ORIGINAL GAME PREVIEW / GAME OPENS ON CREATOR'S SITE
ADVENTURE / SINGLE PLAYER
Prince of Persia (browser port)
Jordan Mechner's 1989 Prince of Persia in a browser tab: all 14 levels of the DOS version, the sword fights and the 60-minute limit, with about 200 fan levels after that.
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OUR TAKE / EDITORIAL
Why it's on the wall
The rotoscoped running and climbing from 1989 hold up next to modern pixel art, and the 60-minute limit still makes you rush jumps you should walk.
Written by Neon Gamewall. An opinion, not a player rating.
GAME BRIEF
What's the game?
PrinceJS is Oliver Klemenz's rebuild of the MS-DOS Prince of Persia in JavaScript, based on ultrabolido's earlier PrinceJS. It is a rewrite, not an emulator, and it uses the original game's levels, art and sounds. Press to start and Jordan Mechner's title screens and story play as they did in 1990; Enter skips them. Then the prince is in Jaffar's dungeon with 60 minutes to reach the princess: find a sword, fight the guards, time the spikes, gates and loose floor tiles, and drink the potions. Space shows how many minutes are left. After the 14 levels there are about 200 fan-made levels converted from popot.org level packs, numbered 99 to 310.
BEFORE YOU PLAY
What to expect
Free, with no account and no ads. In our Chrome check it loaded about 3 MB by the start of a level, most of it sound effects. Unofficial: Jordan Mechner made Prince of Persia and Broderbund published it in 1989; Ubisoft owns the series now. This port uses the original game's art and sound, so it could be taken down. There is no save menu, as in the original: the page writes your level, health and time limit into its address, so a refresh or a bookmark picks up from the level you reached. Adding ?strength=50 to the address makes the guards easier. Open source on GitHub (Unlicense).
Controls: Arrow keys run, jump, climb and crouch; Shift grabs ledges, drinks potions and swings the sword; Up blocks in a fight; Space shows the time left. A gamepad works too (its plus and minus buttons skip levels), and phones get tap-and-drag touch controls in landscape. We only tried the keyboard.
QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK
Common questions
Can you play Prince of Persia in a browser?
Yes. princejs.com runs the MS-DOS version of the 1989 game, rebuilt in JavaScript by Oliver Klemenz, in a browser tab: all 14 levels, free, with nothing to install and no account. In our Chrome check it needed about 3 MB before the first level.
How do you save in Prince of Persia online?
Like the original, there is no save menu. The port writes your level, health and time limit into the page address as you play, so a refresh or a bookmark picks up from the level you reached.
Is it the full game?
Yes: all 14 levels of the DOS version with the cutscenes and the 60-minute limit, plus about 200 fan-made levels numbered 99 to 310. Put ?level= and a number in the address to start on one.
Does it work on a phone?
The port has touch controls for phones held in landscape (tap and drag on the screen; adding it to the home screen gives full screen), and it supports gamepads. We have only tried it on desktop.
SOURCE & CREDIT
Meet the maker
Oliver Klemenz is a developer in Germany who publishes JavaScript reimplementations of older games on GitHub, among them PrinceJS (Prince of Persia), Dune II, Lemmings, Another World, Xenon 2 and Nebulus. PrinceJS builds on ultrabolido's earlier PrinceJS.
The game's AI build is not independently verified. See the creator source or build notes ↗.
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