Retrospective: Another World 15th Anniversary Edition

By John Walker Published 25 April, 2010

It's okay to die.

When developers at Valve make a game, from the moment a single room has been crafted in their Hammer editor, they playtest it. Outsiders come in once a week, with no previous experience of the game, and play with whatever's been created. The developers must watch without comment, and observe how the player encounters the game.

This is not how Another World was developed. Released in 1991, Another World was the one-man project from Eric Chahi, a visually striking 2D platform game about a man transported to an alien world after a disaster with his particle acceleration experiment. (Which oddly enough is the very same premise as Outcast.)

It's minimalist in many senses - you have two action buttons (run and fire on one, jump on the other), and movement. With this, you and a friendly alien must escape an enemy complex, a series of caves, and a tower.

Valve's process is designed to ensure that its games are as intuitive, as user-friendly, as is possible. If someone gets stuck at a certain point, and is unsure where to go next, Valve redesigns that area so that subtle, ambient clues give suggestions to the player almost unconsciously.

1

I must have restarted at this point over a hundred billion times.

The reason you thought to look up and spot a potential route in Half-Life 2: Episode 2? That's because the broken fizzing wires that caught your eye were put there after someone else never thought to look up.

Another World does not provide broken ladders. Possible to finish in under an hour - although it's impossible to do so on your first playthrough - Another World only lasts longer because for the most part you really don't know what to do, nor how to do it.

Mostly your goal is to reach the right side of the screen, but just how or why that can't be done is not flagged up to you. What is blocking your buddy's progress through a tunnel? Why, it's the dangling lampshade five screens away that in no visible way changes anything above it when you shoot it down.

Games have unquestionably changed. From first-person shooters to point-and-click adventures, third-person action to platform, what is understood as "difficulty" has changed. Difficulty is a setting, a lever we pull to decide how many bullets the enemies should be able to absorb, the density of monsters, or the rarity of med packs and ammo. Back then, difficulty was how incredibly bloody hard it was to play something successfully.

2

Sexy alien babes' bottoms!

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Another World is that it will quite happily let you charge off in completely the wrong direction to your absolutely certain death, because you hadn't completed a task that would have been found if you'd chosen a different, equally unmarked exit than the one that initially appealed to you. But your death seems to be your fault, so you attempt that route again. And again. And again.

Trial and error could not be more out of fashion. In fact, the necessity of trial and error can now be considered a failing in a game. Were I reviewing an FPS that repeatedly required me to make blind guesses about which of three corridors would render me helpless to an instant death, I would criticise it for this. Dead ends are one thing, death ends are another. We want a game, more than anything, to be fair.

Another World certainly isn't fair. One screen sums this up perfectly. You're in a series of tunnels, but you can only see about a metre either side of your character, the rest of the screen enveloped in darkness. You can roll left or right, dropping into blank spaces. Some of them have spikes at the bottom! So the only way to get through the level is to fail until you don't.

A restart at the top of the screen prevents this from becoming too infuriating, but it very much removes any element of skill from the process. It's a process of elimination.

While that stands as a good, simple example of what I'm discussing, it's not true of the game as a whole. You're still forced to use trial and error, but mostly during long distances across complex screens of tough fights and tricky jumps. Failing means going back to the previous checkpoint and starting the whole process over again.

This all sounds rather negative, doesn't it? I think Another World is completely lovely. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if we've lost something in not having games that work this way any more.

Unquestionably a vast amount of Another World's charm comes from the art style. It's just fantastic. Chahi's design is exquisitely simple and enormously evocative. Built from spare polygons, its paper-craft-like animation conjures the world, the creatures and the threat wonderfully. And never more wonderfully than Chahi's own 15th anniversary remake.

After reacquiring the rights to the game after the original publisher, Delphine, closed in 2004, Chahi ported it to mobile phones, and then in 2006 remade the PC version to work on modern machines. The resolution went up from 320x200 to 1280x800, with repainted backgrounds, and the polygonal characters resized to fit. The result is something far lovelier, and yet completely true to the original design.

The other big difference with the remake is the checkpoint system. There are twice as many of them. Which to a cack-handed buffoon like me makes the game something I like to describe as, "playable". Hardcore fans of the original, or its console ports, will sneer their most wretched sneers at this, but then this is a compromise I demand in return for being required to fail in order to know how to proceed.

3

OMG spoilers. This is the end of a 19-year-old game!

