The Making of Karateka

About

Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner was a college student when he created one of the biggest-selling games of 1984: Karateka. Now, in a new interactive documentary from Digital Eclipse, the story of how a teenager with an Apple II created one of the most groundbreaking, influential games of all time.

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8
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115 reviews
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Developer:
Digital Eclipse
Release date:
Not specified
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Recent Steam reviews:
Not specified
All Steam reviews:
Very Positive (115)

Game features

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Description

Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner was a college student when he created one of the biggest-selling games of 1984: Karateka. Now, in a new interactive documentary from Digital Eclipse, the story of how a teenager with an Apple II created one of the most groundbreaking, influential games of all time.

THE ORIGIN STORY OF A LEGENDARY GAME CREATOR

Discover how Karateka was made through an exhaustive archive of design documents, playable prototypes, and all-new video features. Like walking through a museum, you can explore the interactive timelines at your own pace.

PLAY THE ACCLAIMED ORIGINALS

Enjoy pixel-perfect versions of the original Karateka games and a variety of never-before-seen early prototypes, with rich quality-of-life features like save anywhere, rewind, chapter select, and director's commentary.

TWO REMASTERED GAMES

Karateka Remastered is an all-new version of the original game featuring cutting-room-floor content, commentary, achievements, and more. Deathbounce: Rebounded is a fast and frantic twin-stick shooter based on Jordan's unpublished prototype.

A GROUNDBREAKING MASTERPIECE

Discover how Karateka became one of the first games to include cinematic scenes, a moving original soundtrack, rotoscoped animation, and a Hollywood-style love story, influencing the decades of games that followed.

THE GOLD MASTER SERIES

New from Digital Eclipse (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration), the Gold Master Series presents iconic games in an innovative "interactive documentary" format, putting the shared history of games and their creators into one comprehensive package.

Recommended system requirements

minimum*

Requirement 1:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS:
Windows 10
Processor:
Intel i3 @ 3.0GHz or AMD equivalent.
Memory:
8 GB RAM
Graphics:
ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series, Nvidia GeForce 8800GT or greater

recommended*

Requirement 1:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system

User reviews

SlothBear
Not recommended | 20 Feb 2026
16.3h played

One part of the final achievement is bugged and cannot be completed. It has been this way for over a year. No reason to think it will ever be fixed. That a game all about the hard work, vision, and persistence of a

Helpful: 7
Bayo
Recommended | 17 Nov 2024
7.3h played

A masterclass in game preservation and history; The Making of Karateka is the type of preservation I wish I could see for many older games. Imagine if games like Wolfenstein or Doom had as high quality interactive art

Helpful: 10
dhalsey18
Recommended | 28 Nov 2024
21.2h played

As an old school gamer who grew up playing this game on the old Apple IIe after school. This was a great trip down memory lane. I absolutely loved everything from the original game, to the remastered version. The

Helpful: 4
Drake
Recommended | 07 Jan 2026
30 min played

I played Karateka back in 1985, both in an Apple II and a C64. I spent hours in this game, finished it many times. I love that this interactive documentary exists. It is indeed a triumph of game preservation and we need

Helpful: 6
Filip
Not recommended | 17 Sept 2024
10.2h played

There's a lot of relatively uninteresting documents. Instead of the detailed mail exchanges between Mechner and Broderbund, I would appreciate some in-depth look on the source code of Karateka. I appreciate the analysis

Helpful: 1
Koda
Recommended | 04 Jul 2024
5.1h played

I really enjoyed my time with this. The game itself is of course incredibly simple, by modern standards, but as a living document to the early days of game design it was fantastic. Really enjoyed my time with it.

Helpful: 2