Jordan Mechner
| Jordan Mechner | |
|---|---|
Jordan Mechner at WonderCon 2010
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|
| Born |
June 4, 1964 New York City |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Video game designer, screenwriter, author, filmmaker |
| Known for | Creator of Prince of Persia |
| Spouse(s) | Whitney Hills (m. 2014) |
Jordan Mechner (born June 4, 1964) is an American video game designer, author, screenwriter, and filmmaker, best known for creating the Prince of Persia video game franchise and the 8-bit computer game Karateka.
Mechner was born in New York City. He is of Jewish descent. He attended Yale University in the 1980s.
While at Yale, Mechner wrote several Apple II games that he submitted for publication, but which were rejected. Asteroid Blaster, an Asteroids clone, was submitted to Hayden Software and abstract arcade game Deathbounce to Brøderbund. He then spent two years at Yale writing his first published game, Karateka (1984), which went to number one on the Billboard software chart.
His second game, Prince of Persia, was released in 1989 after over four years of work. He wrote both games in 6502 assembly language for the Apple II, though that system was in decline through the late 1980s and little new software was released by 1989. Initially Prince of Persia sold poorly, but as it was ported to other systems sales increased. Eventually it was adapted for nearly every computer and console platform.
Mechner designed and directed the first sequel, Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame, released in 1993. By then, he was focused on game design and story mechanics and was no longer programming.
Mechner founded independent developer Smoking Car Productions in 1993, where he led the production of the CD-ROM adventure game The Last Express. Smoking Car grew to sixty people, a huge game development team for the mid-1990s, and the game took longer to finish than anticipated. When finally released in 1997, it was positively reviewed but sold poorly. The Last Express was re-released in 2012 by French publisher DotEmu for mobile and other platforms.
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