Download | final version of «Prince of Persia» for Atari 8-bit
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The long-awaited port of «Prince of Persia» (Brøderbund Software, 1989) for Atari 8-bit computers is now available for free download.
The project was started in late 2019 by Rensoup, who recruited Konstantinos “TIX” Giamalidis (Greece) for graphics and Michal “Miker” Szpilowski (Poland) for music, with the aim of porting Jordan Mechner’s classic adventure game to Atari XL/XE series computers.
Over time, Rune "Sparkler" Spaans (Norway), Vin "VinsCool" Samuel (Canada), Mario "Emkay" Krix, Makary Brauner, Krzysztof "xxl" Dudek (Poland) and Daniel "DMSC" Serpell (Chile) joined the ranks, among others.
While this version is based on the BBC Master code - published by the Bitshifters Team in 2018 - offers many improvements, among which the graphics stand out - all of which were reworked by "TIX" from scratch - and the options menu (which includes a trick to directly access any of the twelve levels of the game).
As you may recall, Rensoup had scheduled the release of the ninth - and final - revision of the game for October 12. However, a few hours before that date, he rescheduled the release for October 19; and later, for this Sunday - because those involved decided to modify thesprites, adding a new title screen and other last minute tweaks.
Through his Twitter account, Jordan Mechner himself expressed his satisfaction with the new title screen - which replaces the Originally designed by Rensoup in homage to the little white mouse of the sequel.
Wow! The title screen Prince of Persia never had. Nice work!https://t.co/vzg7J80lZF
— Jordan Mechner (@jmechner)October 22, 2021
"I'd say it's comforting to think that the original image needed an update, and Sparkler did the job amazingly!" Rensoup told Atariteca.
Asked about his immediate plans, he ruled out being involved in the development of any other game. "I might work a bit on a possible new one," he said.trackerwith a group of other AtariAge members," he said.
He did, however, leave open the possibility of returning to programming games for the Atari 8-bit in the future. "I promised TIX that I would do another project with him if he would draw the graphics for 'PoP', so we could start something else in the future," he said.
For his part, "TIX" regretted that some insist on claiming that the graphics were converted directly from the BBC version. "It really seems unreal that I spent so much time on this project... I have no regrets (...) My only reward is that I kept my promise to draw the best 8-bit version («Prince of Persia)! No shortcuts, no copy and paste at all, just hard work!", he commented on the AtariAge forum.
Prince of Persia for Atari 8-bit computers - final ver.
Download | 164 kBPrince of Persia Requirements
✔ For real hardware: 128KB RAM minimum; SD/HDD reader (810/1050/XF551/IndusGT/...) or compatible device (SIO2SD/Fujinet(1.0,1.3,1.5)/SDrive/...).
✔ For emulators: Altirra 3.90 or higher. Atari800 4.2.0/Atari800MacX 6.0.0.
✔ Joystick. For the keyboard, use: G (left), J (right), Y (jump/up), H (crouch/down), SPACE (jump right/left).
We would like to thank Filippo "Philsan" Santellocco (Switzerland) for allowing us to use the image illustrating this article.
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