However, even the checkpointing is a little trial-and-error. If you choose to go in one of two available directions, in an order other than is required to be successful, it won't recognise this as a time to trigger checkpoints. If I had known this as I played through, I'd have known something was up. Instead I repeated the same godforsaken section in the caves approximately 90,184 times, sobbing blood onto my keyboard.

It sounds negative again, doesn't it?

There's definitely a reason we moved on from trial and error. There's definitely a reason why we demand fairness from games. Failing in order to succeed is a strange attitude, a mindset into which one must insert oneself. You have to pop into the right department of your brain and make a note on a whiteboard saying, "It's okay that I keep dying - don't fling PC through window."

But once your brain is there, and also perhaps once you've found a friendly man showing you how to get through the game on YouTube, it becomes okay to die.

The direction in which Valve is taking games is tremendously exciting. Intuitive design, barely consciously recognised prompting, and behind-the-scenes difficulty rebalancing if you're struggling.

4

He's, what, 16 polygons? And yet such a vivid character.

It's creating a single-player standard where it just isn't okay to die. The player is having fun when he's succeeding, winning, overcoming. He isn't having fun when he's being killed by the same boss creature a dozen times in a row. And when a game lasts six to 12 hours, you want to be progressing, seeing what comes next.

But there's room for Another World. Under an hour of start-to-finish content (I imagine it could be completed in a lot less), it's okay in such circumstances to repeat sections again and again. It's about refining technique, practicing before achieving. It's about learning what will get you killed in order to learn what to avoid.

But then it's not just games who've changed. It's players too. I can remember playing this game as a kid, and almost certainly not getting further than the fifth screen. Just getting past the first charging bull-creature is tough enough.

And I was okay with that. I never got past the fifth screen of Chuckie Egg 2, but I must have played it a hundred times. Maybe we had more patience? Perhaps I, perhaps we, were idiots back then. That might well be it. We certainly had different expectations.

Another World, especially in its 15th Anniversary form, is still utterly beautiful. There's something compelling not just about the graphics, but the simplicity of the story. The relationship with your cellmate and friend, the sense of progression against the odds, is calmly and cleverly told.

It's utterly bloody ridiculously hard in places, but then, as it turns out, it's meant to be.

Another World is available on GOG.com, with its previous ghastly DRM removed.

Comments (77) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ChrisOTR #1 2 years ago

    Wonderful game... Might pick this up - but I do feel like I paid for it once already many years ago - not sure I want to pay for the same game twice when there are so many other wonderful indie things that deserve my money...

  • Obiwanshinobi #2 2 years ago

    Played through it last year (got the collector's edition with a soundtrack CD and a postcard). Still fine game, although some puzzles are pure evil. I do wonder how many people finished it without anybody's help whatsoever. Flashback isn't quite as atmospheric (the devil's in the details: not quite as moody soundtrack and plain ugly character design in cutscenes), but it's overall more playable.
    If you can swallow your pride and look up some FAQ in places, by all means play 15th Anniversary Edition.

  • spliffhead #3 2 years ago

    Outcast, brilliant but most missunderstood game ever.

  • Xnoybis Verified Senior Software Engineer, Holition #4 2 years ago

    Aaaah, memory lane.

    My primary recollection of Another World - As soon as the opening cinematic ends you're dumped in the water. If you dont start swimming up the *second* you take control of your character you get killed. Which proceeded to happen over, and over, and over again, until I lost my temper and kicked a hole through my bedroom wall. My Amiga got confiscated for a month and I don't think I ever got round to completing the damn thing.

    I'd like to think i've mellowed in my old age, but the box of broken controllers beside my desk would suggest otherwise...
    Edited by Xnoybis at 25/04/10 @ 13:59

  • Pac #5 2 years ago

    I completed the original on the Amiga in '91 whith no help whatsoever (no one had access to internet in those days). However I did get stuck once or twice for days on end.

    It some ways I found it quite similar to The Immortal which came out on the Amiga a year before it. In other words it was fiendishly difficult but very rewarding.

    I don't think games this hard would be tollerated today.

  • BBIAJ #6 2 years ago

    God I hate this game with a passion!

    Flashback however, was far, far superior in every conceivable way.

  • skuzzbag #7 2 years ago

    "In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if we've lost something in not having games that work this way any more."

    The need to smash your Kingston Pro against the wall.

