Another World – 20th Anniversary Edition

🗃️ Specifications

📰 Title:	Another World – 20th Anniversary Edition	🕹️ / 🛠️ Type:	Game
🗃️ Genre:	Adventure & Action	👁️ Visual:	2D Scrolling
🏷️ Category:	Adventure & Action ➤ Adventure Platformer ➤ Flashback	🏝️ Perspective:	Side view
🔖 Tags:	Action; Adventure; Platformer; Cinematic Platformer; Flashback; Sci-fi; Cult Classic; Retro; 1990s; Remake; Atmospheric; Cinematic; Linear; Low-Poly; Hand-Drawn; Difficult; Controller	⏱️ Pacing:	Real Time
🐣️ Approx. start:		👫️ Played:	Single
🐓️ Latest:	1901-01-01	🚦 Status:	04. Released (status)
📍️ Version:	Latest: -	❤️ Like it:	9. ⏳️
🏛️ License type:	💰 Commercial	🎀️ Quality:	7. ⏳️
🏛️ License:	Commercial	✨️ (temporary):
🐛️ Created:	2015-09-07	🐜️ Updated:	2024-06-22

🚦 Entry status

📰 What's new?:		👻️ Temporary:
💡 Lights on:		🎨️ Significant improvement:
👔️ Already shown:		💭️ New version published (to be updated):
🎖️ This work:		🚧️ Some work remains to be done:
👫️ Contrib.:	goupildb & Louis	🦺️ Work in progress:
🎰️ ID:	14822

📖️ Summary

📜️[en]:	The actor plays the part of Lester Knight Chaykin, a young physics researcher. While he is right in the middle of doing experiments, his laboratory is struck by lighting and completely destroyed, hurling him into another world, a world populated by humanoid creatures, where danger can spring at any moment. You must escape from this strange civilization. You will nonetheless meet a companion who will soon become your ally and help you in this merciless fight !.	📜️[fr]:	Une ré-édition améliorée du jeu éponyme sorti en 1991. Ce jeu d'action-aventure était avant-gardiste à plus d'un titre (réalisation, taille du livrable, performances) compte-tenu des capacités du matériel disponible. Le joueur y incarne un physicien qui se retrouve projeté dans un monde alien hostile à la suite d'une expérimentation perturbée par un orage. Il tentera de s'échapper, traqué par ces aliens, tout en prenant garde aux espèces indigènes hostiles.

🎥️ Videos

🏝️ Trailer: (fan made trailer) Another World: The Movie (202xxx♺), Another World: Out of this World (intro remake) (202xxx♺),

💎 Features: Graphics Comparison 2014/1991 by EUROGAMER (202xxx♺),

🎲️ Gameplay: (202xxx♺), (202xxx♺), [fr](202xxx♺),

🐧 Linux plays: Hex DSL (202xxx♺),

🏺️ Its story: (202xxx♺), (202xxx♺),

🕸️ Links

📕 Description [en]

📜️ "blabla" 📜️

A CAPTIVATING ADVENTURE

The actor plays the part of Lester Knight Chaykin, a young physics researcher. While he is right in the middle of doing experiments, his laboratory is struck by lighting and completely destroyed, hurling him into another world, a world populated by humanoid creatures, where danger can spring at any moment.

You must escape from this strange civilization. You will nonetheless meet a companion who will soon become your ally and help you in this merciless fight !

Steam:

Also known as Out Of This World™, Another World is a pioneer action/platformer that released across more than a dozen platforms since its debut in 1991. Along the years, Another World™ has attained cult status among critics and sophisticated gamers alike.

Another World™ chronicles the story of Lester Knight Chaykin a young scientist hurtled through space and time by a nuclear experiment that goes wrong. In an alien and inhospitable world, you will have to dodge, outwit, and overcome the host of alien monsters, while surviving an environment as deadly as your enemies. Only a perfect blend of logic and skill will get you past the deadly obstacles that lie in wait.

🌍️ Wikipedia :

Another World, also known as Out of This World in North America and Outer World (アウターワールド Autā Wārudo) in Japan, is a 1991 cinematic platformer action-adventure game designed by Éric Chahi for Delphine Software. The game tells a story of Lester, a young scientist who, as a result of an experiment gone wrong, finds himself in a dangerous alien world where he is forced to fight for his survival.

Originally developed for the Amiga and Atari ST and later released for the Apple IIGS and MS-DOS, Another World was widely ported to other contemporary systems. Later efforts resulted in several game engine recreations for the game that permitted it to run on modern computers, consoles and mobile phones. In 2006, Chahi independently released a 15th Anniversary Edition for modern computers, and a subsequent 20th Anniversary Edition five years later that adapted the game for numerous consoles and mobile computing platforms.

