1984, Jordan McKinna, a Yale student in his early twenties, wrote the first commercial game Karateka for AppleII. In this era when the game industry is still in its infancy, this game (including its SFC and other versions) has sold 500,000 copies, making it a sensational news. After that, we remembered the name of the creator of this myth, JordanMechner. Karate experts became the starting point for his greater success in the future, and his temporary destination was Prince of Persia: The Sand of Time, which set off a new climax of action adventure games at the end of 2003.
Chinese name: Jordan McKinna
Nationality: USA
Occupation: game developer
Graduate School: Yale University
Representative works: karate master
Developer: SmokingCar
Personal experience
Early experience
McKinna didn't have a good time during that time. The last Orient Express led to the bankruptcy of its developer SmokingCar, and Prince of Persia 3D did not bring good luck to Broderbund named RedOrb. After that, he temporarily returned to the film circle, but finally he came together with his happy prince.
Write a script
200 1 Prince of Persia: The Sand of Time is officially put into development. Ubisoft Montreal Studio, which is planning splinter cell at this time, has accumulated a lot of experience in 3D technology, ensuring that Sand of Time will not repeat the mistakes of Prince of Persia 3D from the beginning. Mechner wrote the script for the game and participated in the production of the game from beginning to end. It can be said that all the ideas he saved in his previous work can be realized here.
The Sand of Time can't be an epoch-making work, but after the failure of Tomb Raider: Dark Angel, it brought a new dawn to the silent action adventure game. It didn't bring more revolutionary innovations, but skillfully and perfectly demonstrated a standard action adventure game. The cool and smart combat system and the setting of going back in time just add icing on the cake to many action puzzles.
personal influence
14 years later, the game industry seems to have changed. From "Prince of Persia" written by McKinna, which influenced some action games behind him, to "Shisha", he found another perfect game solution in the 3D environment, just in line with the saying that "thirty years east, thirty years west", and he personally brought the brave prince back to the center of the player. As a special witness, he experienced a special development stage of the game industry. However, we have to say that the sands of time are still speculating on most of the ideas 14 years ago, and are still worried about what the future prince of Persia will look like.
Similar games seem to pay more and more attention to scripts, but they tend to be pale and powerless in playability. The division of labor is getting finer and finer, and there are more and more participants. It's hard to count all the staff with a few minutes of ending music, but the real imagination in the game is getting poorer and poorer. The sands of time bring us some hope. I wonder if Mr. Jordan McKinna was thinking the same thing when he listened to the psychedelic music of the Oscar-winning sound master at the end of the film.
Anecdotes of characters
Game design is one of McKinna's hobbies since childhood. From the age of 15, he spent all his spare time on AppleII, learning programming, first BASIC, then 6502 machine language, and his homemade games were the by-products of this learning stage.
After attending Yale, he spent two years writing The Karate Expert. In the game, the player will play a kung fu master and save the beautiful princess from the evil villain. As mentioned above, the game has achieved unprecedented success. Today, this classic can still be seen on some brands of PDA. Mehner devoted great enthusiasm to this game. He tried to use a movie-like narrative method in the game, and interspersed scenes under extremely simple conditions at that time, which made people feel like enjoying a interactive movie during the game. Therefore, NextGeneration magazine praised it as a milestone, which "swept the game circle like a storm and brought unprecedented epic experience to players". Almost all previous games, like the so-called "mini-games" we face today, don't pay much attention to the plot. Of course, their producers themselves are far from paying attention to the importance of the plot to a game.
In the face of success, perhaps McKinna has not decided his future direction. After that, he walked out of the game design, concentrated on completing his college studies and obtained a degree in psychology.
Personal work
Mckinna's next game was released five years later, which is the famous PrinceofPersia (hereinafter referred to as POP). Mckinner may have a complex in his heart about the story of the prince saving the princess, but he just moved the story from the west to the Arab world in the middle ages. The game is about the king of ancient Persia going to war, leaving a beautiful young princess in the palace. Prime Minister Jia Faer plotted to usurp power, so he threatened the princess to commit suicide within an hour or she would be executed. The princess pinned all her hopes on the brave prince, who had been put into prison by Jia Faer. He must break through many obstacles and rescue the princess within 1 hour.
Generally speaking, Pope is a great development of karate experts. There is innovation on the basis of the previous work, which obviously has the shadow of the previous work. However, compared with his improvement in the use of film narrative techniques, the gameplay itself has completed a new definition of action adventure games.
