arabic style of the previous game.
18:22So, this time it's more a mix between Persian and Greek.
18:26The highlight of the sequel is an enhanced fighting system.
18:29So, the freeform fighting system as a gameplay mechanics is basically a mix between the Prince of Persia fighting system
18:38and the SSX combo stuff.
18:40Where you can basically define your own fighting skill.
18:45The freeform fighting is just how to make the experience in the combat unique.
18:51In the fall of 2004, Ubisoft releases Prince of Persia Warrior Within for the PC and all the major consoles.
18:58Meanwhile, Jordan Mechner combines his two greatest passions, games and film.
19:03Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney have picked up the rights to make Prince of Persia as a feature film.
19:08I'm writing it.
19:10Jerry Bruckheimer is producing for Disney.
19:12This is a terrific, exciting chance to kind of bring Prince of Persia full circle to his cinematic roots.
19:17As Jordan and the Prince tackle the challenges of the big screen.
19:22It's important to recognize how far they have taken the world of gaming.
19:26Not only that, but Prince of Persia is also kind of considered one of the first action-adventure games.
19:31That really spawned a whole bunch of different action-adventure games like Tomb Raider.
19:38Prince of Persia was a very important franchise ten years ago with Jordan Mechner.
19:46And we have made great work with the team.
19:50Now, that Prince of Persia license is something that we want to push forward for the future.
20:01I don't think I could have foreseen that 15 years later, Prince of Persia would still be alive, still be
20:08played and remembered.
20:10You know, that's probably one of the most rewarding aspects.
20:27It's a 1.2 megapixel camera and holds 5,000 MP3s.
20:31Wow, that's really impressive.
20:34Hold on a second, sorry.
20:36Hello?
20:38Yeah, hey, I'm in the middle of lunch. Can I call you back?
20:40All right, cool, thanks.
20:42So that's a lot of MP3s.
20:44Yeah.
20:44See the best, greatest, biggest, shiniest, coolest, and blinkiest new stuff coming next year
20:48when the Screensavers goes live at the Consumer Electronics Show January 6th and 7th at 7 Eastern.
20:54Hold on, let me put you on speakerphone.
20:56No.
20:56No.
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