the game's engine was designed and built from scratch by paul douglas. several custom tools were developed to allow the artists to create the levels and characters. the animation for lara was keyframed by hand in 3d studio (version 4) rather than using motion capture. this allowed the development team to precisely match the motions of the character to the level geometry's grid system. the largest technical obstacles in the game's development were the ai, camera and animation systems. the gameplay was partially inspired by the first prince of persia game.