January 26, 1990
The character animations for IBM Prince are a big job. I’ve put in thirty hours this week and I’m barely halfway through. It turns out that what I’m doing is not, as billed, a “polish” of Jim St. Louis’s work, but a complete overhaul. In some cases I’ve even had to go back to the Apple originals.
I hope Jim doesn’t notice that all his work has been redone when he sees the published product. I actually feel worse about the possibility that his feelings will be hurt than I do about having wasted time and money paying for work I’m now having to redo myself.
It’s all coming together. Sound effects, music, graphics. Tom Rettig, Dad, and Leila have outdone themselves; they’ve given this project the best work they’re capable of, and more of their time than Brian or I had a right to expect.
Meanwhile, Lance is in a foul mood, working ten hours a day as usual and worrying about getting it all done in time. Tonight we shared a quiet evening working till 10:30 pm.
This is going to be the definitive version of Prince of Persia. With VGA and sound card, on a fast machine, it’ll blow the Apple away. (In contrast, none of the Karateka conversions was as good as the Apple original.) If it makes its new April release date, it’ll be shown at Computerfest in May. I hope so. God, I hope it’s as big a hit as it deserves to be.
Everything seems to be going right. The Apple version hasn’t received any marketing push as of yet (and is selling a lackluster 500 or so units a month, as against 1,500 for a normal Carmen Sandiego title), but the reviews have been glowing enough to hold everyone’s attention. Everything depends on how the IBM version sells. (IBM Carmen is selling 5,000 units a month.)
In three months we should have some idea. The waiting is driving me crazy.
This isn’t such a bad business to be in. Now that I’m going to leave, I’m starting to miss it. It’s more fun now that I’m not programming by myself. I think it would be fun to start a software company to make games, or educational games.
But how can I do that while enrolled as a full-time graduate student at NYU? To try to do both at the same time would be folly. I don’t want to short-shrift NYU the way I short-shrifted Yale.
I don’t want to spend another three years moving pixels around, even though it would be fun. I want to make movies.
I’m so confused.
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