Another World was innovative in its use of cinematic effects in both real-time and cutscenes, which earned the game praise amongst critics and commercial success. It also influenced a number of other video games and designers, inspiring such titles as Flashback, Ico, Metal Gear Solid, and Silent Hill.

Gameplay

Another World is a platform game, featuring a control scheme wherein the player uses either the keyboard, joystick or gamepad to make the protagonist run, jump, attack and perform other, situation-specific actions, such as rocking a cage back and forth. In the initial part of the game, the player's character Lester is unarmed. He is able to kick at small creatures, but is otherwise defenseless.

Later in the game, the player acquires a laser pistol from a fallen foe. The pistol has three capabilities: a standard fire mode, the ability to create force fields to block enemy fire, and a powerful charged shot that can break through force fields and some walls. Eventually, Lester also gains a plasma ball that can be used like a grenade to defeat foes (not featured in the original Amiga release). Enemies also have the same capabilities, requiring the player to take advantage of the three gun modes and the environment to overcome them.

Lester and his alien ally cannot sustain any damage, and the game ends immediately if either of them is struck by a projectile or comes in contact with an animal or an environmental hazard. However, the game uses numerous checkpoints enabling the player to keep restarting at the last point indefinitely. On the Amiga and older consoles without the ability to save a game, the player can write down an alphanumeric code for these checkpoints and re-enter it when restarting the game later. In any given scene, the game provides no clues as to what the player should do next, features no HUD except for an oxygen bar during the swimming sequences, and no on-screen text; and the characters the player meets speak in unintelligible alien language.

Plot

The protagonist of the game is Lester Knight Chaykin, a young genius physicist. In the opening cinematic, Lester arrives at his high-tech underground laboratory in his Ferrari 288 GTO during a thunderstorm and goes to work on his experiment using a particle accelerator, attempting to reconstruct what happened when the universe was born. Immediately before the particles reach their intended destination, a lightning bolt strikes the laboratory and interferes with the accelerator, causing an unforeseen particle fusion and an explosion, opening a hole in time and space and teleporting Lester to a barren, alien planet.

After evading a number of dangerous indigenous animals, Lester is captured by a race of humanoid aliens and taken to a subterranean prison camp. Lester escapes along with an alien captive known as "Buddy" and the two of them must evade capture while travelling through a series of dangerous environments, battling alien soldiers and wild creatures while solving numerous puzzles in order to survive. The duo traverse through the prison complex, a cave system and a tower structure. In the game's climax, Lester is severely wounded by one of the aliens, but, with the help of his alien friend, manages to kill his attacker and escape. After reaching the top of the tower, Lester collapses, but is promptly joined by Buddy, who picks up Lester and the two escape on a dragon-like creature, flying off to the horizon.

Development

The game's French designer Éric Chahi had previously worked as a game programmer and then as a graphic designer for video games since 1983. It was the success of his earlier work with Paul Cuisset as a graphic designer for the adventure game Future Wars for Delphine Software and its royalties that gave him the chance to develop Another World "without any constraint of any sort or any editorial pressure." After Future Wars was released in 1989, Chahi had the choice to either work on Cuisset's next game, Operation Stealth, or create his own game. As "there had been many books and tools released to develop easily on the Amiga at that time," Chahi felt confident that he could go back to programming.

In August 1989, Chahi was impressed by the flat-color animations that the Amiga version of Dragon's Lair had and thought that it would be possible to use vector outlines to create a similar effect using much less computer storage. After first attempting to write the graphical routines in C, he turned to assembly language. He wrote a polygon routine for the Motorola 68000 on an Atari ST to test his theory, with much success. Later, he found that he could run the code on the Amiga platform and achieve a frame rate of about 20 frames per second, later recognizing this as "a major turning point in the creation of the game" and the point where he knew the polygon approach would work. He was able to take advantage of the Amiga's genlock capabilities to create rotoscoped animations with the polygons, using video recordings of himself performing various actions. Though he had tried to use smaller polygons (which Chahi called "pixigons") to construct the backgrounds for the scenes based on Deluxe Paint artwork, the process of creating them was excruciatingly slow, and he returned to using bitmapped images.

While Chahi had a clear idea of how to implement his game engine, he mostly improvised when creating the actual content of the game, allowing the game to develop "layer by layer without knowing where it was going." He planned on creating a science fiction game that was similar to Karateka and Impossible Mission. Because he wanted to create a dramatic, cinematic experience, the game features no HUD or dialog, giving the player only a representation of the surrounding game world during both gameplay elements and the cutscenes progressing the story. However, with no idea of the technical limitations he would face while building out the story, he focused more on creating ambiance, rhythmic pacing, and narrative tension to the game. Chahi resorted to developing his own tool with a new programming language through GFA BASIC coupled with the game's engine in Devpac assembler, to control and animate the game, interpreted in real-time by the game engine, effectively creating his own animation sequencer.

