The player must lead the protagonist out of the dungeons and to the palace tower, defeating Jaffar and freeing the Princess in under 60 minutes. The game's nameless protagonist, whom the Princess loves, is thrown into the palace dungeons. Jaffar locks her in a tower and orders her, under threat of execution, to become his wife. Jaffar's only obstacle to the throne is the Sultan's daughter (although the game never specifically mentions how). While the sultan is fighting a war in a foreign land, his vizier Jaffar, a wizard, seizes power.
Prince of Persia influenced a sub-genre known as the cinematic platformer, which imitated the sprawling non-scrolling levels, fluid animation, and control style. This was achieved by interspersing intelligent puzzles and deadly traps all along the path the player-controlled Prince had to take to complete the game-all this packaged in fluid, lifelike motion. The game managed to surprise and captivate the player despite being at first glance, repetitive. After the original release on the Apple II, Prince of Persia was ported to a wide range of platforms. Prince of Persia is a fantasy platform game, originally developed by Jordan Mechner and released in 1989 for the Apple II, that represented a great leap forward in the quality of animation seen in video games. Other available platforms: NES, SMS, Game Boy, Game Gear, Genesis and SNES. If you prefer to use a java applet emulator, follow this link. This game is emulated by javascript emulator em-dosbox. For fullscreen press 'Right Alt' + 'Enter'. Game is controlled by the same keys that are used to playing under MS DOS.