Jordan Mechner > Quotes

“I've chosen a life that's so different from everybody else's that it cuts me off from them. Practically everybody I know treats me like a guest celebrity. Of course it's my own fault. I feel so damn alone sometimes, I feel like I could just float away into the stratosphere and everybody would stand there looking up at me and not one would haul me back down to earth. No ropes.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

“A story doesn’t move forward until a character wants something. So – a game doesn’t move forward until the player wants something.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

“In five years you’ll be 30. That’s the time of life when you stop asking a lot of questions and start to accept certain things and not try to change them.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

“In short, I'm not very concerned with quantity and quality; I just want a reasonable entry for every day of my life, starting now.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“For over a year now, the shadow man has been this awesome idea that everyone gets all excited about when they hear it. Now, it’s just… what it is. The unlimited potential has been replaced by the concrete reality of what I programmed today.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

“Me, I have other plans… although what they are, I have no idea.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

“I’m continually amazed by how forgiving our perception is. It’s wonderful. Otherwise, we wouldn’t enjoy computer games and movies half so much.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“If the themes are missing, you get a trivial, boring story. But if the actions are as grandiose as the themes, you get a myth, which is harder for contemporary audiences to identify with. What you need to do is translate the myth into modern, small-scale terms.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“It’s strange. Playing the game, I suddenly feel as if it had been written by someone else.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“Squeezed in as much Karateka work (vellum-tracing) as I could today. (I love stealing forbidden minutes to work on something; it makes it more alluring, makes me think about it and long to get back to it even when I’m doing other things.)”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“K. on”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

“When I got to Broderbund (around noon), it felt unreal. For three hours I’d been a stranger with no money, no friends, no escape hatch. My personality, my sense of myself, was stripped away. I was Man, waiting for Bus. It was primal.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“OK, so in the transition from adolescence to adulthood, I’ve already pushed a few of the markers over to the other side of the line: Financially independent. College diploma, coming up. Career opportunities, plenty. Still on this side of the line: No driver’s license. No girl. Still live at home.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“Yale, friends, girls, I immediately realize that to enjoy them, I’ll have to give up Karateka, even if only temporarily. “Working mode” really does have a destructive effect when it’s prolonged for more than a week or two. It dulls the world; it makes anything but the thing I’m working on lose its power to reinforce.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“Did some more work on ‘Bounce: designed shapes (5) for the little guy who’ll run across the bottom of the screen. He bears a strong resemblance to one of the 64 delegates to the U.N. Conference on Peace and Child Rearing. I’d better mention that in my cover letter to Carlston. I’d hate to have him think I’m a plagiarist.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“A forest fire is an awesome thing. I watched with a kind of peaceful wonder, knowing that nothing I could do would change the outcome.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“If I’m always afraid of doing the wrong thing, making a second-best move, I’ll never get anywhere.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“June 30, 1992 Lunch with Doug. He wants to do POP: The Movie. He thinks he can raise $4 million from the licensees (Konami, etc.), then get the rest the usual way. $20”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

“Dad recommended that any time I experience anxiety about attempting something, I should immediately attempt it.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“I’m not crazy about the prospect of sitting down to write another video game and getting up a year later.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

“Got my Mac. It’s amazing. Now that I have it, I’m hooked. I won’t even try to begin to describe all its nifty features. It’s my new electronic friend. It’s exciting, having a new computer and learning all about it and looking forward to coming home at the end of the day and playing with it. I’ve been jaded for too long.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“Was it Butler who said “A hen is an egg’s way of making another egg”? It occurred to me a few weeks ago that a zoologist from another planet, observing me, might well conclude — since I’m continually opening and closing doors and windows and turning heaters up and down in an effort to maintain a constant temperature in the room — that my other functions (eating, sleeping, reading, playing games, etc.) serve only to keep me functioning as a thermostat.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“Despair has been banished.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

“Maybe the best stuff is produced out of blackest despair. Or”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia

“Bill is constantly breaking us up with one-liners. I like him a lot. He brings out the wit in me, and just generally puts me in a good mood.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“He said that being old is like driving down a dead-end street: you know it’s going to end any minute, but you don’t know when.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka

“My life feels kind of empty all of a sudden. I really must make an effort to fill it.”
― Jordan Mechner, The Making of Karateka