[MrFlibble]

Just found a very interesting article about the creation of Prince of Persia at Hardcore Gaming 101:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/pri...ceofpersia.htm

Prince of Persia was one of the milestones in how video games were made and perceived as a narrative form, but it almost didn't get made. After it got made, it almost flopped. In summer 1985, not too long after his first game Karateka was released, a young game designer / aspiring screenwriter named Jordan Mechner first came up with the idea of a game in an Arabian Nights setting. By the end of the year, a contract was drafted with Karateka-Publisher Brøderbund, and Mechner had shot footage of his brother David performing various movements intended for the game, only the first of many recording sessions in Prince of Persia's development.

Mechner had first applied rotoscoping—that is, a live actor is filmed by a camera doing a variety of movements, and then an artist traces those images on a computer—for Karateka, and for his new game he would refine the technique. Even in the earliest demos, the hero of the game still frequently referred to as Baghdad (the title Prince of Persia was first thought up by the producer at Broderbund a year later) had remarkably fluid animation. He didn't just jump up - he'd squat, leap into the sky and grab ahold of a ledge, swaying in the air before he pulled himself up and over. Considering most game characters at the time were lucky if they had more than three frames of movement animation, this was an extraordinary achievement.

There are pics and sketches from early development, excerpts from Jordan Mechner's journal and other stuff.