    I loved the art and I really wanted to play the damn game but I hated games designed this way.
    Edited by skuzzbag at 25/04/10 @ 10:17

  • Murton #8 2 years ago

    Another World was great, but Flashback trumped it in all departments I think, a great evolution of the premise. I really hope that we see a high-res revisit of that classic sometime.

    @ Pac: The Immortal was immense, loved that game, ridiculously hard though.

  • Alestes #9 2 years ago

    Awesome game, I remember reading a review of it back in 1991 and thinking I wanted to play it. Some weekends later my family spent the evening at my cousins place, and he had just gotten the game! So while the parents spent their time in the living room, drinking alcohol and laughing, we spend the time in his room playing Another World to 5am. Excellent times :)

  • ant72 #10 2 years ago

    It's difficult to be objective about this beautiful game. Too wrapped in the past it is, mmmhm, yehhhs.

  • bad09 #11 2 years ago

    Wonderful game I was never able to finish. Loved this and Flashback on Amiga.

  • danjfor #12 2 years ago

    One of the upsides (maybe the only one?) of the trial-and-error gameplay in games like these is that it makes the alien world seem, well, alien - genuinely threatening and not at all accommodating to your presence. This might sound insane, but as the Half-Life games have went on the sheer reliability, the sheer never-annoyingness of their level design means they can sometime sort of get a little bit boring and routine. In playtesting their games so heavily, and in designing levels that have these tricks that steer you through them in ways that are subtle, but that you're always kind of conscious of, it kind of degrades the believability of the world. I don't like to think the gameworld is dancing to my tune. I like getting lost a bit, you know?

    It's maybe made worse by Valve's use of commentaries - their level design's still some of the best you get in FPS games and it's probably only due to them explaining it so well in the commentaries that I'm able to feel bored about it. I only voice these complaints as it seems right to hold Valve to a higher standard than your average shonky-arsed shooter.

    I quite liked Xen in the original Half-Life, pretty much BECAUSE it was so weird and frustrating and different to the rest of the game.

  • Siberian_Khatru #13 2 years ago

    I hate what they're doing with the game. Repainting backgrounds, changing animations. Looks out of place, sort of like those Saturn remakes of Megadrive games. Needless detail.

    For some reason, most people don't know that there was a straight sequel (no, not Flashback). "Heart of the Alien" it was called, I think. The intro was entirely too long.

  • Stompy #14 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 23:13:35 17-04-2012

  • Yossarian #15 2 years ago

    While this retrospective is all well and good, what you really want to read is this:

    [link url=http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=431
    ]http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=431
    [/link]

    This is great games journalism.

  • DjWhizzkidd #16 2 years ago

    Never managed to complete this, probably because I was only about 9 years old at the time and it was beyond my child mind.

    The sad fact is it's probably still beyond the capabilities of my now mostly adult mind.

  • Koborover #17 2 years ago

    This is one classic game, a wonderful one-man achievement and a very cinematic experience for its time. If you like the game, be sure to read the detailed "Making Of" written by Chahi on the offical Another World site.

  • Shinetop #18 2 years ago

    This game deserves more than simply two pages of mostly negativity interspersed with two lines of "It sounds negative but really it's wonderful", ending with two quick paragraphs about how beautiful it is.

    Sure, the trial and error gameplay is oldfashioned and infuriating now, but that's only part of the things that stand out about this game. The wonderful visuals, the amazing puzzles (yes, there were puzzles that coud be solved with actual thinking rather than trial and error, although this retrospective would have you believe otherwise), the beautiful end sequence, and the great level design. Why in these 20 years have all the Tombraiders and Uncharteds and god knows what else stil not been able to come up with stuff as simple yet wonderful like escaping the bull thing by swinging on a vine only to double back over him, or that amazing crawling to the switch sequence near the end?

    These are all great features of this game that still stand out as strong today. I'd have liked to seen them mentioned in more detail, rather then at the end of a retrospective that's essentially "This game is horrible to play now for all these lengthy reasons! Oh, but you have to take my word that it's really wonderful."

    I still hate those slug things though. That cannot receive enough criticism.

  • OrgasmicMutton #19 2 years ago

    At first I thought "this sounds way too frustrating for my tastes."

