Prince of Persia

Post by **Dbug** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 8:11 pm

Hi,
not sure if this has been posted before, but apparently in 2009 Jordan Mechner released the source code of this Apple II version of Prince of Persia.
Wonder how hard this would be to port on the Oric ?

- http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2009/05/p ... -released/
- http://www.scribd.com/doc/49127548/Prin ... Code-Notes

If the notes are correct, it looks the game was using 128k on the Apple II ?

Post by **Dbug** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 8:21 pm

Actually found out that there is a C64 version of the game made from these sources, here is the developer's blog:
http://popc64.blogspot.com/

Antiriad2097 · Post by **Antiriad2097** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:42 am

There's been some discussion of the new C64 Prince of Persia release over at the Retro Gamer forum. As it stands, its paging data in from external memory so an Oric port would I assume need to be a disk only release, or make large reductions from the standard game.

We should have the C64 version playable at Replay next month.

Chema · Post by **Chema** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 8:35 am

It is possible to do it disk-based. The Oric can load parts of data from disk quite quickly, so I guess that it should not be the problem (though I have not had a look at the sources, so I don't know which data is being paged and how often).

What worries me more is the sprite drawing. I bet they are using hardware sprites. I am not sure we can have such a smooth animation with software sprites of that size, but it could be... Twilighte was able to do a very nice animation in IM, though with no double-buffering.

It would, anyway, be a very nice project with a lot of challenges... Anybody wants to jump in?

barnsey123 · Post by **barnsey123** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 2:20 pm

I'm about to start work on a "dancing-skeleton" demo, if I can get the animation right I'll volunteer my services to animate the prince...

Check out the new animation in Viking Chess

Well, it's a start anyway!...

Godzil · Post by **Godzil** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 4:34 pm

Chema wrote:It is possible to do it disk-based. The Oric can load parts of data from disk quite quickly, so I guess that it should not be the problem (though I have not had a look at the sources, so I don't know which data is being paged and how often).

What worries me more is the sprite drawing. I bet they are using hardware sprites. I am not sure we can have such a smooth animation with software sprites of that size, but it could be... Twilighte was able to do a very nice animation in IM, though with no double-buffering.

It would, anyway, be a very nice project with a lot of challenges... Anybody wants to jump in?

There is no such things as "hardware sprite" on the Apple II, but the framebuffer is a bit easier to use than the Oric one

JamesD · Post by **JamesD** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 5:08 am

Godzil wrote:There is no such things as "hardware sprite" on the Apple II, but the framebuffer is a bit easier to use than the Oric one

That interleaved memory mess on the Apple II is actually easier to use than one on something else? (keels over from shock)

Twilighte · Post by **Twilighte** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 9:21 pm

Chema wrote:It is possible to do it disk-based. The Oric can load parts of data from disk quite quickly, so I guess that it should not be the problem (though I have not had a look at the sources, so I don't know which data is being paged and how often).

What worries me more is the sprite drawing. I bet they are using hardware sprites. I am not sure we can have such a smooth animation with software sprites of that size, but it could be... Twilighte was able to do a very nice animation in IM, though with no double-buffering.

It would, anyway, be a very nice project with a lot of challenges... Anybody wants to jump in?

Hehe, that old acorn again?
I worked on this game many, many years ago around the time i was writing Magnetix, so not so advanced in Machine code.
I still have some mockup sprite frames somewhere. B&W offcourse but could be interesting.
I will try and dig them out and stick a link here.

I think even the original POP is possible on Oric Tape only but a disk version would offer much more resources.