Last Express, The

October 25, 1992

“I was taking the night train to Berlin…”

Thus begins the noir eve-of-WWI adventure Tomi and I are cooking up. Now, finally, I’m excited.

Ken expects me to come in as an author-for-hire, Prince 2 style, to build Broderbund an adventure game system. But I have a different idea.

An independent development group. Tomi and me and Robert, maybe Corey, maybe Glenn Axworthy, and a couple of artists, in an office in San Francisco. Two years, $500K, and we could develop an awesome adventure game for Broderbund to publish.

Best of all, we’d be building a company—an asset that, years down the line, could actually be sold for real money. Better than royalties.

October 30, 1992

It was a fun week. It’s really satisfying watching Prince 2 come together. The last few days have been somewhat marred by controversy over the subtitle. I got Brian and Bruce and the whole art department excited about “The Shadow and the Flame,” we were all ready to go ahead, and then Ken Goldstein shot it down. Now, thanks to Ken, everybody is all agitated about it.

Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame

Prince of Persia 2: City of the Dead

Prince of Persia 2: The City of Souls

I’m so burned out now, I don’t even care which one they use.

Pitched the train story to Ken. He said: “Do you really need a partner? Can’t you write it yourself?” For some reason the mention of Tomi got him all riled up. (As Brian said afterwards, “I thought he was going to blow a gasket.”)

Also pitched the company idea to Robert and Corey. This could really happen. (Gulp!)

December 15, 1992

My last two days at Broderbund were even more jam-packed than usual. Brian got back from vacation and we put Prince 2 into QA. (It was the day of Brian’s twelve-year anniversary.) Now that it’s approaching completion, a lot of upper-management types want copies to take home to play over Christmas.


Prince 2 is going boringly smoothly. Everybody wants it to succeed, the work is going well, and it’s even on schedule. Hardly the stuff of drama.

Tomi is proving her worth as collaborator on the train game. We argue a lot, but what we end up with is really good. This story’s going to be better than any movie screenplay I’ve written.

I rented the Greenwich St. apartment. Tomi made me a set of keys for the office. It’ll all be waiting for me when I get back in January.

I went down and saw Roland and showed him Prince 2. He was impressed. But, he’s not ready to commit to the train game. I think he’s scared it will turn into a huge project that will consume years of his life and drive him mad. Also, he’s just started on KidCuts and it’s not the right psychological moment to think of the next project. I haven’t given up on him, but I do need to start thinking about who else I might get to do it if Roland doesn’t.

I’m really enjoying the research for the train game. So far I’ve read The Birds Fall Down by Rebecca West and I’m in the middle of The Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman. It’s great to have an excuse to learn all this fascinating stuff. I have the greatest job in the world.