    Then reading a bit further and seeing John's ruminations on trial and error gameplay and that there might still be a place for it I couldn't help but think of the wonderful VVVVVV. I think it's a prime example of how to do trial and error style gameplay without being "unfair" which it sounds like Another World is. The key to getting it right is generous checkpointing so that death is less frustrating, making it so that the player feels like it is their fault rather than the game's that they have died yet again and finally having some of the toughest parts of the game to be optional challenges so that those of us who aren't willing to persevere with insanely hard sections are still able to complete the game.

  • anephric #20 2 years ago

    I only got through Another World at the time with a guide, and that came after dozens of hours of trying to get through it. I used to put it on, listen to the Amiga drive gristle and grind like Gerard Butler chewing on a wasp for five minutes just to watch the intro.

    The feeling, even though it was slightly cheaply gotten, of completing the game and watching the simply beautiful end has never left me. I was obsessed with this as a teenager. I even like bits of Heart of the Alien. Sadly, by the time Heart of Darkness came out, I was more into shooting people in the face.

  • Abscido #21 2 years ago

    @danjfor

    One of the upsides (maybe the only one?) of the trial-and-error gameplay in games like these is that it makes the alien world seem, well, alien - genuinely threatening and not at all accommodating to your presence.

    I have to agree with that sentiment, though it doesn't excuse unfair difficulty or trial and error for the sake of trial and error. Sometimes it's nice when a game makes you the centre of attention, but every now and then you want to be sucked into a world that necessitates real learning and adaptation. For me, Oblivion and Morrowind are a good example of the difference between the two mindsets ... in the latter you could die or make a critical error by simply wandering into the wrong area and being curious, but it was never unfair. In Oblivion on the other hand, any such 'world' threat was removed in favour accessibility and gratification. Things to be said for both ideals.

  • FogHeart #22 2 years ago

    Diffculty in games is approaching its third generation. Games like Another World and all before it relied on trial and error, your memory on the next playthrough, word of mouth spreading solutions to getting through.

    After this came the difficulty level - how hard is the enemy, how frugal you have to be with ammo, and so on as you mention.

    Now we start to see games that read your progress and react accordingly. Enemies that get cleverer - maps that get harder to navigate - resources that don't show up. This is of course Valve's AI Director, but also Split/Second which ditches rubber banding but makes the AI cars just drive better and use their event triggers more effectively against you. And surely this is the final destination of difficulty - games that read your frustration level and make you play just this side of quitting the game.

  • devilmyarse #23 2 years ago

    You say that trial and error "die one thousand deaths" style games wouldn't be tolerated in todays gaming climate. I disagree, Demon's Souls very much fits this idiom and that was one of the most well received (by critics and fans alike) games of last year.

  • Rens11 #24 2 years ago

    used to play this on my cousins amiga when I was about 5 will never forget the bear thing that chases you right at the beginning then having to swing on that rope, always scared the shit outta me!

  • dbeamish #25 2 years ago

    why is every game from my past, unfeasibly hard when I try to play them again today?

  • One_Vurfed_Gwrx #26 2 years ago

    I always enjoyed Another World more than Flashback, partly because of the simplicity and shorter length. I always got bored of Flashback before finishing it (Alien world IIRC) although I still enjoyed it too. Heart of the Alien was a game that took me a long time to get a copy of, (then had to play it in a Mega-CD emulator due to not having a Mega-CD at the time). A long time since I played the sequel, but I recall it still being quite fun if not as atmospheric/fun as the original (which was also included on the CD). I think the sequel was by different people though. I grabbed the remake in its retail copy and only recently had a go on it and thought the enhancements were tastefuly done. (Didn't play enough to notice the new checkpoints yet though).

    Siberian_Khatru: It does have an original mode too (although on my rig the lowest resolution I see is 400x300). Also I don't understand the DRM comment as my retail Anniversary Edition runs without the CD in the drive happuly (without any patches etc).

    Have to play it again now :) I remember someone asking me for help on Megadrive version once as I had completed the Amiga version and being happy to assist until I was met with the extra level the ports had which confused me :)

    (as for the Outcast love I'm with peoplew on that, great game that I finished back in the day, very atmospheric and nice-looking if low-res wilderness).

  • KujiGhost #27 2 years ago

    Ah... seeing that rock again brought a tear to my eye.

    Despite the criticisms of its trial and error gameplay (which are part of its charm), Another World should be the ruler against which game developers measure the atmosphere of their creations. The art direction and design has aged as well as it has because it evokes so much in its simplicity (around 16 polygons for the main character as you said). To me this approach offers so much more than a photorealistic rendering and could almost be seen as a form of video game Impressionism.