With the creation of the tools needed for building out the rest of the game by December 1989, Chahi began working on the introductory sequence as a means to validate the full capacities of his engine. The introduction sequence also gave Chahi the chance to explore the types of cinematics he could create through the engine. Chahi later considered this the "first step in the improvisation process" that he used throughout the rest of development. He finished the game's introduction sequence in early 1990 and started working on the first level. Chahi worked at the game at a linear pace, developing each section of the game in the chronological order and influenced by his own personal feelings and attitude at the time. For example, as Chahi recognized he was trying to create a game on his own, the first portions of the game evoke loneliness and isolation, reflecting Chahi's mood at the time. He did not have the original intention of the character meeting an ally, but again described the improvisation approach led him to include the alien friend, and had included specific cinematics that showed a close up of the alien to help the player imagine this world.

Later in the game's development, Chahi added laser pistols, including the one that Lester carries for several effects. The idea was influenced by the Star Wars franchise, but added depth to the gameplay by giving the player more options. He also found that repeated laser fire by the enemies also helped to enunciate the rhythm of the game. Chahi would later add in the plasma ball that increased the available strategy to players. Several points in the game use elevators or teleporters to move Lester between levels; Chahi had used these instead of stairways, as it was difficult to produce proper animation for these.

After 17 months of development, Chahi was only about one-third completed with the game, and realized that this rate would have been impractical. He began to take steps to simplify the development, including reusing background graphics and creating building blocks that allowed him to focus more on the game's puzzles. At the same time, he began to seek a publisher for the game. He first spoke to his former employer, Delphine Software, but also sought other distributors. One, Virgin Interactive, were favorable to Chahi's game but had suggested that he change it to a point-and-click style adventure game. Chahi had considered changing the game by this request but realized "the effort to do this would have been too huge, and some friends who played the game loved it." Ultimately, he accepted Delphine's offer in June 1991, and set a tentative release date in November. To meet this deadline, Chahi used storyboards to sketch out the rest of the game's plot, balancing the overall pacing of the game. One ending captured on these storyboards, but abandoned, was Lester becoming the leader of the alien world. The game was finished in 1991, which inspired the game's tagline: "It took six days to create the Earth. Another World took two years"; Chahi noted his own exhaustion at completing this project mirrors in the near-death of Lester at the end of the game.

Upon publishing, Delphine did not perform a playtest of the full game, only having previously tested the first portion of the game. Delphine's U.S. publisher Interplay undertook a full playtest and Chahi fixed a number of bugs that arose from this. Interplay had also requested additional changes in the game, including making the game longer and changing the game's introduction music. Chahi was adamant about retaining the game's opening music, and had attempted to change Interplay's minds by sending them an "infinite fax", a looped piece of paper, with the message "keep the original intro music" on it. Only until Delphine's lawyer got involved and told Interplay they legally could not change the music did Interplay relax this change.

Reception

Another World was commercially successful, selling about one million copies during the 1990s. The game received critical acclaim. Computer Gaming World criticized the brief documentation and short length of gameplay, but praised the game's graphics and Amiga sound, and called it "one of Europe's most playable and enjoyable arcade efforts." The Lessers of Dragon gave the game 5 out of 5 stars and called it "an adventure that will keep the player on the edge of one's seat for some time to come." Reviewing the 3DO version, GamePro said "Out of This World is destined to be a classic", but that the 3DO version has too little improvement to be worthwhile for those who have already played the game.

Among many other accolades, Another World was named as number one top new Amiga game of 1992 by Amiga World and received the award for the Most Innovative New Game of the year from Electronic Gaming Monthly. In 2012, it became one of the first 14 titles added to the video game art exposition at the Museum of Modern Art.

Retrospectively, Kristan Reed of Eurogamer called Another World "one of the most visionary and memorable games of its time." Reviewing the 15th Anniversary Edition in 2010, Eurogamer's John Walker called it "still utterly beautiful", adding that the game's art style is "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." In a 2014 review of the 3DS version, Bob Mackey of USGamer opined "Another World is definitely an experience every gamer should have — and not just for the sake of checking out a historical curiosity. Another World still feels incredibly forward-thinking, almost as if Chahi had developed a game for this decade's indie scene without even realizing it."

