Karateka was my first published game. I created it on an Apple II while attending Yale in the early 1980s, and submitted it on a floppy disk to Brøderbund. Set in feudal Japan, the story couldn’t have been simpler. An evil warlord had kidnapped your girlfriend and you had to fight his karate-trained minions to rescue her from his fortress. What made Karateka different was that it felt like a movie, with more fluid and lifelike character animation than any game before.
I wanted to bring the silent-film techniques I was learning about in my history-of-cinema classes — rotoscoping, cross-cutting, tracking shots — to the Apple II. My goal was to create a game that was visually sophisticated, yet so easy to play that even a non-gamer could immediately grasp the story, pick up the joystick and and become addicted.
Back then, games didn’t have marketing campaigns, but good reviews and word-of-mouth drove sales until, by April 1985, Billboard magazine ranked Karateka as the #1 best-selling game in the U.S. With versions for Commodore 64, Atari, Nintendo NES and Game Boy, Karateka sales eventually passed 500,000 units. In those days when the videogame market was less than 10% of its current size, this was a real number.
Karateka was a life-changing breakthrough for me. Until then, programming computer games had been my hobby and passion. Karateka’s success proved to me (and to my parents) that this could be a legitimate career. It helped me decide, right after college, to go on and make another computer game, Prince of Persia.
“KARATEKA was the first computer game that gave me the sense that I was seeing a new form of interactive storytelling. The characters were uncannily real compared to anything I had seen before and the flow of the game was at a new level of cinematic polish for its time.” – Will Wright, Lead Designer of The Sims
“KARATEKA showed that storytelling DURING gameplay was not only possible, but powerful. Even today, the storytelling of KARATEKA still works better than many of today’s mega-budget action games. One of my favorite games of all time.” – David Jaffe, Director of God of War
“KARATEKA taught me to approach a woman kindly… and not in a Kung Fu stance.” – Cliff Blezinsky, Lead Designer of Gears of War
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Wow… This game was a killer when I was younger. I remember my father was obsessed with the idea of giving my little brother and me a computer, and he bought a second-hand Apple (can’t tell what it was) and a bunch of floppy disks, I guess.
Most of the time I played around Basic codes (INPUT, OUTPUT, NAME, GO TO hahahaha LOL), but the games were fun too. Stuff like Winter Games, Robocop (I think, not so sure) and Karateka. I never really got to the end of it though. The eagles pissed me off and never went much further than the first few enemies inside the castle or whatever it was…!
Thanks!
I loved playing Kareteka on my old Apple IIe. I completed the game many, many times, and found a couple funny nuances of the game, namely:
1. At the very beginning of the game, if you walked backwards, your player would fall off the cliff and die, immediately ending the game.
2. If you approached the princess as if you were going to attack her, she would give you one swift kick, killing you instantly.
Oh many, I loved the music at the end when you won.
Great game!!! Port it to the Wii please!
I’ve only played Karateka once, and I don’t even remember exactly when or where. I don’t really remember because I quickly gave up on it.
I didn’t exactly understood Cliff Blezinsky’s quote really… but David Romankow’s comment made me get it, and… hahaha.
BTW, at the time of this writing, the link to this page (from the right side flash) appears to point to a non-existent PNG. I got here by manually typing the name of the game.
Found your site by accident. Great work my friend
Karateka on the Apple IIc gave me hours of pleasure as a kid first on a monochrome screen and then in color. Thanks for making it!! Had forgotten how cool the box art looked too. Who illustrated it? Looks like it says OG which is strangely appropriate.
Picture Wayne and Garth bowing in front of Alice Cooper and saying, “We’re not worthy!”.
That pretty much sums it up for me. I played Karateka for hours and hours. Won so many times but played again anyway. Has to be my all-time favorite game (Okay Silas Warner’s Wolfenstein might co-share the title with you). Thank you so much for helping me spend so many hours of my youth.
I found this as a link from a What is the IIgs article.
I played Karateka on an Atari 800XL.
I was so bad at the game but kept coming back for more since it was so utterly captivating.
Me and a friend used to flick between this game and Archer Maclean’s DropZone frequently. Great days.
I really liked this, thanks for the blog
i use to love this game…every now and then i whistle the nice music that came with the new levels…
was that the first motion capture ever used for a comuter game…i think i heard it some where anyway this little game made my childhood much better!!!
your the man man!!!
\roman
I remember our Karateka addiction in our computer lab senior year 1985 running on Apple II+s. There was nothing like it at the time on a PC. Anticipating the eagle was tough!
Karateka is an all time classic!! Right up there with Elite !!
I am starting to write games for the Apple 2 as a hobby (I should have started 20 years ago !!) and Karateka is my measure of the “Gold Standard” in game development. I can only hope to create something this cool !!
J
I was sitting in my office working hard at something, and all of a sudden, 20 years after I last played Karateka, I remembered how gorgeously hilarious it was that when you put the disk in the computer upside-down, you could play the game upside-down. What fun!
This game was wicked awesome. Before its time also. I remember “Miner 2049′er” as well, on the TI (texas instruments). I played it on my Commodore VIC-20 that i jacked up to run like the 64, then got a 64. Had a Sinclair 1000 also that i had built from a kit. Is there any version of Karateks to play now, just for nostalgia sake?
