Universal Videogame List - www.uvlist.net

Are you sure Prince of Persia fits into this era? It's more like a scenario from "One Thousand and One Nights", which is a medieval book.

The 1001 nights may be medieval (I haven't checked), but the Persian empire (and Persia with it) existed pretty much only in classical antiquity.

Also, see this article in the original game.

The only reason why it wouldn't fit this is because Persia wasn't really part of roman empire (as far as I can tell, looking at some maps), but an immediate neighbour (modern day Iran/Iraq, IIRC). The time period is correct, though.

Edit: 1001 nights is a collection of folk tales and such, so it shouldn't matter when it was made.
Edit2: I seem to speak of Persia when I mean the Achaemenid Empire, which apparently is also most often thought as The Persian Empire.

You are right when speaking from the Persian Empire. But even after the end of the empire the region Persia still existed. Wikipedia says "... Iran... formerly known internationally as Persia until 1935, is a country..." So the word Persia in the title "Prince of Persia" has nothing to do with the Persian Empire of old I think. I think that Persia is just meant geographically in this case. There is no real fixed date when the game is set (it's not even historical, because its fantasy), but it is very heavily influenced by settings and stories of 1001 Nights (Sinbad the Sailor & Co.). And those stories definitely don't take place during the Persian Empire (Sinbad mentions Allah etc).

Edit:
Actually I don't think that Jordan Mechner initially ever cared about the time the game takes place in. He just needed a classical background story for his new platform game, created a typical "Arabian nights" scenario and called it "Prince of Persia". He played with the typical Western association of "fantastical" Middle East, which we know of Sinbad, Aladdin, Ali Baba etc.

It is historical (clearly historical time period in question), even though fantasy likely applies (there was some skeleton knight to fight as well, IIRC). That still doesn't make it non-historical, unless you want to consider it pure fantasy with no ties to the real world like Lord of the Rings.

The difference is between factual and fictional history, to which we have no way to draw the difference than by applying fantasy to it as well even if it isn't that.


Wikipedia mentions it is set in Ancient Persia, which was the source for the date when I tagged it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia_(video_game)#Plot

The book itself was compiled for the first(?) time around 800 CE, which is few hundred years after the end of classical antiquity, and since those are folk tales from Arabian and nearby regions, I don't see any problem it being from a period far before it, they're not fiction literature like we see now. And it's not unheard of that later "versions" or re-tellings of a tale have substituted old names for newer ones so the audience can relate to them better.

re: re:


The best way to describe Prince is Persia is "fairy tale". Of course its not typical LOTR fantasy style, but there is not only the skeleton knight. The Vizier is an evil magician, you fight against your mirror self etc (only played PoP 1 and 2... can't say how the newer Prince of Persia games are in detail, but they also appear very "magic" like).

It's just that I see the word "Persia" in the title more to be a geographical one than one that hints to the Ancient Persia time. And from what source does the author of the PoP Wikipedia article knows that its in Ancient Persia? I think he is only guessing or he thinks that 1001 Nights is from Ancient Persia. I also had to look up the date of 1001 nights, because I also wasn't really sure if these stories originated from Ancient Persia or later.
The author mentions "...tales from the The Book of One Thousand and One Nights and the settings for this game are changed to Persia"
Well, that's not really right, because parts of 1001 Nights are actually playing in Persia (as can be seen in the according 1001 Nights Wikipedia article). So I don't give much value to what the author says in this case.

re: re: re:

Missed the first, forgot the second :\


Magical, yes, and I couldn't find any dates, but I assume from the outlook and the people shown that it is ancient Persia, or very close to it. I can live with removing the historical flag from the older and newer PoP games, but removing the tags as well that declare the time period would go too far. It's fairly obvious they belong to it, even if they're largely fictional representations of the time.

Two Thrones and Warrior Within went for more regular fantasy trope, and have no connection to anything I know to mark them in time or place other than that they have the same protagonists as Sands of Time. Of course, I've only played Sands of Time through, so I can't be too sure of the two others.


The title itself should not be the sole guide. I personally have little knowledge of Persian history, but I doubt the depicted time period lasted far beyond 16th century if even that far. Likely staying unchanged (like Byzantine) for that long if it can be placed on such a large span of time.

But at their core, they've taken a historical setting that can be fairly well placed at around classical antiquity or middle ages (although both of these refer to European history and not middle east). If a time period that covers this can be determined, it would be much more suitable, but my knowledge of that region's history is woefully nonexistent at the moment. I'll try to look for one later on unless someone comes up with one and gets it done first.

Speaking of the original, a key point could be that the sultan "called away for a war in a foreign land" (which is why Jaffar was in charge). The highest authority in Persia leaving for war in a foreign country greatly limits the times in which the game could possibly take place. Furthermore, there is no indication of Islamic, Roman, or Greek influences in the game; pushing the time to a narrow range in the beginning of the Achaemenid Empire.

