Re: Now that the source of "Prince of Persia" is out there...

[Steve Nickolas <lyricalnanoha@usotsuki.hoshinet.org>]

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012, bloomer_au wrote:

> The interesting thing about the original game is that it was built for 
> the 8-bit Apple II in the first place. Surprisingly, at least plain old 
> horse-power wise, the super fluidity of the rotoscoped graphics was 
> unique to the Apple II. I think they lost that quality of the animation 
> on every other port of the game. I was talking about this on Mechner's 
> site (a few years ago) and I can offer the anecdote that Mechner agreed 
> that the original graphics were the best.
>
> The problem could be summed up by what Steve said earlier in this 
> thread; the ports' graphics looked cartoony and less realistic. To my 
> eyes, a really big cause of the problems was the outlines added to most 
> of the sprites in the ports. The Apple II figures are made out of solid 
> colors. Lots of the ports use multi-coloured backdrops and sprites with 
> pixel-obvious outlines.
>
> I'm not the person who would be porting or even creating graphics for a 
> IIGS version, but I just wanted to raise this more subtle issue of the 
> quality of the graphic animation for such a port. In the case of this 
> game, you're not porting a game the Apple II lacked. PoP was born at 
> full power on an even less powerful version Apple II, with the best 
> animation the game ever demonstrated. If I had or can have any say in a 
> IIGS port, I'd be all about trying to keep the graphics liquidy.

I'd say that at any rate there would prolly need to be 1 GS animation 
frame minimum for each //e animation frame, to keep the smoothness.

Apparently Mechner was keen on some of the anime redesigns done by Arsys 
for the Japanese ports (e.g., SNES) and had them integrated in the Mac 
port.  Though... I'd prolly want to have it keep a tougher American design 
rather than the cuter Japanese designs.  Still, I thought the extended 
openings were a nice touch and would like to see how well they could be 
pulled off on a GS.

(I also think maybe adding more sound effects to the scene with Jaffar 
summonning the hourglass could be a nice touch.  Like a thunderclap when 
he summons the hourglass, and some loud stomping as he storms off.  I 
think some ports added a door opening sound at the beginning too.)

-uso.