Trivia / Prince of Persia

• Inspiration for the Work: The game's main mechanic was inspired by the opening sequence in Raiders of the Lost Ark, while the theme was based on One Thousand and One Nights.
• Killer App: Linus Torvalds cited the game as the reason Linux supports dual booting. He wanted to work on the kernel and be able to play Prince of Persia at the same time, so he made sure it was possible to run both Linux and DOS on the same machine. The ability to dual-boot in turn was cited as a major reason Linux took off, as users wouldn't have to give up their DOS/Windows operating systems in order to try a Linux distro. This was important as Linux lacked major support for commercial games until Valve announced Ubuntu support for Steam.
• Multi-Disc Work: The DOS version that uses 5¼'' disks has two of them.
• No Export for You: The only versions of the game developed by Arsys Software that left Japan are the SNES, Sega CD, and TurboGrafx-CD versions. All the other versions developed by Arsys are on Japanese exclusive systems.
• Port Overdosed: As mentioned on the main page, the game has been ported on a huge amount of systems since its first release. First on personal computers, then on consoles and finally on mobile. It even got unofficial ports.
• Real-Life Relative: Jordan Mechner's brother was the prince's reference model, acting out the various actions seen in the game on video so that Mechner could rotoscope them.
• Refitted for Sequel: The Race Against the Clock concept was repurposed from early concepts for Karateka, where the villain would escape with the girl at midnight and the karateka had a watch to keep track of time; like in this game, failing to meet the deadline would result in a Nonstandard Game Over. The multi-level platforming, meanwhile, was initially being used in concepts for a Karateka sequel before it evolved into a separate project.
• Sleeper Hit: The game was not a big hit at first, but sold steadily through word of mouth and rave reviews in gaming publications.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The game initially had a level editor that allow the player to make their own level but the idea was scrapped.
  • Jordan Mechner says that he originally envisioned the game with no enemies at all — just the hero and the obstacles. A few years later, after lots of nagging from a friend, he caved in and added XOR-ed hero sprite as Shadow, who was going to be the only enemy — stealing potions and closing doors, as Apple ][ did not have memory for more enemy sprites. Guards and swords appeared fairly late in the game development.
• Working Title: Baghdad.

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