Esse foi o primeiro jogo de computador que me impressionou. Mesmo numa tela fósforo verde o gráfico era de impressionar.
Mais impressionante que o gráfico, era o movimento do personagem. Andando, correndo, lutando. Parecia tão real. E era realmente fácil de jogar. Não era necessário praticar muito para adquirir um bom domínio dos comandos.
E também foi a primeira vez que vi um jogo com história. Aquele karateka tinha um passado. Ele estava ali por um motivo. Acho que era esse o principal motivo da atração pelo jogo. Foi realmente um divisor de águas nos jogos de computador.
Parabéns!
My sister and I both enjoyed this game in the 80′s. I heard that you are going to have a sequel. If so, please have a sequel available on the Playstation 2.
I also enjoyed this game in the 1980s. Fantastic. Also Price of Persia. Wonderful experiences of technology in that period of recent history! Thanks for creating …
Olá, post muito bom !
http://www.famoziinhas.com/2009/11/download-2012-o-ano-da-profecia-dublado.html
I liked this game a lot. But maybe you can answer the question, why in the world was it so SLOW on the C64? It felt like it was programmed in BASIC.
Because the Commodore was clocked at 0.5 MHZ- half as fast as an Apple- one fourth as fast as an Atari.
The C-64 was 1 MHz, not 0.5 MHz, and this still doesn’t explain the slowdown. You don’t have this kind of problem with other C64 games that were ported properly.
Oh! I just had a flashback to the first time I finished Karateka! I was at “computer camp”, two weeks in Dobie at UT dorking around on computers (mostly just playing games) and hanging out at the pool. It was the summer of New Coke and I was 11.
Man, life before puberty was awesome.
Jordan,
Karateka was my favorite game as a kid–truly an innovative game for it’s time! Any chance you’ll port it to the iPhone? It would be amazing on that platform!
Rich
I actually went looking for Jordan Mechner’s address as a youngster to ask if there was ever a sequel in the works!
It was my favorite game for a long time, even attempted speed completion challenges with my friends on the Apple IIe.
Dare I say – Revamp? XBLA? PSN? I know I’d buy it.
To quote the letter I had written as a young lad “Thank you Mr Mechner for making such a fun game. Me and my brother really like it and want you to know how happy we are when we get to play it.”
Hey Jordan. The obligatory thanks first up for making one of my fave Apple II games.
I just put up on Youtube a vid of me playing the game demonstrating my ‘superpunch’ technique. I knew a lot of kids who played Karateka at the time and I never saw anyone else doing this, which made me dare to think this might be my own thing. Some comments I received recently on an old Karateka review of mine inspired me to get off my backside and finally show what this superpunch deal was all about. I’d be keen to know if you ever tried this yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-ThZbenw0I
.. I recently stuck my orig Apple 2 Prince of Persia box in an obvious place in my workspace as I find it inspiring to have around. I’m working on a new horror adventure game for the Apple II (call me insane) and I often think of the slog I read about in your PoP journal as I’m doing it, because, no kidding, it’s freaking difficult!
Cheers,
- Wade Clarke
I LOVED Karateka as a kid! Played it on my Apple IIe so many years ago. I would love to see it on the iPhone now…
And congrats on your success with Prince of Persia! (I’m ashamed to admit that while I could remember your name from Karateka, I didn’t know you made PoP too).
I loved playing this game at my best friend’s house in Emerald Harbour. Thank you.
This is my best game when I was a kid.
I was passing many hours playing with my friends, I was a lot of dificil to win the enemies.
The best play!
And, good times those.
(sorry about my bas english!)
Karateka was a really impressive game for me, until it I´ve played pacman and sopwith for instance, but Karateka was the first game that obsessed me enough to play it to the end, after it only POP and POP 2 was really good to play the same chords on me. I´ve never play another game to the end until today, and I´m 41 now. Really thanks, I spend really good moments with my counsins and friends playing those games. I really miss platform classic games.
P.S.
Have you think about a movie based on karateka??
Best Regards
Yeah, with Chuck Norris in mind…
Another vote/request for Karateka on the iPhone. The Prince of Persia Classic port is wonderful, and I’d love to be able to play Karateka again. Thanks!
Could you please make the game for the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic?
I salute you for this magnificent game!
I just reminisced about Karateka here: http://www.gamecouch.com/2010/06/karateka/
I would love to see this ported/updated for modern consoles!
Jordan, I’m very happy to have the opportunity to congratulate you for this great software. Every time I see the game now, It takes me back to the 80′s and I feel young again!. Today in 2010, I still like it!. All the best!!!
Have you seen this alternative ending? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo1PYkKU6ck&playnext_from=TL&videos=beEiwEYcoUc&feature=grec_index
Yes…..that was the one of the BEST games before more than 15 years.
I still like this game.
Jordan, I am glad I found this site and I want to congratulate you for writing such a great game. I remember I was a little kid and my dad bought an Apple IIc and it came with many games and one of them was Karateka which I played for years and finished many many times.