    It is precisely this reason that I am looking forward to 'Sword and Sorcery: EP'. I wish more game designers took this artistic approach to their games; not to please critics such as Roger Ebert, but just to step off the beaten track and bring their creations ALIVE!

  • thisisatempaccount #28 2 years ago

    So it's not a heresy to say it? Thank God. A great and astonishing game, but it's too bloody hard. The last time I had a crack at it I kept a file with the passwords on my desktop: 'anotherdeath.txt'.

    What a jackanape I am.

  • Yossarian #29 2 years ago

    Oh hey, my link to the best article about Another World on the Internet is getting marked down. You guys are so wacky.

  • Branoic #30 2 years ago

    I think everyone has one special game which defined their childhood and left a mark on them for life. This was mine.

  • Verwandlung #31 2 years ago

    Beautiful beautiful game.

  • Daikon #32 2 years ago

    For the record: I also died a lot in Portal. A lot. And it was OK too.

    Just can't believe it's been already 19 years since I played Another World for the first time on Amiga.
    An absolute gem of a game.

  • Hantheman #33 2 years ago

    Good retrospective. completely agree on the difficulty front. I feel as society has become more impatient we demand to win all the time. And so game designers have made games easier. But part of me love the pre-2000 games which were bastards.

    I'm replaying Outcast (which deserves a retrospective btw) which isn't the toughest game at the time, but its pretty unforgiving, soldiers dodge your shots, their weapons take a big chunk out of your health and they can take a beating. Plus they'll flank you. take it futher, Baldur's Gate 1 is about 10 times harder than any modern RPG. If you start off as a mage, you can get 1 hit killed in any fight for the first hour. (To be fair Dragon Age: Origins is a fair throwback to such an era, it's one of the few games where I've been challenged on a normal difficulty)

  • mingster #34 2 years ago

    Haha I completed this on the amiga I thought it was amazing then don't remember it being unfairly hard

  • Ka-blamo #35 2 years ago

    The game I first played where I found out about the word 'atmosphere' everyone was talking about
    Edited by Ka-blamo at 25/04/10 @ 15:31

  • SimonM7 #36 2 years ago

    Comparing this to Flashback is missing the point on an epic scale.

  • JHuxley #37 2 years ago

    Great game, one of my lasting memories of the Amiga days.

    And Chahi is a dude...a few years back he gave permission for homebrew GP32 coders to release an entirely freeware version of the original game. It worked surprisingly well, but was still ridiculously difficult :x

  • beedyG #38 2 years ago

    I liked Another World but reading this didn't make me want to play it again, it did make me want to play Outcast though

  • Gamer_Zero #39 2 years ago

    No words can be said about Another World that haven't been said already. A masterpiece.

    I have, however, two words for our reviewer and for those who haven't experienced the glory days of trial and error gameplay:

    Rick.

    Dangerous.

    It's who The Guy really wants to be ;)

  • varsas #40 2 years ago

    I don't remember Another World being that difficult at all...

    @gamer zero: I agree rick dangerous was completely unforgiving but still good fun.

  • jambo74 #41 2 years ago

    @Yossarian

    No thanks - that artice has been SEO'ed and reads worse for it.

  • Obiwanshinobi #42 2 years ago

    @Shinetop
    The wonderful visuals, the amazing puzzles (yes, there were puzzles that coud be solved with actual thinking rather than trial and error, although this retrospective would have you believe otherwise), the beautiful end sequence, and the great level design.

    Oh, for fuck's sake...
    One example of Another World's puzzle: the moment when the guard grabs your neck and lifts you up, you're supposed TO KICK HIM IN THE NUTS. Neither to use your gun (which is out of your reach at the moment), nor to perform one of the moves you normally can perform, because you can perform fuck all but press the button TO KICK HIM IN THE NUTS during something that looks like just another death scene. I thought I kept doing something wrong before he was grabbing me; how on Earth I was supposed to know that it wasn't a death scene, but sequence playable in a way unseen in the entire rest of the game? Let me tell you something: I don't recall deus ex machina "puzzles" this anal featuring in Flashback, Ico or even Heart of Darkness (better designed game). Did you solve it with "actual thinking rather than trial and error"?
    Yes, in some parts Another World is smart and indeed well designed, but in some other places is plain horrible.
    Edited by Obiwanshinobi at 25/04/10 @ 16:18

  • Shinetop #43 2 years ago

    Did you solve it with "actual thinking rather than trial and error"?

