15 years is a long time. A lot has changed. Degrees of comparison as defined in Wren and Martin have moved from the classroom to the real life – taller, wider, heavier, (loser is not in the comparative form!). But some things in life are eternal and such etched are some memories that they remain with you forever. By the unwritten rules about childhood games, girls play with Barbie dolls and guys play with GI Joes. Girls play games that conjure images of cotton candies and frills and laces and ribbons and fairies with gossamer wings. Guys are tough, with caps and bruises and little men with guns hiding behind heaps of mud.
The advent of a computer in the 10X10 blue walled bedroom, that today could have fetched a fortune for sheer obsolesce marked the beginning of an age for two kids at home who were suddenly too learned to operate the gizmo. The best compliment that was showered upon the little girl was too much for her to take. She played Pac Man with both hands as opposed to the naïve way of using only one. This ambidexterity was a sign of a sheer genius in making. So beguiled was the young lady by the responsiveness of the machine to the cryptic commands that she equated art with the geometric traces of the turtle on the screen. Prince of Persia, albeit slightly overrated by yours truly, made its debut and was here to stay in the heart of millions of kids who manoeuvred the little prince clad in a funny outfit, fighting with a lone sword against the guards and the skeletons, drinking ambrosia, through dungeons and gates and mirrors and thorns, as the beautiful princess awaited her prince in no shining armour to come and rescue her from the clutches of the Jaffar. That was the era when a series of grey scale pixelated bitmap images defined superior animation. This was a chapter bookmarked in time.
15 years later, I reopened the book to find that the love for the game still holds strong. Today’s sophisticated animation techniques are capable of offering a virtual reality that can transcend the player into a completely different world. However, there is something mystical about the crude animations of the days of yore when imperfection had a bit of magical touch that delivered a gripping madness to the game. Prince of Persia was much more than a game. It’s amazing to note that it still is. It is one of those childhood memories you want to lock up in your drawer and simply keep them because they are indescribably special. A little folder on your desktop with a DosBox alongside just about does the job!