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Welcome to the summer palace of the Prince’s family, which once was the royal family’s splendid summer retreat in the hills. After the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian empire, the hordes pillaged the summer palace, but were unable to find the hidden royal treasure. Desperate to find the gold, general Nizam ordered his troops to tear down the so-called Golden Wing of the palace, but ended up empty-handed. Disappointed by the lack of reward, the troops moved on, but a frustrated Nizam stays behind and booby-traps the building to ward off looters. As the Prince of Persia, you now return to the palace to reclaim your family’s fortune.
The building consists of three wings, the Azure, Lavender and Golden Wing, the latter of which has been laid in ruins. The three wings form a three-legged symmetric star, with a tower at the center. You can recognise the former splendour of the palace, but also find traces of fighting and pillaging. The build is 32 cm high (counting the spire) and about as wide from one wing to the next. It weighs about 1.2 kg. The building itself is mostly made out of bricks in tan, various shades of brown, gold and copper, with lavender and azure as accent colours. Moving parts include a trap door, a falling long sword and a circular window to crawl through. And as the pièce de résistance, the hexagonal tower can freely rotate to block or allow the Prince to pass from one roof to the next. The tower is unattached, held in place by eight ‘ball bearings’, although the balls don’t roll. Other interesting building techniques include walls at 120°, an upside-down roof, a gated window and inverted bricks to achieve the blue windows in the stairway, with concealed attachment of the transparent bricks.
The model is inspired by the 2003 video game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The action-adventure features an interesting mix of puzzle-solving, acrobatics and fighting. In the model, I tried to recreate these elements, by making the Prince crawl, jump and somersault to retrieve the hidden treasure. Somewhat like a LEGO puzzle-platformer, the set forces the Prince to reach seemingly impossible locations, avoid walking into the general’s traps, pull handles to open passages further up the ‘level’, and discover hidden riches. If you fail a jump, or fall in a trap, no worries. You always have the Sands of Time to turn back time for a second try. As for the palace’s design, I strove to recreate the aesthetics of the Islamic Golden Age, while also including some romantic fairy-tale elements that made the game’s design so memorable.
* SPOILER * SPOILER * SPOILER * SPOILER *
To unlock the palace’s secret, and recover your family’s treasure, follow these steps:
- Enter the palace through the main entrance.
- Inside, retrieve the dagger from the pot to your right.
- Moving to the left, you surprise the leader of the invaders, Nizam, who is quickly neutralised using your dagger.
- In the back of the Azure Wing, you stare in bewilderment at the stakes installed in the impluvium previously used as a source of refreshment. What could be the function of these?
- Return to the main hall.
- Whatever you do, don’t walk through the gate with the stained-glass towards what once was the Gold Wing, “unless you want to end up shorter”. A long sword will drop down from the wall on your right to end your adventure prematurely.
- Ascend the stairs to the shaded terrace.
- Across the terrace, you spot a golden chalice, which could be part of the treasure.
- If you decide to cross the terrace to pick up the chalice, you will quickly learn the reason for the stakes in the pool, since a trap door will open once you approach the chalice, which is apparently a decoy made of fool’s gold.
- Instead, a wise and cautious man had better climb the second flight of stairs to the attic.
- Before crawling through the attic, be sure to kill the scorpion first.
- On the other side, you overlook your parent’s bedroom in the Lavender Wing.
- Before climbing out, be sure to pull the gold-plated lever towards you, in order to rotate the tower above the attic.
- Cross the bedroom by swinging from one beam to the next using your signature somersaults.
- Fold the ornamental window backwards to climb outside.
- Climb on the roof, and balance over the ridge towards the tower.
- You now find that by having rotated the tower earlier, you have created an access through the tower, to reach the roof of the opposite wing.
- Here, a chalk arrow on the roof indicates where to look down. Below, you notice some gleaming objects behind the wall with the sun dial.
- The chain on the roof provides a quick and direct way to get to the sun dial.
- Pull down the wall in the corner to reveal the hidden compartment and reclaim your family’s fortune.
By
Alter Lego
Help your fellow builder by leaving your feedback based on these three criteria:
- Originality: How original is this - never seen before?
- Building Techniques: How much skill do you think the creator of this MOC has, in terms of building technique?
- Details: Express how much you like the details of the build.
Your feedback is only shown to the creator as well as yourself. It is not available for other users to see. The creator won't see your user name.