John August

Karateka

Eggnog and Dreadlock Santa

Episode - 69

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Karateka, QandA, Scriptnotes, Transcribed

It’s Christmas, so John and Craig are exchanging the gift of answers, tackling listener questions on topics ranging from musical books to punch-up sessions.

December is also Black List season, and we’re happy to see some familiar names among the most-liked screenplays this year, including a Three Page Challenge entrant.

John’s long-in-the-works Karateka is finally in the App Store, ready for purchase, while Craig’s trailer for Identity Thief just dropped. So pour yourself a glass of Craig’s most despised holiday beverage and join us for episode 69 (tee-hee) of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting.

LINKS:

You can download the episode here: AAC.

UPDATE 12-30-12: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

Punching the Hawk

Apps, Karateka, Projects

Karateka IconKarateka, our remake of Jordan Mechner’s groundbreaking game, is finally (finally!) available for iOS. So fire up your iPhone or iPad and tap over to the App Store.

I really think you’ll love it, even if you’re not someone who usually plays fighting games. It’s beautiful. It’s simple. It’s like playing a Japanese fairy tale.

One of the best things about Karateka is that you don’t need to carve out a weekend to play it. You can pick it up and flatten some bad guys between finals. You can punch the hawk in the bathroom while hiding from your family. 1

If you have half an hour, you can make it to the final boss — but you’re unlikely to finish the story, because to get there with the True Love is going to require some practice.

But it’s the holidays. You can find the time.

Karateka is also available on Xbox, PS3 and Steam. Parents love all their children, so of course I love these platforms, too. But the iOS version is where I’ve spent by far the most time, both at work and play. I live my life on Apple products. The iPhone and iPad are my home turf, and I wanted their version of Karateka to be great.

We’ve actually had development builds of the iOS version since the summer. My seven-year-old daughter has probably played it 100 times. She’s better than me, except when it comes to the hawk. When she knows it’s coming, she’ll pause the game, find me, then have me deal with it. (Same with real-life spiders.)

Jordan and the team at Liquid did the hard work of porting the console game to iOS — getting those polygons to behave is a beast — but we did quite a bit in our offices too. Ryan Nelson designed the icon, the menus, and these awesome shirts we’re giving away this afternoon:

t-shirt

People often ask me why I don’t sell any advertising for the site or the podcast. After all, both have a big audience, and hosting them costs money. But it’s just always felt weird to me stumping for something I don’t necessarily believe it.

I believe in Karateka. I love it and I own a chunk of it, both emotionally and financially. So if you’re a loyal reader and/or listener, a $2.99 download in the App Store would mean a lot to me.

(And if you love the game, a glowing review is also a big help.)

When you’ve had a chance to play the game, tweet me and Jordan Mechner to let us know what you think.

We’ll also be looking for tweets hash-tagged #punchthehawk, so a witty one might find itself retweeted a lot.

  1. That sounds dirty. That’s intentional. ↩

Making and Remaking Karateka

Karateka, News, Video

Karateka began its life on personal computers — the Apple II, in fact — and completes the cycle with its launch on Steam today. (And it’s on sale this week.)

To commemorate the making and remaking of the game, Earl Newton shot a terrific series of how-we-did-it videos, the first two of which are embedded below.

In the first video, I love the dust cover Jordan Mechner’s mom made for his Apple II, complete with cord flaps. In the second video, check out the Super-8 footage Jordan used for rotoscoping. Watching it, you realize how handmade digital things can be.

In some ways, these videos feel like a Kickstarter campaign for something that’s already available in the world. You don’t have to pledge for a dream. You can get it today on Steam and Xbox, and very soon for iOS and PS3.

Part 1: Inspiration

(link: Inspiration: Making and Remaking Karateka)

Part 2: Animation

(link: Animation: Making and Remaking Karateka)

Punching the Hawk: Karateka 2.0

Karateka, Videogames

karateka cover artAlmost three years ago, Jordan Mechner and I set out to make a new version of his amazing 1984 videogame Karateka, which I’d played endlessly one summer on the Atari 800.

Rather than going to a publisher, we decided to make the game ourselves. We raised money. We hired artists and coders. We sweated a lot of details, from story points to footfall sounds.

Today, we shipped. Karateka is now available on the Xbox, with a free trial download.

If you have an Xbox, stop reading and start punching.

If you have a PS3, a PC, a Mac or an iOS device, your version is coming soon. So sit tight.

Even if you don’t normally play fighting games, I think you’ll enjoy it. The combat rewards precision rather than button-smashing, and Jordan’s multiple-protagonist mechanic makes it easy to survive but hard to triumph. I think you’re going to see other games adopting this idea.

Plus, Karateka looks and sounds terrific. Christopher Tin’s music isn’t just frosting on top — it’s integral to the gameplay in a unique way.

I was so happy with how the game was coming together that last March I went to Adam Lisagor and asked (well, begged) him to make a video for us.

That debuted today as well:

(There’s a director’s cut available too.)

I’ll have more to blog about as we discover how the game fares in the wild, but it’s been an amazing process to get to this point.

I’ve made movies and I’ve made apps, but making a videogame was another beast altogether. Jordan deserves all the accolades, yet I’m sure he’d agreee that it wouldn’t have been possible without his remarkable team at Liquid. I also need to single out Jeff Matsuda for creating the look of the world with his concept art, and Ryan Nelson for building countless iterations of product artwork in every conceivable specification.

It’s hard to believe it’s finally in the store. Check it out, and as always, ask questions.