Monday 26 March 2018

Thrown into a rather tricky type of Dungeon ...

An adventure game with sword fighting that was also a brilliantly-designed platform puzzle game? A 2D version of Tomb Raider long before Tomb Raider was created?

Just as much caution is advised if you are ever to play this artfully-designed classic that has influenced so many games since. In fact, many kids still learn how swiftly - and realistically - death can arrive in Prince of Persia.

screenshot of Prince of Persia 1

To be honest, the level-hopping colour-madness of Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog on Nintendo always used to stress me out. Having said that, the world I was about to find myself in was not the cosiest of places, just the most cunningly-designed dungeon ever. In fact, there is genius lurking here.

Welcome to... 'Prince of Persia' on IBM PC. The disk finally came through the mail and the box was opened eagerly.

After churning away in the disk drive (as it loaded from one or more five-and-a-quarter inch floppy disks) its pixelated title screen would appear. But it was (unlike many games back then)... worth the wait.

In fact it was... brilliant.

Your character was perfectly animated. Torches flamed on the walls. Doors were activated when you stood on them, spikes appeared out of the floor scaring the bejeezus out of you and magic potions allowed you to restore health at vital, soul-relieving moments. And there were even well-balanced 2D sword fights against skeletons that couldn't be stabbed, but only tricked. Finding your lost sword within such a realm was... exhilarating. Flashes of pure genius in level design.

Finding your sword in the dungeon


You can still play the game over sites like this one. Watch out, you have 60 minutes to complete the game, as your time is running out to save the princess.

No, the full completion of this many-levelled game was far from easy, but when you had passed through the final doorway and rescued the princess even a kid realised that computer games were just beginning. Because you were left wanting more. A lot more inside the new, magical realm of computer games.



Now I'm sat playing RIME on the PS4 with my 5 year old son. It came as a free game in the PSN subscription last month or something. It's his first game, and I'm doing most of the tricky jumping and hanging off walls. It's nothing violent, too loud or noisy. It's a beautiful game, if a little spooky, and the difficulty level is just right for exploration and adventure. It also happens to be about the nature of grief, a theme mercifully lost on my son. But it shows him another world, of magic, light and darkness. There is a magic fox creature helping us through this deserted underworld. It reminds me a hell of a lot of Prince of Persia crossed with the more recent influence of Journey.

But it's everything I knew games could become, without being encased inside VR just yet.

We should all give thanks to Jordan Mechner for Prince of Persia and its sequels for paving the way for these 'better' games. He's done pretty well out of it though!

You can read more about 'RIME' on my blog for latest games and VR content here.