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Prince of Persia Level Editor 'Apoplexy' Reaches 2.0

Posted by timothy on from the add-your-high-school dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Last year, Jordan Mechner, the creator of the Prince of Persia video game franchise, released the long-thought-lost original Apple II source code for Prince of Persia. Today marks the release of version 2.0 of apoplexy, the free and open-source level editor of Prince of Persia for DOS. Roughly 5.5 years after its initial release, support has been added for editing Prince of Persia 2 levels in both GNU/Linux and Windows. The game has its 25th anniversary next year, but the original trilogy only has a (very) small fan community. Will old games such as this also interest future generations or will they gradually lose their appeal because of technological advances?"

6 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. Future Generations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We are interested because this is a game from our youth (for those of us of a certain age). Future generations will be creating editors for Call of Duty or Elder Scrolls or Portal or something like that.

    1. Re:Future Generations by cianduffy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That is if there's any way to get CoD or Portal to run in twenty five years time - easily defeatable or no copy protection on older games makes running them in DOSBox or similar quite easy. Trying to figure out how to work around Steam, Origin or the newer optical media protection systems to allow games to run in emulation in future isn't going to be as simple.

    2. Re:Future Generations by lgw · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Or, to quote MC Frontalot

      You canâ(TM)t hide secrets from the future with math.
        You can try, but I bet that in the future they laugh
        at the half-assed schemes and algorithms amassed
        to enforce cryptographs in the past.

      Wise words.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  2. Demonstrate your level designing skill to HR by tepples · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What use is a free editor when the games themselves are proprietary?

    What use is a free compiler that makes Windows executables? What use is a port of Linux to a patented microprocessor?

    Why not contribute towards something worthwhile, say Battle for Wesnoth?

    That depends on to what extent one can show off an improvement to Battle for Wesnoth. Someone applying to a video game company for a job as a level designer might want to show levels for a game with which the interviewer is likely to be familiar.

  3. depends on the game and context by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Will old games such as this also interest future generations or will they gradually lose their appeal because of technological advances?

    A huge portion of the games people play on their mobile phones are basically versions of '80s games. Tetris, Snake, Drugwars, Bubble Bobble, etc. Sometimes almost literally a clone of the original, and sometimes one of the many variants.

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  4. There is still need for this kind of games by jones_supa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Will old games such as this also interest future generations or will they gradually lose their appeal because of technological advances?

    No problem. Many times when I watch gameplay videos of old DOS games in YouTube there are comments like "where can I download this game for Mac??" The right answer is to show them DOSBox and GOG... But the point being, there still is a lot of interest of these kind of old, simple games. Look at something like Papers, Please. Technologically that could have been implemented for a 286 DOS PC, and yet people love it despite "technological advances". Simple, good games, into which you can get quickly by bashing Enter, not having to wait 3 minute long load times.