How do I keep up with all the myriad developments in the world of Prince of Persia? With Google Alerts. That’s how I just found out that
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands testament passion the new plot from stylish year’s periodical reboot and go back to the humanity of Sands of Quantify, the games on which the upcoming Jerry Bruckheimer flick is supported.
This shouldn’t proceed as untold of a earthquake to incessant readers of Game Life, who already bed that serial creator Jordan Mechner said early this month that Ubisoft’s City apartment was working on “something that I’m frantic about” and that he due an annunciation soon.
Hot on the heels of the lodging for the Prince of Persia celluloid, Ubisoft has announced that the next Prince of Empire courageous will be usable in May 2010.
Pretty accurate reporting, overall, except I thought what I actually said was “The vodka is good but the meat is rotten.”
Posted Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 9:25 pm in Blog, Film, Games, Prince of Persia | 4 Comments »
Posted Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 7:15 pm in Blog, Film, Prince of Persia, Sketchbook | 4 Comments »
When I was seven years old, The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie.
I watched it every time it came on TV (this was before home video) until I knew the songs and most of the dialog by heart.
I typed up as much as I could remember on my dad’s Selectric, in script format, figuring I’d stage it and charge admission. But there were some gaps.
I took the Manhattan white pages directory from my parents’ bedroom and looked up E.Y. Harburg, whose name was in the credits. The conversation went something like this:
YH: Hello?
Me: Hello. Is this E.Y. Harburg?
YH: Yes…?
Me: Did you write the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz?
YH: Yes, I did.
Me: Can you tell me the first line of the Cowardly Lion’s song, because I didn’t understand it.
YH: “It’s sad, believe me, Missy / When you’re born to be a sissy / Without the vim and verve / But I could show my prowess / Be a lion, not a mowess / If I only had the nerve.”
Me: OK. Also, what does the Tin Woodman sing after “I hear a beat, how sweet…”
YH: “Just to register emotion / Jealousy, devotion / And really feel the part / Just because I’m presumin’ / That I could be kind of human / If I only had a heart.”
I got what I needed, thanked him, and hung up.
In retrospect, from an adult perspective, it does sort of make sense that a Broadway lyricist who’d been blacklisted by Hollywood would, in his 70s, be living in an apartment in Manhattan and answering his own phone in the middle of the afternoon. At the time, being a kid, I just took it for granted. I don’t think I even thought the call noteworthy enough to mention to my parents.
Posted Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 9:49 am in Blog, Film | 6 Comments »
Sketchbook pages from my first day on the Prince of Persia set in Morocco, last summer:
Jake offered to hold the Dagger of Time so I could sketch it. The one drawing you’d figure I could do in my sleep. Naturally, under pressure (we were between takes), I rushed it, and messed up the proportions.
I asked him to hand me the dagger for a moment, thinking I might just turn back time and try that sketch again. Alas, it was empty. He must have used up the sand doing stunt work with 2nd unit.
It felt good to hold it, though. Much more solid and weighty than a PS2 controller.
Posted Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 11:38 pm in Blog, Featured, Film, Prince of Persia, Sketchbook | 10 Comments »
Eons ago, in 1996, Next Generation magazine asked me for a list of game design tips for narrative games. Here’s what I gave them.
Reading it today, some of it feels dated (like the way I refer to the player throughout as “he”), but a lot is as relevant as ever. I especially like #8 and #9.
- The story is what the player does, not what he watches.
- List the actions the player actually performs in the game and take a cold hard look at it. Does it sound like fun? (Resist the temptation to embellish. If a cinematic shows the player’s character sneak into a compound, clobber a guard and put on his uniform, the player’s action is “Watch cinematic.” Letting the player click to clobber the guard isn’t much better.)
- The only significant actions are those that affect the player’s ability to perform future actions. Everything else is bells and whistles.
- Design a clear and simple interface. The primary task of the interface is to present the player with a choice of the available actions at each moment and to provide instant feedback when the player makes a choice.
- The player needs a goal at all times, even if it’s a mistaken one. If there’s nothing specific he wishes to accomplish, he will soon get bored, even if the game is rich with graphics and sound.
- The more the player feels that the events of the game are being caused by his own actions, the better — even when this is an illusion.
- Analyze the events of the story in terms of their effect on the player’s goals. For each event, ask: Does this move the player closer to or further away from a goal, or give him a new goal? If not, it’s irrelevant to the game.
- The longer the player plays without a break, the more his sense of the reality of the world is built up. Any time he dies or has to restart from a saved game, the spell is broken.
- Alternative paths, recoverable errors, multiple solutions to the same problem, missed opportunities that can be made up later, are all good.
- Don’t introduce gratuitous obstacles just to create a puzzle.
- As the player moves through the game, he should have the feeling that he is passing up potentially interesting avenues of exploration. The ideal outcome is for him to win the game having done 95% of what there is to do, but feeling that there might be another 50% he missed.
Posted Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 11:35 pm in Blog, Games | 33 Comments »
Blog