    I did, actually. I don't know, I guess I didn't need the game to spell out for me which sections are interactive and which aren't.

  • Obiwanshinobi #44 2 years ago

    I did, actually. I don't know, I guess I didn't need the game to spell out for me which sections are interactive and which aren't.

    While I believe you did beat it, I still don't believe it was thanks to "actual thinking rather than trial and error". Not in this particular situation.
    Edited by Obiwanshinobi at 25/04/10 @ 17:53

  • RodHull #45 2 years ago

    Remember this coming out on the Amiga and what a revelation it was. Scared to revisit it in case it bursts my nostalgia bubble.

  • humanchu #46 2 years ago

    iPad!

  • rodpad #47 2 years ago

    Mike's a rubar!

  • R9RO #48 2 years ago

    Oh man, what a HUGE coincidence!!
    I just started playing the SNES version yesterday night!
    Imagine my surprise to see this here today!
    I'm going to try to beat it now! Very cool game, the escape from the black beast in the first part was so awesome.

  • Vin #49 2 years ago

    This needs an XBLA release, stat.

  • Shinetop #50 2 years ago

    While I believe you did beat it, I still don't believe it was thanks to "actual thinking rather than trial and error". Not in this particular situation.

    Feel free to. But as I recall, at first I tried to struggle from his grasp with the arrow keys, and when that didn't work, I tried to attack. And that worked. It wasn't random button mashing after 30 deaths.

  • Lobotomist #51 2 years ago

    Another World is still the best game i ever played (naturally considering when it was made)

    You must understand that when it came out , it was mind blowing. Nothing out there was even remotely like it.

    When I first booted the game. My jaw dropped. I phoned a friend and we spend whole night until morning , playing it.
    We finished it that same night. Says something about difficulty I guess...

    Its a wonderful game.



  • Chufty #52 2 years ago

    Oh wow. This was a great little game. Definitely going to pick up this remake.

  • wilch #53 2 years ago

    @Shinetop - I loved that puzzle, i remember playing it with my bro on the amiga, think we died twice at the most before figuring it out.
    the thing to understand is that most games back then were a lot harder so gamers never let their guard down. we're in an age where gamers expect instant gratification and meet a challenge with frustration. completing a game just doesn't mean the same as it did then

  • Obiwanshinobi #54 2 years ago

    Another World isn't arcade hard, though. Anyone who isn't completely out of touch with 2D twitchy gaming should be able to complete it in one sitting. That's what I did, swearing like a trooper and resorting to FAQ more than once. I don't have a problem with the game engine, the physics, the platforming, the controls, the combat - these things are alright with me. Frequent dying isn't all that punishing with this many checkpoints. The puzzles are the reason why I refuse to acknowledge this game as a masterpiece of game design. They are hit and miss (as expected from a debut game). It's a shame Heart of Darkness bombed, as it was improved in many aspects. I have no idea why it suffered poor sales, whereas Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee sold well enough to spawn a sequel.
    If you are into such stuff, check out onEscapee - a free PC port of Amiga cinematic platformer with great production values.
    Edited by Obiwanshinobi at 26/04/10 @ 01:50

  • Shinetop #55 2 years ago

    @Obiwan: thanks for the link, I'm definitely going to check it out.

    And yeah, it's weird that Heart of Darkness bombed. Although if I recall correctly, it was delayed over and over again so by the time it came out, excitement had sort of fizzled out and it wasn't nearly as innovative as it could have been. Maybe that was it, who knows.

  • the_sas_man #56 2 years ago

    This and Flashback were the best games of their time. However, with a gun to my dog's head I'd stilll pick Flashback over Another World...

  • R9RO #57 2 years ago

    I beat it a few hours ago! =D

  • Britesparc Verified Creative, ITV #58 2 years ago

    I'm feeling pretty hardcore right now because I sid actually complete this as a child. I think I must have used a guide - probably from Amiga Action or something (old enough to remember cheats sections in magazines!). But some bits, like the tunnel-roll and rock fall, will always be a little trail and error.

  • Shinetop #59 2 years ago

    The reason you thought to look up and spot a potential route in Half-Life 2: Episode 2? That's because the broken fizzing wires that caught your eye were put there after someone else never thought to look up.

