They Create Worlds

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The games we love reveal something true about who we are, and about the world that made them. They Create Worlds is a podcast about the people, technology, and forces that built the video game industry.

Through video game history, the show looks at how culture, business, and technology shaped what we play, tracing the choices and circumstances that led to the games so many people around the world enjoy.

Each episode digs into where games came from, who made them, and why they were made the way they were. Business decisions, technological shifts, and creative choices all shaped what ended up on screen, and the show covers all of it together, not just one piece in isolation.

Hosted by Alex Smith and Jeffrey Daum, They Create Worlds grew out of long conversations about the strange corners of the industry and the patterns that only show up when you look across companies, platforms, and decades. That conversational feel remains, built on careful research, clear structure and editing that makes even the deepest topics easy to listen to.

History turns out to be less settled than it looks. New documents surface, memories conflict, and the clean stories about why things happened the way they did rarely survive contact with the evidence. The show digs into all of that, following the creative and business forces that pushed and pulled on each other, and uncovering the human stories that lie beneath the games so many people around the world enjoy.

New episodes are released twice a month.

Episodes

Tuesday Jul 01, 2025

Jordan Mechner and Price of Persia

Tuesday Jul 01, 2025

TCW Podcast Episode 237 - Jordan Mechner and Price of Persia

We continue our look at Jordan Mechner with the development of Prince of Persia. Its cinematic inspirations include Castles of Dr. Creep, the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the 1938 Robin Hood. To animate the prince, Mechner filmed his brother performing stunts, then manually painted key frames, painting his brother white and the background black to make the footage compatible with a limited digitizer. Memory constraints forced creative solutions, like XORing the prince and bit shifting him to create Shadow Man. A promising film project delayed the game’s release, but Prince of Persia launched on the Apple II with groundbreaking animation. A strong Macintosh port and renewed interest following Disney’s Aladdin helped turn the game into a hit across the early 1990s.

The Making of Prince of Persia: https://www.jordanmechner.com/en/books/journals/

TCW 172 - The Computer Price Wars Part 1: https://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/the-computer-price-wars-part-1/

TCW 173 - The Computer Price Wars Part 2: https://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/the-computer-wars-part-2/

TCW 174 - The Computer Price Wars Part 3: https://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/the-computer-wars-part-3/

TCW 019 - The Great Video Game Crash Part 1: https://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/the-great-video-game-crash-part-1/

TCW 020 - The Great Video Game Crash Part 2: https://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/the-great-video-game-crash-part-2/

TCW 021 - The Great Video Game Crash Part 3: https://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/the-great-video-game-crash-part-3/

TCW 071 - A Story of Brøderbund!: https://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/a-story-of%C2%A0br%C3%B8derbund/

TCW 072 - The MYSTeries of Brøderbund!: https://podcast.theycreateworlds.com/e/the-mysteries-of-br%C3%B8derbund/

The Castles of Dr. Creep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi2dvxcioBw

First 10 minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUWYmTpYdP4

The Thief of Bagdad (1924): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTXZSVIIk-c