POP later released a DOS version. If you are lucky enough to play this original POP, you will be amazed at the fresh elements hidden behind the simple picture, which seems to be beyond the imagination of 1989. For example, playing POP feels like playing two Tomb Raiders on GBC. There are platforms to climb up and down, pits to jump over, and unavoidable spikes. If you fall from a height, you may die, or you may only bleed a little. This seems to be a cliche today, and POP is also the source of a lot of inspiration for Tomb Raider in later generations. But at the same time of POP, there are also many horizontal games like Contra, which makes POP provide players with enough freshness. The concepts of "falling injury" and "falling to death" are introduced in the works, because in modern games, you are either alive or dead, which corresponds to the simple rules of 0 and 1 until POP has a breakthrough. In addition, the one-on-one combat setting in POP is also a classic. The design of luring players to drink a bottle of medicine with negative effects is to make people remember it for a lifetime after crying and laughing. POP also uses motion capture devices (mainly due to McKinna's brother), which can make the prince in the game make more realistic and smooth movements.
In the following years, POP was a name that people had to mention when talking about early games. ElectronicGames magazine has long predicted that it will "become the standard of all action adventure games from now on", and some critics think that it will be "a frequent visitor in the selection of any classic PC games at any time". 1997, a professional media awarded the title of the best game of the decade to the Prince of Persia. At this time, due to the promotion of Tomb Raider, Jordan McKinna's original thinking has been widely used.
Sales results
Prince of Persia is a game that sold 2 million copies, which made the record created by karate masters insignificant, but McKinna was not complacent, but took the opportunity to make a sequel. You know, it is still an era full of innovative air. Often, one person can write a game without being intimidated by publishers and without much capital investment. People who are committed to making games live more for their ideals, rarely consider commercial interests, and don't start work without new ideas.
McNair went back to school. He pursued his dream in the competition of new york University. He studied film production for a year, during which he traveled overseas to find a subject for shooting. His short film Waiting for Ford Mark won awards at several international film festivals.
After that, while filming, he will return to Broderbund, California to guide his artists and programmers-the sequel to "POP" has already started shooting there. (At that time, another representative work in the development of Broderbund was the mysterious island. ) Since then, POP is no longer a game that he can complete by himself, but has played more producer roles in his new works, which shows that the game industry has changed compared with the era when programmers dominated everything, and 1993 Prince of Persia II: Shadow and Flame does not seem to clearly reflect such changes. Like most sequels, POP2 will further improve its predecessor. This enhanced version of POP easily won the title of 1994 as the best game, but McKinna herself was not happy. He feels that pop music has reached the limit that 2D Olympic Games can express.
Since then, McKinna has devoted himself to the production of Broderbund's new game TheLastExpress, and he feels that it is the place where his new inspiration can be released. This pure adventure game is set on the last Eurasian express train on the eve of World War I. A young man found out that his friend was murdered, so he wanted to find the real murderer on the train. The story of the game is ups and downs, and the artist is also very exquisite. What is particularly special is that the whole environment is quite open. If you don't make the right decision or solve the problem correctly, the game will never end. So the game has a variety of endings, and making different decisions at different times will lead to the development of the game in another direction.
Mckinna's design concept is once again in the forefront of the times, but unfortunately, this game, which cost as much as $6 million and was developed by a team of 40 people for four years, has poor sales. When people may temporarily forget the name "Prince of Persia", it is all because of the appearance of lara croft.
Social assessment
Laura's creators made no secret of their inspiration from the Prince of Persia. But how to continue the classic he wants to express in 3D environment may still be in the thinking stage. Tomb Raider was the best from the beginning. It provided the best solution in 3D space, including the best operation and the best level design. Action and puzzle design in 3D space is much more complicated than that in 2D era. Tomb Raider has set an example for its predecessors after absorbing the elements of POP.
So McKinna plunged into the new game Prince of Persia 3D. The production of the new game may be as sloppy as its name. Mckinner still writes his own story outline, but he obviously underestimates the technology needed for a 3D game. 1999, when Tomb Raider was criticized as "outdated" by the engine, the sequel of POP came late. When people expect to get the finished product, they find that it is a very bad game. The first is the poor sense of operation. The prince has lost his agility. He can't climb the platform half a man high. Simple jumping and grasping the upper platform have to be tried many times to succeed. The most unbearable thing is that once you jump into the water, it means disaster, because it is difficult for you to climb ashore without good operation. In addition, the control angle of the game is very unstable, and the back of the prince is often seen, which will make people dizzy and can't be played for a short time.
This work retains some features of the 2D era, such as a blood trough represented by a medicine bottle and the unique fighting system of the prince, but it has not been further developed. It tried to imitate Tomb Raider, but it was not good. In the era of transition from 2D to 3D, "Prince of Persia" is not the only one who makes such mistakes easily. Many works were born early in the panic because of the immature technology with high expectations and the urgent funds of manufacturers. The final result was that a "golden signboard" was never recovered.