- Jordan Mechner
Jordan Mechner (born 1964) is a
game programmer ,game designer ,screenwriter andmovie director . Mechner was born in New York City and graduated fromYale University in 1985. He is best known for creating the "Prince of Persia " franchise in 1989.Mechner's first hit game was "Karateka" (1984), written while he was still an undergraduate
Yale University . "Prince of Persia ," released in 1989, was noted for its fluid animation of human figures. Both titles were published byBrøderbund . For the animations used in "Prince of Persia", Mechner spent days studyingvideo s and photographs of his brother David running and jumping and meticulously replicated the actions in the game.In 1993, he formed Smoking Car Productions, an entertainment software development group based in
San Francisco, to create "The Last Express ". While critically acclaimed, the game did not do well commercially.In 2003,
Ubisoft released the fourth installment of the "Prince of Persia" saga, ', on which Mechner collaborated as writer and game designer. He was involved in name only with the fifth installment, "," which was a sequel to "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" as he was busy writing the script for the feature film '. The third and final chapter in the "Sands of Time" trilogy, "", was released in December 2005. A fourth game, "Prince of Persia", will be released at the end of 2008.Mechner today divides his time between writing
screenplay s and designing video games. He also wrote and directed two award-winningdocumentaries , and "Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story".Movies
* "Waiting for Dark" (1993)
* "Chavez Ravine:A Los Angeles Story" (2003)
* "" (2010) (screenwriter)Games
* "Karateka" (1984)
* "Prince of Persia" (1989)
* "" (1993)
* "The Last Express " (1997)
* "" (2003)External links
*
*imdb name|id=0575338|name=Jordan Mechner
* [http://research.yale.edu/ysm/article.jsp?articleID=463 Profile in Yale Scientific Magazine] , Winter 2005
* [http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chavezravine/ Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story]
* [http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/pop-friendly Article written by Mechner for MIT Press]
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