In 1985, Jordan Mechner was thinking about baggy pants, arches and columns -- images that could be clearly conveyed in a low-resolution, pixelated computer game. While delivering his Prince of Persia postmortem during GDC earlier this month, Mechner delved into his memories, his journals (which you can read online) and his temporary departure from the game midway through development to pursue a screenwriting career in Hollywood.

Mechner's interests and techniques have always been embedded in cinema. He filmed his brother David running about in a Reader's Digest parking lot with a VHS camera, and layered drawings on top of those movements (in a process called rotoscoping) to capture the protagonist's movements in Prince of Persia. You've heard that part, but you might not know about the fate of the camera that captured such iconic scurrying. According to Mechner, he purchased it, recorded the necessary footage, and then returned it within a 30-day guarantee. "I felt a little guilty about it, but I was trying to keep costs down," he said.

Initially dubbed "Thief of Baghdad" (and inspired by the film of the same name), the game continued to come together in a modular fashion, at one time incorporating a full level editor that Mechner had to persistently test, making sure users couldn't introduce game-breaking bugs. "My job title was programmer, all those other things were extra."