The word sultan comes from Islam. The war could be any war. Actually it's just a made up reason to leave the evil Grand Vizier in charge and has no connection to a "real" war. Jordan Mechner just needed a clichéd background story and never thought of placing it historically correct in one distinct timeframe. Now if you define the group/tag to a certain time frame you can't put PoP into this group in my opinion.

Sorry to say, but teran, your point of view could be applied to almost all games, making any game not practically a documentary not fit into historical context. Most if not all derail from true historical context quite a bit, even if they don't put in some fantasy elements like in this case.

You can give it a historical tag, thats ok. In my eyes it just doesn't fit into the timeframe you defined for "Classical antiquity", because I think it would be around (Europe) medieval time.

If a game has slight fantasy/mythic elements but plays during the Roman Empire, then its ok to give it the "imperiumromanum" and "classicalantiquity" tags.

As I said, the flaw of that tag being used here is that it refers to European history and not middle east.

Edit: This is probably more accurate era, but I don't seem to find a proper simple name for it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iran#Caliphate_and_Sultanate_era , this is closest that looks correct: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate#Abbasids.2C_8th-13th_century . Anything later would break the connection with the 1001 nights book as even this is quite late for the book to be considered a real "source" material.

PoP could get the following two tags to describe the setting:
- oriental
- arabiannights

If you find a good way to describe the Caliphate/Sultanate era then it would also fit as a tag, but here it's really the question if this is really needed.

And I'm not a friend of giving a game like PoP the genre "historical". Historical + fantasy somehow doesn't work together. If you give games like PoP genre historical, then games with King Arthur theme would also be a candidate for historical. And while I would give Arthur games historical based tags like "middleages", it's not really a historical game for me due to its fantasy elements.

re: re:
It is acknowledged that "Sultan" and "Vizier" are anachronisms common to '1001 nights'. It is also acknowledged that western education is not that great, and western education regarding middle eastern history is poor, and western education regarding Islamic history is just plain false. People in the US still think the Write Brothers where the first to fly! I myself was taught out of text books that managed to teach some of the differences and similarities between Iran, Persia, and the Persian Empire, but these books used the term "Sultan", even applying the term to leaders of the Medes.

(some think /"Wright" brothers were first to fly also)

And it is acknowledged that Jordan Mechner was supposed to be concentrating on school when he was instead designing videogames.

Arabian nights has already been applied to most of the Prince of Persia games (although Al-Qadim had the honor of being first game to be tagged with it :b)

Somehow I see 'oriental' as something referring to the far east (China, Thailand, perhaps India, etc.), but I've never bothered correcting myself on what it exactly means.

re: re:

Well that's a problem then! "Arabian Nights" means "One Thousand and One Nights", a specific piece of literature and not a theme. Granted, its an often revised and influential book of collected stories, but then again, so is "The Odyssey"; we shouldn't be tagging games about Greek Myth or Greek Tragedy with "The Odyssey". If you want a theme that's similar to arabiannights, try a new tag. Additionally, One Thousand and One Nights encompasses far to broad a collection of stories to be a theme itself. It is collection of literature of many types with international influence (Arabian, Assyrian, burlesques, Christian, comedies, Egyptian, erotica, fables, fairy tales, folk tales, Greek, historic tales, Indian, Islamic, Jewish, love stories, Mesopotamian, Persian, poems, tragedies, Yemen)/ And that's not even accounting for modern influences. In fact, the only common theme in the collection is the element of the cliffhanger and the Scheherazade frame.

re: re: re:

Any suggestions? I'm drawing blank here.

suggestion:
clarify that arabiannights refers games based directly on book "One Thousands and One Nights" in its classic edition (first edition titled "Arabian Nights") and/or specific stories in it and/or specific characters as they are portrayed in it.
The new tag. arabianmythos refers to games that borrow elements from some of these tales, or from Hollywood style 'Arabian' themes, or other not-so-accurate sources.

Sounds good enough for me :)

However, the games currently tagged with Arabian Nights have that relation mentioned at one location or another. Original Prince of Persia should be obvious, Sands of Time is sort of re-iteration of Mechner's ideas (he was the designer), and shares somes ideas from the previous game. Al-Qadim on the other hand is described as Arabian Nights-themed D&D campaign setting in Wikipedia. So, personally I'd keep all those, except maybe Sands of Time if it is perceived as too far removed from the contents of the book.

Edit: OK, the new wording kinda doesn't permit Sands of Time nor Al-Qadim, unless they do reference a tale in it, but I'm unfortunately unaware of all the tales told in the book.

Still need to figure out the time tag to use instead of classical antiquity for the PoP games.

Edit: Islamic Golden Age fits the 8th to 13th century time frame (and apparently even up to 16th century by some accounts), so that's probably it.

re: re:
What little I know of the Al-Qadim setting, suggests that stories can go either way; arabiannights, or other arabianmythos, or even both in some cases. I do not recall if there is any specific story references in the Al-Qadim computer game. So arabiannights should not apply until such time someone confirms it has at least a subplot or complete main character based on a story in the book.