The Making of Karateka

A decent documentary that deep-dives into the very beginnings of Jordan Mechner's gaming career. The two "reloaded" remake games (Deathbounce and Karateka) are pretty decent, though unlike the Atari 50 documentary this one is a little light on playables. The meat of the package lay in the interviews and copious amounts of scanned notes that Mechner diligently kept during development. My main takeaway from it was that Mechner's dad was the coolest (check their wikipedia page), and Jordan really lucked out having such a supportive and multidisciplinary dad. A nice touch: the playables all have a "watch" mode that plays the game for you, and you can scrub through the timeline via chapters to quickly see the whole experience without needing to play it yourself. Wonderful for non-gamers or time-strapped. While The Making of Karateka may be the runt of the Gold Master Series litter, it's still a great addition to a phenomenally appreciated series trying to shine light on an industry that seems all to eager to forget what happened yesterday in the pursuit of tomorrow's profits.