How Prince of Persia Defeated Apple II’s Memory Limitations

For today’s episode of War Stories, Ars Technica sat down with Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner to learn about the challenges he faced while bringing his ambitious vision for the game to life.
As the 1980’s wound down, Mechner found himself fighting against not only the limitations of the Apple II hardware but the impending death of the platform itself.
Decades later, Prince of Persia remains a classic example of how the constraints of early gaming led to solutions that advanced the artform.
Prince of Persia is a video game franchise created by Jordan Mechner. It is built around a series of action-adventure games focused on various incarnations of the eponymous Prince, set in ancient and medieval Iran.
The first game draws inspiration from multiple general sources of inspiration, including the One Thousand and One Nights stories, and films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Adventures of Robin Hood. In the game, the protagonist’s character animation was created using a technique called rotoscoping, with Mechner using his brother as the model for the titular prince.
The original game remains one of the most ported games in video game history to this day.