July 22, 1989
The entire opening sequence is in place. The sand flows, the stars twinkle, the princess does her thing. Only the Grand Vizier is missing. If I can keep up this momentum till Wednesday, I’ll be in good shape.
July 23, 1989
After lunch I started to feel so run down, I was afraid I was coming down with a virus. But after a Snickers bar, two aspirin and a gallon of water, well-being returned. Thank God. I can’t afford to get sick now.
Got some stuff done today, but not as much as I needed to. No matter. It’s going well.
Big relief to finally have the princess and the title sequence in place. I keep forgetting no one has seen this stuff yet. It’ll blow them away. It totally transforms the game. It was worth spending all that time on.
July 24, 1989
Fourteen hours at the office. The last two were the most productive.
Two more days to fix as many bugs as I can.
Lance is puttering away on the IBM conversion.
July 25, 1989
Quit early today, eight o’clock. I actually got quite a bit done. Crossed half a dozen bugs off my list, and spent some time with Lance. The version I leave for QA tomorrow won’t be perfect, but it’ll be the cleanest yet, and substantially complete. Two weeks of good work after I get back should do it.
I’m seriously psyched for this river trip. It sort of crept up on me. For weeks I didn’t think about it at all, then I was wishing I hadn’t gotten myself into it in the first place, then I was just resigned to it. I didn’t realize how much I needed a vacation until just now. I took a real look at the pictures in the brochure for the first time… and now I’m yearning to go. I can’t wait.
Saw the retouched box illustration, finally. The triumph of Sophie K. There’s some kind of bright green garment now covering up the exposed skin. It looks like someone painted it on in a hurry, which he probably did. Oh well. There are battles you win and battles you lose, and in the big picture, this one is pretty meaningless. Still, it pisses me off. It was better before.
Now that the packaging is safely completed (or almost), it might be a worthwhile political endeavor to try once again to switch marketing managers – to the equally evil, but more competent, Latricia T.
Who cares. We’ll sell a million of ‘em anyway, despite marketing’s obstructive incompetence. All I should be worrying about is finishing it and making it good.
Virginia Giritlian called. She’s got a new boss, Jim Alex, and wants to try to set up In the Dark with him as producer. I said sure.
Virginia is really a sweetheart. Every time she gets a new job she tries to sell my script all over again. And she’s not even my agent any more. “It’s the script that never died, for me,” she said. But I push this out of my mind, to concentrate on the tasks at hand.
Brian wants to set up a Mac version. I wish Roland could do it. The truth is, Mac is the conversion that’s closest to my heart. It’s the one that would allow me to play my own game at home. And Mom. And Ben. And most everyone else I know outside the computer games industry. But officially, Mac has a 5% share of the games market, or something like that.
July 26, 1989
Left a stack of disks three inches high on my desk for Brian. Eleven for sales, three for QA, plus seven more. Hope they work.
I played the whole game straight through for the first time ever, start to finish, cheat keys turned off. Made it with seconds to spare (my hour ran out while I was fighting the Grand Vizier).
You know what? It was fun!
There’s a level of tension generated when you know you can’t cheat, which is completely absent from the normal playtesting I do. By the time that final battle rolled around, I had a solid hour invested, and damned if I was going to lose!
Prince of Persia Final Battle from jordan mechner on Vimeo.
Still a few bugs – two weeks of work, like I said – but it’s a game, and a damn good one. I’m content. I’m ready to go river rafting.
The package mechanical looks good. I asked Brian to tell them to make my name bigger.
Should I bring this notebook on the river trip? It might be good to have. Other people bring cameras. So why not bring the book?
Then again, this is a vacation. This journal is like a tether. It keeps bringing me back to myself. And letting other people see me writing in it, I’ve come to feel, is kind of rude. It shuts them out. It undermines the bonding process that’s part of the reason to go on a trip like this one.
I’ll leave the notebook home. Instead, I’ll just pay attention.
August 2, 1989
Back from six and a half days out of time.
Doug drops me off at my front door. I let myself in and take a twenty-minute shower as hot as I can stand. Inventory my collection of scrapes and bruises. Healing nicely, as far as I can tell. Very tan in the face and arms and legs. Six days’ beard growth. Lingering nausea from the choppy flight back in a five-seater from Salmon to Boise with forest fires raging below. Sand washed out of my hair, teeth brushed, nails cleaned, and I’m back.
I could have stayed in SF and kept working and the week would have flashed by like any other week. Instead, I went to another planet and it didn’t cost me anything but a chunk of money out of the bank and seven days out of the calendar.
Note to self: If you ever get half a chance to do something like this again, do it. Do it at the drop of a hat.
