Prince of Projects
Friend and occasional writing partner Jordan Mechner has been tinkering on a website for a few months, and is now ready to invite the world in. He has a lot to share about 20 years in the videogame industry, and the transition from designer to screenwriter.
Basically, my plan is to blog, post sketches, and answer questions people send in — most of which I expect will be about Prince of Persia.
Yes, he’ll actually talk about it. We’re both executive producers on the 2010 blockbuster, but he’s been vastly more involved over the past two years, visiting set in Morocco and generally keeping himself in the loop.
I’ll also continue to post blogs from the past via the “Old Journals” feature, telling the gritty, no-holds-barred, inside story of the first making of POP on the Apple II, 1985-1989. Not sure quite who will be interested in that one, but hopefully someone.
Not just that — Karateka. My brother and I spent a summer playing Karateka on the Atari 800.
So check out his site: jordanmechner.com.
Articles
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:58 am
I was in Morocco about three ago and saw some of the sets for PoP out near the main film studios at Ouarzazate… I’m not sure whether they were still filming there, but there seemed to be a lot of filming activity in the city in general… ahh well…
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:59 am
*three WEEKS ago
sorry :P
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I think Mechner’s entree into the filmmaking world is long overdue, and I hope that Prince of Persia has enough success to enable him to try other non-game-related projects. I remember playing his game The Last Express, one of the last computer games I can remember enjoying (just don’t have the patience for them anymore), and really being amazed at the depth of story and character work.
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Wow John, I just plopped a Karateka reference into a screenplay I’m working on just two nights ago. I still have fond memories of that game and what didn’t happen if you didn’t run to the princess…
Awesome how sometimes obscure memories come to light at the same time for different people.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Karateka was awesome. Hated that damn bird, though.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:06 am
The Atari 800, wow you ARE a geek! I began my journey of screenwriting in AtariWrite on the 800.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:55 am
Atari 800? You were living large. We had an Atari 400 which had that flat “membrane” keyboard – not fun when trying to type an entire BASIC program copied from Family Computing Magazine as an 8-year-old. Nothing beat Krazy Shootout though!
October 24th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
@MJ Marcinkus:
My brother and I typed in BASIC programs as well. Today’s youth will never understand the joy of spending 45 minutes to type in a game that will disappear when the computer is turned off.
At some point, we got a tape recorder so we could play Kingdom. And save the programs we typed in.
@Brian:
You’ll find that a lot of comedy comes from making cultural references you’d assume few people will get. But they do. Or even if they don’t, they find the idea of the reference funny. On FRASIER, he and Niles are constantly talking about things a typical audience member wouldn’t recognize (classical composers, ports, poets) yet it works. BIG BANG THEORY is Frasier with tech nerds.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Jake Gyllenhaal looks fucking horrible in the lead role. Has anyone seen those pics of him that leaked? It looks so fucking retarded. Boycott this bullshit.
October 28th, 2008 at 6:50 am
For those who played the first PoP, I just saw his video to get a feel for the animations of that game, and it is disturbingly similar. I just remember how hard it was to get my guy to stop because of his forward momentum. I always fell onto those spikes.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
@Chris
Thanks for posting that, it’s such a weird thing to see in the flesh! I really got the hang of that momentum thing, much to my brother’s dismay…
Ahh, the days my brother would allow me to escape my C64 and play PoP on his Amiga 500 (with 1MB upgrade). It’s always been my favourite game.
I find a real sense of joy that Mechner is involved in movies; especially writing. It makes me warm and fuzzy =D