HomeFeaturesThe Making of Karateka
The RPS Advent Calendar 2023, December 2ndIt’s a preservation celebration
It’s a preservation celebration
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
Time to open the second door on our advent calendar. No doubt some of you will argue this entry is some kind of cheat, but this is our treehouse and you’re wrong.
Jeremy:The gaming industry is rubbish at chronicling its own history. Hundreds of yesteryear’s big box games are impossible to play on modern machines unless you’re a retro computer collector or have a hankering for emulation. And even if you’ve got a Commodore 64 lying around or are an old hand at DOSBox, the faces and stories behind ancient games are lost to history more often than not.
Enter Digital Eclipse’s The Making OfKarateka, which wasn’t just one of the best “games” I played this year, but ranks up there on my list of the most important electronic experiences ever. I write “game” in quotes, since this is more of an interactive digital museum archiving the genesis of Jordan Mechner’s seminal 1984 Apple II masterwork. When I say museum, I mean it - every aspect of Karateka’s creation is lovingly encapsulated, from the rotoscoping techniques that Jordan used to capture the movements of his karate teacher to plans for an aborted sequel that never manifested, but eventually evolved into Prince of Persia.
The Making of Karateka - Trailer - Digital Eclipse Gold Master Series 01Watch on YouTube
The Making of Karateka - Trailer - Digital Eclipse Gold Master Series 01
Every flavour of Karateka you’d want is present and accounted for, from the oldies to a remaster that you might actually be able to complete with one life. |Image credit:Digital Eclipse
Lest I forget, perhaps the best part of this package is its inclusion of multiple playable versions of Karateka, from unpolished betas to the Apple II release to the Atari 800 and Commodore 64 ports. Digital Eclipse were even thorough enough to include Deathbounce and Jordan’s homebrew hack of Asteroids, two unpublished projects that preceded Karateka and directly led to its creation. If that weren’t enough, both Deathbounce and Karateka receive impressive remastered versions, with the former transforming into a slick twin-stick shooter and the latter into a shiny cinematic platformer, with sakura blossoms falling all across the first level. In a nice ode to correcting the lack of representation of the ’80s, Karateka’s remaster features an Asian protagonist on its revised box art, transforming the extremely white and blond hero of the original game (who we now know was designed to look like Luke Skywalker, according to design documents included within) into an ethnicity more suited to an ancient Japanese setting.
If you care about games history and preservation, you owe it to yourself to give The Making Of Karateka a whirl. Projects like this need to be supported, and Digital Eclipse’s efforts represent a watershed moment for an industry that is often too busy chasing the next graphical enhancement to worry about writing down its past. I can only hope that the Gold Master Series continues for many more entries and truly becomes the Criterion Collection of video games. What’s next - The Making OfKing’s Quest?UltimaV?Flashback? The possibilities are endless, and I eagerly await them with bated breath.
