Another interesting story for you all, as we have just been told by VIPER’s Retrogame videos, that the all time classic platformer of ‘Prince of Persia’; a game which was released for many different systems back in 1989 by Broderbund. As well as a more recent homebrew port for both the Atari XL/XE and Sega Mega Drive. Has been converted over to the Commodore Vic-20 by Pedro Bermejo! As in the words of Viper “Released in 2024, a conversion of the game for the fully expanded VIC-20 (+35k, PAL only), inspired by the ZX Spectrum version, albeit with some differences”.
Dev Notes : “Prince of Persia was one of my favorite games when I got my first PC (I have to express my deepest admiration by his creator, Jordan Mechner). And, when I saw a version of this game for the Spectrum (developed by someone nicknamed Nicodim), I thought that something similar, to some extent, could be done for the VIC-20. Given the difference in available RAM (Spectrum version, as the original game developed for the Apple II, required 128 Kb) I had to do many simplifications.
“This is clearly noticeable in the movements (not as smooth as the original) and, especially, in the sword fighting (when started working on this I already had very limitted available memory so you’ll see this is very simplified). Besides this, you’ll find many other differences with the original game (and, even, with the spectrum version), but I hope you find it interesting to see the Kid running and jumping through the VIC-20 screens. This VIC-20 version includes 9 levels (these try to be similar to the 9 first levels of the original version) plus the final scene with the Princess. I hope you enjoy it.”
In my opinion Prince of Persia is a truly fantastic game on any system! Not only does it feature lots of well designed platforming levels which are filled extreme danger. But you must be careful not to fall through loose floors, get hit by sword wielding guards, crushed by gates or at worst skewered in blood on deadly spikes. If you’ve never played this game before especially if you have a Commodore Vic-20 at home, then you really should be loading it up right now.
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