I love these old VHS tapes of Jordan Mechner's brother David, then 15 years old, performing the moves that would end up as the smoothly-animated Prince of Persia. [via The Verge]
Mechner took the best runs, jumps and moves, edited to create the appearance of an impossibly athletic and agile hero, and rotoscoped them with pixel-perfect precision. I'd like to see an otherwise faithful version of Prince of Persia that implements every last frame of David's movements, complete with scrambles, stumbles, ungainfully hauling himself over the lips of walls, looking at the camera for direction now and again…
Mechner recently published his graphic novel memoir, Replay, available now from Macmillan books on Amazon and elsewhere—a reminder of his polymathic abilities and family's remarkable journey.
Replay is a graphic novel memoir of three generations. It interweaves my father's childhood odyssey as a Jewish refugee in Nazi-occupied France; my grandfather's experience as a teenage soldier on the Russian front in World War I; and my own youth as a videogame-obsessed American kid, from a 1978 Apple II through four decades in the fast-evolving game industry. The games, books, and films I've spent my career making were born out of those formative events. Replay is my first graphic novel as a "complete author" (meaning I've drawn as well as written it). To make it easy for readers to follow the intersecting storylines, I've used three distinct palettes.
Previously:
• Hardcover edition of The Making of Prince of Persia
• The Making of Karateka is a playable documentary about the classic 8-bit beat-em-up
• Templar: historical caper graphic novel from Prince of Persia creator
