Classic Game Postmortem: 'Karateka'

[@ArkaidDeims]

I love how all his family was on board and super supportive of his dream. Really sweet story

[@mathieuvart]

I was born in 86 and Karateka was in a 115 game bootleg nes cartridge and it was my favorite game on it. This game is a big part of my childhood.

[@YuriyKlyuch]

Watching creative journey of Jordan Mechner is so inspiring

[@alexanderkulaev541]

Jordan Mechner has always been one of my icons in game dev and creative endeavors in general. I played Karateka and Prince of Persia on my mon's work station in glorious DOS. I was little kid and couldn't play well, but I still remember the mystery of those games, my craving to learn more of the story and unfolding adventure of the characters. These games have always been with me in my memory and my heart. Now, a couple years ago I've started learning 3D modelling and rigging, and now I'm learning animation to create my first indie game dev in Unity. I will even use a palette inspired my ZX Spectrum and early DOS games. And my journey I believe started right there, with those two early games I played in my childhood, Karateka and Prince of Persia. Now for the first time, I watched Jordan Mechner live through this video talk. Amazing opportunity. Thank you GDC and Jordan Mechner for such a pleasure.

[@lobabobloblaw]

Jordan has such an enthusiastic and focused energy. I’m happy he’s become such a great source of wisdom over all these years!

[@krazybubbler]

Fantastic talk, great personality. Really inspirational stuff on so many levels! Thank You Jordan Mechner and GDC.

[@JordanMechner]

You're welcome, and thank you!

[@LigreDesubi]

It's such a pleasure listen to someone like him. So many things to learn from those genius pioneers!

[@ItsBaffledd]

Fantastic presentation and insight into your life back then. Thanks

[@hadror13]

Wow. I often think abiut this game and those time. Quite inspiring to hear the story behind it

[@alpaykasal2902]

The 1st game I ever bought, commodore version. You never forget your 1st.

[@Nov-5062]

Mine was "Sting" by OrangeSoft, 1999. A quite cool Kirby ripoff on Windows. Just felt like sharing, sorry to bother you.

[@rizalrizfani9092]

Man, i remember playing this in junior high school. It really sooooo hard. And the bird, don't forget the bird

[@mayatung]

Excellent companion with all of Jordan's other work

[@alpaykasal2902]

can't wait to learn more about Veda Cook. TY for her shout out. So great of you to name others.

[@RetroGamesCouple]

An awesome presentation, didn't understand how the time passed!! (and with lots of information as well!)

[@GeekSHO]

Amazing presentation! I absolutely loved his postmortem for Prince of Persia since it was a game I was hooked on. Karateka was too hard for me, but I have always admired the artistry, attention to detail, and theater of this game that is so rarely captured even today.

[@TheKarishi]

Oddly, I remember bowing to the princess.

[@vicekinsley5]

Getting Ready Player One vibes and I’m loving it

[@Quimbyrbg]

I haven't played much of his work aside from the iOS remake of Karateka, but this was a captivating presentation. I'm going to look into picking up his graphic autobiography because that's a fantastic idea for how to present it.

[@JordanMechner]

Thanks! I hope you enjoy it!

[@asocil4722]

Jordan seems such a sweet guy

[@SasukeUchiha723]

god i played this game a lot as a kid........ as a late 90s kid, I enjoyed it a lot.

[@NR-fx8tk]

Such an amazing dedication to create the game. With no access to help on the internet and more primitive tools. He has my admiration.

[@estranhokonsta]

Most talks of GDC are informative and inspiring. This one certainly fall in that category.

[@trysta73]

unsurprising but very funny that apple didn't having anything about assembly in their manual; if there's anything they can't stand it's enabling the user

[@AlexGorskov]

Great stuff!

[@blue5peed]

All I remember is that this game was insanely hard

[@jeffmccloud905]

I guess I've been pronouncing it wrong for 40 years.

[@StephenHarperRaptagon]

Yeah, I thought it was "karate ka"

[@PsuedoNymrod]

Same

[@Nov-5062]

Well "Karah-teh" is the true way to pronounce Karate

[@alpaykasal2902]

Yes!! Same. I thought, this guy keeps saying it weird.

[@casachezdoom2588]

I don't think I've ever played Karateka sadly, around that time I had access to World Karate Championship on a friend's CGA Tandy 1000 and on the Commodore 64, but I was a huge fan of Prince of Persia on early PCs, the character animation was simply amazing and the gameplay really fun even if sometimes a bit daunting.

[@trysta73]

I'm glad you didn't do what Walt did for animation and actually did something independently artistic and good for games

[@Seancstudiogames]

Until this very second, I pronounced this game title as Kaa-Rat-ti-kaa. I even have Jordon’s PoP Journals book. (facinating read btw.)

[@jimzcoi]

ok, so you want to tell me... that floppy disks could be two sides written? that just blow my mind and I just put it back together after the story of how he created Karateka by himself!

[@EurojuegosBsAs]

My kids find hard to believe that back on those days games came in books and you had to type them yourself. I know I did 😂

[@Glitch-qj3nj]

30:40 this Hawk and his role sounds and look like Songbi

[@Pootie_Tang]

I have it on my 10$ "Sup" handheld =)

[@MrNeurocide]

So close :)

[@Glitch-qj3nj]

30:40 Songbird from bioshock infinite

[@0374studio]

Nowadays, the man develop the complex game to tell a story - days before, the man deed a very simple game, that's change (predicts) the game developing history 😅

[@AlexGorskov]

Hi, what do you mean by it "predicts"?

[@rnts08]

Anyone not using their steam code? 😅

[@badpiggy4177]

The sand Griffin ended up being a boss in Prince of Persia : Warrior within though lol

[@trysta73]

you made geometry wars far before it ever came out and they didn't publish it... missed opportunity on their part

[@ravindranasokakumar1957]

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