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How Prince of Persia Defeated Apple II's Memory Limitations | War Stories | Ars Technica

Ars Technica · documentary · Watch on YouTube

Game history & retro gamingDemoscene & retrocomputingAnimation & visual effects

What it is

In an Ars Technica War Stories episode, Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner describes how he made the game on the Apple II, fighting hardware memory limits and the platform's decline. It covers the rotoscoped animation and the engineering tricks involved.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Repeatedly called essential viewing for game development history and clever work under memory constraints.

  • 5 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 3 strong recommendations
  • first 2020, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “Essential viewing for anyone interested in game development history.”

    Documentary on the making of Prince of Persia

    barishnamazov, 2025-09 · Strong recommendation · in “A platform-jumping prince – History of Prince of Persia's 1990s Ports”

  2. “If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend watching the”

    War Stories episode on making Prince of Persia

    mscdex, 2026-06 · Strong recommendation · in “How we made hit video game Prince of Persia”

  3. “Just watch it yourself, you will be in awe!”

    Creator explains the tiny details that made the game

    stefanos82, 2026-06 · Strong recommendation · in “How we made hit video game Prince of Persia”

  4. “Arstechnica has a great interview with Jordan Mechner, the creator of this game.”

    Interview with Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner

    softwhale, 2020-12 · Recommendation · in “Examples of games developed by a single developer?”

  5. “If you haven't seen Jordan Mechner talking about the development of Prince of Persia yet (definitely recommended)”

    Mechner on developing Prince of Persia

    ajdoingnothing, 2021-12 · Recommendation · in “Prince of Persia in JavaScript”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: prince of persia, apple ii, jordan mechner, rotoscoping, memory constraints

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