I just came across Jordan Mechner’s The Making of Prince of Persia via a Stripe Press re-print, and something about it enticed me.
I think maybe this relates to my fascination with the “devlog” – the indie game developer long forum post about the development of a project.
There are few things I love about devlogs:
- They often record a sort of maniacal obsession with getting some minute detail right, and it’s just inspiring / infectious to see this kind of attention to detail / pursuit of excellence.
- They often talk about system design / world design in a way I think it will be increasingly important for anyone interested in remedying the ailments of modern civilization. They ask questions like what are the failure modes? How do we make this world challenging AND engaging AND fun? If we design a particular set of mechanisms, what sorts of emergent behavior can we expect from players?
The Making of POP reads a bit like this. It is light on the technical aspects, but has an interesting added element that Mechner is conflicted about pursuit of 2 passions: game design and film-making.