168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Making of Karateka is unlike anything I've ever played. Though it was released last August, I didn't begin to hear about it until the tail-end of 2023, and I suspect many other players who would appreciate it are in the same boat. As of right now, it has fewer than 100 reviews on Steam. Word of mouth has been frustratingly slow to build for a game that, now that I've played it, I feel like everyone should be shouting about.
Not to get too grandiose, but playing The Making of Karateka kinda feels like discovering a new art form. Not a new genre, bigger than that. This feels like a new medium within video games in the same way that animation is a distinct medium within film. That may sound lofty, but I think you'll see what I mean.
Described by developer Digital Eclipse as an "interactive documentary," The Making of Karateka tells the story of, well, you can probably guess. Karateka was the game that put Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner on the map. It's a 1984 action game that casts players as a lone karate master fighting his way into a heavily guarded fortress to rescue Princess Mariko from the evil Akuma.
As video game stories go, it's pretty simple, not all that different in its broad strokes from the original Super Mario Bros. But, what sets Karateka apart is its presentation, with frequent scenes cutting back to Akuma as he sends out more warriors to attempt to dispatch your karateka. If you stop moving, the game shifts perspective to the warrior currently making his way toward you, building tension where another game might let you take a breather.
It's cool. But, if you were to come to Karateka in 2024, you might just think, "This is old and simple," and quickly move onto something more modern. That's where The Making of Karateka comes in, providing a museum's worth of context for the game industry of 1984 — and, just as importantly, for Jordan Mechner.
Digital Eclipse uses every tool at its disposal to effectively tell this story. It has traditional talking heads-style documentary videos, some with outside developers reflecting on the importance of the game, and some with Mechner and his nonagenarian father, Francis, who composed the game's music, discussing Karateka's creation 40 years after the fact. There are journal entries from Mechner as he worked on both Karateka and his initial attempt at a commercial release, Deathbounce, plus official correspondence between Mechner and his eventual publisher, Broderbund Software — all arranged on an interactive timeline broken up into four chapters.
Francis Mechner also served as the rotoscoping model for Karateka's hero, and The Making of Karateka includes behind-the-scenes footage of him performing the actions that would later appear as in-game animations.
That's basically what I expected going in, but The Making of Karateka gets weirder in its quest to make the story fully interactive. You can play various prototypes of Karateka and Deathbounce, plus new remasters by Digital Eclipse. If you don't feel like playing, the game has recorded playthroughs that you can watch or fast forward through until you reach the part you want to play and hop in. The Karateka playthrough even boasts a commentary track with Jordan and Francis.
There's a miniature podcast episode on the game's soundtrack by Kirk Hamilton, the former Kotaku writer who now hosts a music podcast called Strong Songs. There are comparisons between the live-action footage Mechner shot as a reference for his rotoscoping work, and the final pixelated product, and a slider that lets you view multiple steps of the process. There are reams of illustrations, design docs, and level layouts from the development of the game.
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I don't get the sense that the development of Karateka was necessarily better documented than most other games. The difference is that Digital Eclipse was interested in rereleasing the game, and that Mechner was interested in working with the company to do it. Digital Eclipse doesn't do anything halfway, as evidenced by its other interactive documentaries, the upcoming Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story and Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection, which both take a similar approach. Even its more traditional collections like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cow๊abunga Collection and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disney Classic Games Collection go above and beyond with virtual museums and multipleꦗ ve𝕴rsions of the games wherever possible.
Digital Eclipse isn't a huge team and, for that reason, it should be an example for games publishers on how to effectively preserve gaming history. With a few dozen employees, a company like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Microsoft or Sony could be putting together in⭕credibly impressive rereleases of its old games, while making money and generating a ton of goodwill in the process. If the C-suite took a little less money, imagine the things publishers could acco🅺mplish by investing in their people and preserving their past.
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The Making of Karaketa is not a remastered collection, but a walking tour of a video game from inception to publication, wit🔴h prototypes along the way
