GDC 2011: Out of This World Became Amazing Almost By Accident

Susan Arendt

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Jan 9, 2007
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GDC 2011: Out of This World Became Amazing Almost By Accident

Eric Chahi went into the creation of Out of This World with no plan, but a few rules. The result was a masterpiece that's still impressive two decades later.

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DSK-

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May 13, 2010
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Holy crap! I remember that game! (from the image) I remember my friends and I trying to figure out how to play it and what not. I remember being really impressed with the graphics too.

Out of this world. So that was what it was called.
 

Cuddly Knife

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May 20, 2009
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Great article. I loved this game when it first came out on the Sega Genesis, and have played it many many times since then and still do this day. One of my favorite games ever, yes.
 

Tom Terryn

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Apr 7, 2010
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One of the games I will always cherish. Very short, maybe too short but really cinematic in both mood and execution. Hard as nails too on the Amiga... :)
 

SaintWaldo

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Jun 10, 2008
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I'm glad we're looking back like this instead of always charging forward. I remember playing this and Warlords on my roommate's Mac in 1992. We would trade rooms for an evening and he'd play Ultima Underworld while I tried to figure out, then survive, this game. We'd play Warlords hot seat style, with hot knives on hand.

Come to think of it, both UU and OotW were pretty amazing compared to Carmack's first, heavily lauded, 3D endeavors. OotW had the real polys and real-time shading, and UU had real 3D levels, in that you could go UNDER shit. Yeah, sometimes we give Carmack a lil' too much credit for things he didn't do first, IMO. I bet it's mostly the Ferrari. Mostly.
 

dough

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Lester died?! I always thought he was beaten within an inch of his life, and was just unconscious. Now I am having the moist eyes :(
 

The Rogue Wolf

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dough said:
Lester died?! I always thought he was beaten within an inch of his life, and was just unconscious. Now I am having the moist eyes :(
He's probably talking about during gameplay (because it was RIDICULOUSLY easy to die in that game). There was a sequel released in which Chaykin DID die, but it was made without Chahi's approval or input.

If I ever go on the run from the law, I'm checking into every hotel under the name Lester Knight Chaykin.
 

Unrulyhandbag

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DSK- said:
Holy crap! I remember that game! (from the image) I remember my friends and I trying to figure out how to play it and what not. I remember being really impressed with the graphics too.

Out of this world. So that was what it was called.
Nope; it was called 'Another world' here (UK). Apparently an American TV show already had the name and the publisher wanted to avoid confusion.


Even if the controls were tightened, the graphics redrawn and the animation redone Another World still has a significant problem; a difficulty that sits a long way past the current definition of brutal.

It's downright unfair and often counter intuitive, based around repetition and avoiding instant death rather than problem solving. You have to think "what did the designer intend?" rather than "what should I do next?" if you can think like that (and manage to prevent your character from running too far) Another world can seem pretty easy and the tonne of death animations make new threats interesting.
Otherwise you'll spend the time working past the last few puzzles you solved by hours of trial and error before getting insta-killed without seeing why and restarting the chapter.

As much as I loved the game at the time I don't think it will hold up today.
 

KrazyKain

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Another World... My favourite game of all time.

I really look up to Eric Chahi as a game developer

Unrulyhandbag said:
As much as I loved the game at the time I don't think it will hold up today.
I would have to disagree and I'm not only talking about the nostalgia factor. Admittedly the trial and error games design isn't very good games design, but the game holds out entirely on it's emotion. Even playing it now I still get that connection with the friend alien and care about him, am happy to see him again and the end sequence still puts a tear in my eye.
This is a game that has to be approached differently to other games, but as an 'art game' it's just downright incredible even today. It uses very basic sound, very simple (but beautiful) graphics and no dialogue but tells the story so well and so artistically.
 

DSK-

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Unrulyhandbag said:
DSK- said:
Holy crap! I remember that game! (from the image) I remember my friends and I trying to figure out how to play it and what not. I remember being really impressed with the graphics too.

Out of this world. So that was what it was called.
Nope; it was called 'Another world' here (UK). Apparently an American TV show already had the name and the publisher wanted to avoid confusion.


Even if the controls were tightened, the graphics redrawn and the animation redone Another World still has a significant problem; a difficulty that sits a long way past the current definition of brutal.

It's downright unfair and often counter intuitive, based around repetition and avoiding instant death rather than problem solving. You have to think "what did the designer intend?" rather than "what should I do next?" if you can think like that (and manage to prevent your character from running too far) Another world can seem pretty easy and the tonne of death animations make new threats interesting.
Otherwise you'll spend the time working past the last few puzzles you solved by hours of trial and error before getting insta-killed without seeing why and restarting the chapter.

As much as I loved the game at the time I don't think it will hold up today.
I only ever saw it played twice I think, but it was so different to every game I had seen before that I remembered it :D
 

Rad Party God

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The very first time I played this game, was with my Pentium 1 laptop, in one of the first emulators for the SNES. Even with my crappy laptop and even at it's very crude stage of the emulator, the game itself was very, very impressive. I eventually bought the real thing in GOG and I was even more impressed to see what was I missing from the SNES port.

About Interplay wanting to change something from their games, this is not the first time something like that happened and one of the reasons why I don't miss them. They did something similar with both Fallout 1 & 2, with the first Fallout they changed the entire Boneyard area, what was, perhaps, one of the most morally ambiguous situations in a game back then, and then in FO2 they wanted to ram in a tutorial and it became the infamous tutorial for FO2.