Prince of Persia is a fantasy platform game, originally developed by Jordan Mechner and released in 1989 for the Apple II, that represented a great leap forward in the quality of animation seen in video games.

After the original release on the Apple II, Prince of Persia was ported to a wide range of platforms. The game managed to surprise and captivate the player despite being at first glance, repetitive. This was achieved by interspersing intelligent puzzles and deadly traps all along the path the player-controlled Prince had to take to complete the game—all this packaged in fluid, lifelike motion.

Prince of Persia influenced a sub-genre, which imitated the sprawling non-scrolling levels, fluid animation, and control style.

The main objective of the player is to complete the game within one hour. The player must lead the game protagonist out of a dungeon and into a tower. Doing so requires bypassing traps and fighting hostile swordsmen. The game consists of twelve stages (or levels). To complete a game, all twelve stages must be completed in one session. A game session may be saved and resumed at a later time only after level 3.

The player has a health indicator that consists of a series of small red triangles. The player starts with three. Each time he is damaged (cut by sword, fallen from two floors of heights or hit by a falling rock), the player loses one of these indicators. There are small jars of red potion scattered throughout the game that restore one health indicator. There are also large jars of red potion that increase the maximum number of health indicators by one. If the player's health is reduced to zero, the protagonist dies. Subsequently, the game is restarted from the beginning of the stage in which the protagonist died but the timer will not reset to that point, effectively constituting a time penalty. There is no counter for the number of lives but dying too many times will eventually leave the player with very little time to complete the game.

There are three types of traps that the player must bypass: Spike traps, deep pits (three or more levels deep) and guillotines. Getting caught or falling into each results in the instant death of the protagonist. In addition, there are gates that can be raised for a short period of time by having the protagonist stand on the activation trigger. The player must pass through the gates while they are open, avoiding locking triggers. Sometimes, there are various traps between an unlock trigger and a gate.

Hostile swordsmen (Jaffar and his guards) are yet another obstacle. The player has to obtain a sword in the first stage, which he can use to fight these adversaries. The protagonist's sword maneuvers are limited: He can advance, back off, slash or parry. Enemy swordsmen also have a health indicator similar to that of the protagonist. Killing them involves slashing them until their health indicator is depleted.

A unique trap encountered in stage four, which serves as a plot device, is a magic mirror, whose appearance is followed by an ominous musical tone. The protagonist is forced to jump through this mirror upon which his doppelganger emerges out of the other side. This apparition later hinders the protagonist by throwing him into a dungeon. The protagonist cannot kill this apparition as they share lives; any damage inflicted upon one also hurts the other. Therefore, the protagonist must merge with his doppelganger.