Talks to Watch

Creating Prelude of the Chambered

475K views · Aug 31, 2011 · 5:51 · 2 HN recommenders · 3 mentions · discussed 2015–2026

A timelapse of Notch (Markus Persson) creating his Ludum Dare 21 entry, Prelude of the Chambered, from scratch in 48 hours.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN recommends it as a way to demystify game creation and shows what an experienced developer can build in a 48-hour jam.

“show them Notch's time-lapse in the background on projector”HN comment, 2015

What Hacker News said 3

RecommendswallflowerJan 2015

“show them Notch's time-lapse in the background on projector”

Time-lapse of making a game demystifies the creative process

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First, congratulations! I would demystify the process of creation. Show them your wireframes, your pencil sketches, talk about the business v. creative push and pull. Make it interactive - break them into groups of 2-3 each for 5 min and show them Notch's time-lapse in the background on projector while you have them work on exercises in ideation - what would their game be? what would the levels, characters, and challenges be. They don't have to present - just get them comfortable with the first step of creation - putting it on 'scratch' paper. If you have time, deconstruct Flappy Bird. The scrolling left to right background v. making the bird move. How the object detection is greatly simplified when you have only one coordinate to detect (y-bird and y-pipeTop/y-pipeBottom). How adding gravity to the bird (downward velocity) allows you to fly the bird. "Making Metagun" by Notch link "Creating Prelude of the Chambered" by Notch this video

in “Ask HN: I'm going to present technology jobs to 400 16yo,what should I tell them?” · view on HN
RecommendsCodeArtisanApr 2026

“I especially enjoyed Prelude to the chambered.”

Notch's game jam entry the commenter enjoyed

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The games he made for programming competitions like ludum dare were decent. I especially enjoyed Prelude to the chambered. link this video link

in “Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly building an AI clone to replace him in meetings” · view on HN
Cites itsovandeJul 2016

“Keep in mind, this is 48 hours and he had created a”

Game built in 48 hours by an experienced developer

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For example, this video Keep in mind, this is 48 hours and he had created a "few" games before this.

in “Writing an editor in less than 1000 lines of code, just for fun” · view on HN