    This was 'broken ladder pieces' and Portal, earlier. In fact, the broken ladder is mentioned in the next paragraph. And the prime example from the Portal commentary mode was the broken ladder. Why this weird change?

    Also, having reread this article, I still think it's unfairly critical, if not promoting the so often criticized 'dumbing down' of video games. That level where you had to take a leap of faith across a broken bridge only to miss the other side and fall one screen down onto a ledge you couldn't possibly have known was there? That wasn't trial and error. Back then, you were so into the game that you didn't think of underlying ground rules that forbade trial and error and accidental death. You thought like the character. There's no going back to where you came from, and the only possible exit is across that chasm. So you took that leap of faith, hoping that Lester would be able to grab onto the other side of the brigdge. And when he didn't, and fell into the chasm, your heart sank, only to feel an instant rush of excitement when you saw him land on the ledge below. It was spectacular.

    Same with the lampshade puzzle criticized by John. Gamers who actually paid attention to the game saw a chain running down from the object blocking Buddy's path. And gamers who kept a mental map of the rooms realised the room with the lampshades was right below the room where you could see Buddy in the tunnel. With a lampshade. On a chain. In the middle of the room, just like the chain running down from the object above.

    I was an idiot back then, but even my 12 year old mind understood these visual clues. Visual clues that preceded the kind of thing John praises Valve for several times in this article by sixteen years.
    Edited by Shinetop at 26/04/10 @ 08:21

  • poopmonster #60 2 years ago

    "Outcast, brilliant but most missunderstood game ever."

    I'd love to see a remake of Outcast. Not only beautiful, it had superb dialogue, camera work, acting & lip syncing. WAY ahead of it's time. And it came before Stargate.

  • Sunyavadin #61 2 years ago

    I wisely saved my money after renting this one weekend, and bought the infinitely superior Flashback.

  • Monkey_Puncher #62 2 years ago

    The bit where you get squished by those tentacles that were hanging from the ceiling amazed my 10 year old self, never seen such gore in a game before. Also when you shoot out the bottom of the waterfall and have to run away from the ensuing rapids, really amazing moment back then!

  • Azazel #63 2 years ago

    Demon Souls.

  • Lemming81 #64 2 years ago

    A couple of you keep mentioning Demons' Souls, but that's not the same thing at all. Yes, it's hard but when you die in Demons' Souls it's your fault. That's not the kind of trial and error the article is referring to.

    You guys seriously need to be old-schooled.

  • Nissenakke #65 2 years ago

    Man, I wish this game would be put on XBLA, but I guess that won't happen anytime soon - Chahi said he would like to already back in '07, but nothing has happened. Guess I'll have to buy the PC version and plug my laptop to my TV. Maybe use this stick to get that old school feeling. Completing this on the Amiga was both one of the most frustrating and rewarding gaming experiences I've had ever.

    Oh, and bring Flashback to XBLA too!

  • doctor_p #66 2 years ago

    I've got to agree with Gamer Zero.

    When Rick came out, we'd sit around my dad's tandy 3000, back in the time when PCs has their on-switch around the back, and all i remember is having a good time, ducking under spears and that kinda thing. I tried it a couple of years ago and I couldn't believe how much of it consisted of "duck immediately on the next screen or you die". Totally Ape.

  • actionfitz #67 2 years ago

    this game blew my mind back in the day, and then Flash Back came out and my mind was blown twice.
    :>
    good times.

  • Rubarack #68 2 years ago

    Part of the reason that Another World got away with trial and error is that it didn't remove the sense of progress. You weren't so much failing as exploring. With the slower pacing and excessive plot elements of modern games dying is a much bigger punishment.

  • kangarootoo #69 2 years ago

    I loved Another World back in the day, and I completely understand that games were a lot tougher back then. You died frequently, there were no save points, total successful playtime was usually less than a hour. It was all part of what games were back then, but we loved them all the same.


    However, I can't help feeling that rose tinted spectacles are worn a little too frequently when we view old games like this. It is honestly not heresy of me to say that games 20 years ago were in many regards under-developed. A lot of what we take for granted about old games was not put in place because the devs at the time objectively knew that was the best way to do things, it was far more often a matter of just making it and shipping it and never really considering the diificulty curve. Game design was in many regards in its infancy, and the very same designers wouldn't make the same games today because they would KNOW there are better ways to do things.

