The rarely discussed POP3D

The website Players, based in Kyiv, recently posted an anniversary retrospective of Prince of Persia 3D — the game published by Red Orb in 1999. I thought I'd contribute a bit of the back story behind this often-overlooked POP title. In the summer and fall of 1993, with Prince of Persia 2 on store shelves and selling well, Broderbund was eager for another 2D sequel. This fit my plans: I was launching my own game studio, Smoking Car Productions, to make The Last Express, and having a development slate of two titles instead of just one (one super-risky and ambitious, the other a sequel to a proven hit) made good business sense. I'd always planned POP2 as the middle episode of a 2D trilogy (that's why it ended on a cliffhanger). But as negotiations dragged on, it became clear that Broderbund's enthusiasm for POP3 was cooling. The year's biggest hits — Doom, The 7th Guest, and Broderbund's own Myst — were all 3D, and showcased new technologies. 2D platform games were no longer hot. In…