Page 45 Review by Stephen
Video Gamers AND World War history lovers, this family memoir by the creator of 'Prince Of Persia' is rivetting, revelatory and oh so immersive!
REPLAY: MEMOIR OF AN UPROOTED FAMILY by Jordan Mechner traces his own early youth painstakingly creating his first video games... his father's in France while separated, as a boy, from both his Mum AND Dad as the Nazi military machine invaded France itself (if you loved Anthony Doerr's 'All The Light We Cannot See' prose as much as I did, you will be GRIPPED by this!)... then his Father's Father's on the frontline defending his country, down in the trenches, against the Russians during WWI. It's a miracle either of those two survived.
Hopefully these photos, taken so you can read the salient script, will give you a glimpse into Jordan's craft (early motion capture!!!!) as well as his frankly astonishing commitment, but if you want to read his 'Ten Tips For Game Developers', (and learn why "#10 still keeps me awake at night" after decades of international success) then you'll have to buy the book.
For yes, Jordan's career merely BEGAN with the original scrollers, and he ended up displacing his own family in order to pursue creative offers... albeit to a sunny beach front in Montpellier. But not everyone comes with him.
Also photographed, the sequence in which his Dad decides the best way to endure the constant threat of death from above is to decide that he's already dead, and that anything that follows is a bonus. Recommended.
Terrific visual storytelling, bursting with humanity.
The publisher writes:
"In this intergenerational graphic memoir, renowned video game designer Jordan Mechner traces his family's journey through war, Nazi occupation, and everyday marital strife. 1914.
A teenage romantic heads to the enlistment office when his idyllic life in a Jewish enclave of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is shattered by World War I. 1938. A seven-year-old refugee begins a desperate odyssey through France, struggling to outrun the rapidly expanding Nazi regime and reunite with his family on the other side of the Atlantic. 2015.
The creator of a world-famous video game franchise weighs the costs of uprooting his family and moving to France as the cracks in his marriage begin to grow. Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner calls on the voices of his father and grandfather to weave a powerful story about the enduring challenge of holding a family together in the face of an ever-changing world."