    We frequently make excuses for old games like this. They pepper this thread throughout. "The reason it worked when modern games don't was X" and "it wasn't annoying then when it would be now because Y". Why can't we accept that games that killed you often did so because that was all the designer knew at the time? And as gamers, we were so used to that sort of treatment that we would accept it?


    I am not at all saying Another World was not brilliant. Not a bit of it. I am just saying that if the same game was made today, it would fail, and it would deserve to. At the time it was awesome, but lets not pretend "we should games that way today" (in terms of repetative dying I mean, in terms of visual style and story we absolutely should make more games like it). On the whole (as general statements like this can onoly ever be) we should not.

    And a final thought, as its a bug bear of mine. "Its meant to be" without further explanation is NEVER a defense against critisism. Ever.
    Edited by kangarootoo at 26/04/10 @ 13:25

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #70 2 years ago

    By the time I playes Another World, maybe a year or so after it came out, I'd already been seduced by the accessibility and balance of Mario, Sonic, Robocod and the like, and other stuff lke LucasArts' adventure games. The unremitting harshness of it put me right off even in 1992.

    What irritates me most is the fact it looked lovely (and still does), and I want to play through it, but I know I can't, and probably never could have. Just like the Metal Gear Solid series, I passionately hate them, but I wish I didn't. Maybe I should just fine a video of somebody playing through it on the internet.

  • Psi #71 2 years ago

    bought the special edition a month or so back.

    played for an hour or so, its still a very nice game.

    not sure why the constant mention of valve in the article. I do like the portal comparison, i think in 15 years time people will look back the same on that game.

  • Invisible_Cow #72 2 years ago

    Had this on the Mega Drive. Stunning game, but I never did have the patience to solve it on my own. If I recall, I got most of the way through the city level, but had to resort to a guide for the rest. Still, very few games had the same effect on me as the opening cutscene and the first level avoiding the bear thing.

    I'd be interested to see what people think of this without the effect of nostalgia.

  • Kaminari #73 2 years ago

    Another World has always been the perfect embodiement of hype.

    Its difficulty comes down to 2 things: its controls utterly suck, and you have to learn the level design by heart. Truth be told, Flashback was a much better *game*.

    But Another World has something for itself, which makes the game still captivating: its fantastic atmosphere and artistic touch. Yes it's a French game, and the sort of game which you either loved or hated. I always had a soft spot for it, and I still consider it was landmark of fiction design, but it's definitely not a great *game*.

  • Acrid #74 2 years ago

    Another World was/is a masterpiece, I remember completing it as a boy on my Mega Drive.
    I picked up the 15th Anniversary Edition but never got round to playing it, maybe it's time I fixed my PC and did that....

    "It's okay that I keep dying – don't fling PC through window."

    I feel this is the reason I'm loving Demon's Souls so much.

  • Lutzie #75 2 years ago

    Never managed to finish Another World. However I did manage to finish both Flashback and The Immortal. Both of which had a LOT less of that damn trail and error method of playing.

  • Obiwanshinobi #76 2 years ago

    @kangarootoo
    I loved Another World back in the day, and I completely understand that games were a lot tougher back then. You died frequently, there were no save points, total successful playtime was usually less than a hour. It was all part of what games were back then, but we loved them all the same.

    Again, Another World is anything like games killing the player character in really punishing way. There are checkpoints and unlimited continues, and the password system makes for savepoints. Dying in Another World is not that different from making irreversible mistake in a block pushing puzzle, forcing you to start solving the puzzle (not even the level) anew. It's a chain of puzzle situations, not quite unlike, say, World of Goo. The thing is, solutions for some of these puzzles are far from intuitive if you ask me.

    @Kaminari
    Its difficulty comes down to 2 things: its controls utterly suck, and you have to learn the level design by heart.

    The controls don't suck (unless you want them to) anymore. I played through it with DualShock 2 (no more up for jump) and had no reservations. If you wanna try out a legendary game with sucking controls, play Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. Even Castlevania nuts tend to be slightly critical in this regard.

  • wilch #77 2 years ago

    God, i remember heart of darkness being delayed for what felt like an eternity. 6 years in the making i believe, when it was finally released people hardly cared... shame. think i'm gonna give that game another shot!

    it's kind of ironic that eric chahi named the game heart of darkness and interplay named another world's sequel heart of the alien (which chahi had no involvement in)