Prince of Persia

Prince of Persia was a sensation in 1989. While other games struggled with stiff sprites, the prince moved with a fluidity never seen before - Jordan Mechner had filmed his brother on video and traced the movements frame by frame. The result is a hero who runs, jumps, clings to ledges and fences with a sword as if he were alive.

The premise is as brief as it is brutal: the evil vizier Jaffar has captured the princess and given her a choice - marry him or die. She has one hour. You play the nameless hero who wakes in the dungeon beneath the palace and must fight his way up in exactly that hour. Time runs in real time, and it is merciless.

The dungeon is a deadly machine of pits, slamming portcullises, spikes that shoot from the floor and crumbling slabs that give way under your weight. Every jump wants pixel-perfect timing, every fall from too great a height is fatal. Prince of Persia does not forgive haste - it rewards observation, patience and the brave jump at the right moment.

Then there are the sword fights. Guards block your path again and again, and then it is parry, lunge and strike at the right instant. With the careful key you edge cautiously toward pits and traps instead of running blind. It is a game where thinking matters as much as reaction.

This version is based on PrinceJS, a faithful reimplementation under the MIT licence, and runs right in your browser. Click Play and you stand in the dungeon at once - no download, no installation, no account. Controls are the arrow keys for running and climbing, Shift for careful movement and the space bar for fighting.

A fullscreen mode blows the adventure up to the whole area. Everything runs in your browser, nothing is installed and nothing is permanently stored. Whether you make it in that one hour is down to your skill alone.