In 2011, Wirtualna Polska ranked the "visionary" Another World as the 15th best game for the Amiga, remembering it for a cinematic feel and "uncommonly" high difficulty (for a first-time player) and calling it "one of the most important titles in the history of electronic entertainment." In 2012, 1UP.com ranked this "short-but-sweet cinematic action game" as the 99th most essential video game of all time, commenting: "Especially in an age of entertainment where fans cry out for pages upon pages lore and glossaries for the tiniest minutiae of their fiction, Out of this World's dimension contains a sense of mystery that makes it all the more lonely, and often, quietly beautiful. The game can be brutal and heartbreaking, but Chahi's amazing vision makes it a thoroughly gripping experience." That same year, Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar named it as number one top "cult-classic franchise" that should be rebooted in a way Prince of Persia was, commenting that "despite a small cast of characters, minimalist gameplay, and some truly grueling difficulty, Another World ... resonated with gamers in ways they weren't expecting. The game's vivid vector graphics were utterly stunning at the time, and the pacing of the heavy, nicely animated platforming naturally melded with taking in the sights of the sublime alien landscape," and adding that "slowly adapting to the hostile surroundings offered a hard-earned satisfaction and a surprisingly moving story."

IGN ranked the game's laser gun as the 86th best weapon in gaming history in 2012. Discussing "Buddy" in 2013, Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Adam Smith called him still "one of gaming’s greatest companions".

Release

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📕 Description [fr]

Un jeu d'action-aventure remastérisé, par Eric Chahi (version originale éditée par Delphine Software, remastérisé par DotEmu, édité par Focus Home Interactive), portage Linux par Ryan C. Gordon.

Another World – 20th Anniversary Edition est une ré-édition améliorée du jeu Another World (Out Of This World en Amérique du Nord) publié en 1991. Ce jeu d'action-aventure était avant-gardiste à plus d'un titre (réalisation, taille du livrable, performances) compte-tenu des capacités du matériel disponible. Le joueur y incarne Lester Knight Chaykin, un physicien qui se retrouve projeté dans un monde alien hostile à la suite d'une expérimentation perturbée par un orage. Il tentera de s'échapper, traqué par ces aliens, tout en prenant garde aux espèces indigènes hostiles.

Sur le site de Fabien Sanglard (voir la fiche du moteur "Fabother World" dans le Bottin) nous en apprenons davantage sur ce jeu exceptionnel :
Le moteur d'Another World - conçu en 1991, est une machine virtuelle sous DOS tenant en ... 20Ko !
Cette machine virtuelle interprète le code et génère les cinématiques vectorielles en plein écran et en temps réel sur les machines de l'époque.
De plus, grâce à cette conception en machine virtuelle, il a pu être traduit aisément sur plus d'une douzaine de plateformes.

Voir aussi / See also (Flashback 1): Flashback (with REminiscence),
Voir aussi / See also (Fade To Black aka Flashback 2): Fade To Black (with f2bgl),
Voir aussi / See also (Another World): Another World – 20th Anniversary Edition, Fabother World, rawgl,
Voir aussi / See also (Heart of the Alien aka Another World 2): Heart of The Alien Redux,
Voir aussi / See also (Bermuda Syndrome): Bermuda Syndrome,

UNE AVENTURE CAPTIVANTE

Le joueur joue le rôle de Lester Knight Chaykin, un jeune chercheur en physique. Alors qu'il est en train de faire des expériences, son laboratoire est frappé par un éclair et est complètement détruit, le jetant dans un autre monde, un monde peuplé de créatures humanoïdes, où le danger peut jaillir à tout moment.

Vous devez vous échapper de cette étrange civilisation. Vous rencontrerez néanmoins un compagnon qui va bientôt devenir votre allié et vous aider dans cette lutte impitoyable!

🌍️ Wikipedia :

Another World est un jeu vidéo d'action-aventure conçu et développé par Éric Chahi et édité par Delphine Software. Particulièrement remarqué à sa sortie pour sa conception cinématographique, ses graphismes et son gameplay, il est considéré aujourd'hui comme un jeu culte. Sorti initialement en 1991 sur Amiga et Atari ST, Another World fut par la suite porté sur un grand nombre de machines et fut réédité en 2006 dans une version collector graphiquement améliorée ainsi qu'en 2013 sur Atari Jaguar avec l'autorisation de l'auteur.

Le jeu est sorti sous le nom de Another World en Europe et en Australie, Out of this World en Amérique du Nord, Outer World au Japon.

Synopsis

Une nuit d'orage, Lester Chaykin, jeune chercheur en physique des particules, se rend à son laboratoire souterrain. Alors qu'il lance une expérience sur un accélérateur de particules, la foudre s'abat sur le laboratoire et détraque l'appareillage. Le chercheur est projeté dans un autre monde.
Réapparaissant sur une terre étrangère à la faune hostile dont il arrive à s'extirper, il finit par tomber dans les geôles d'une espèce humanoïde intelligente. Dans cette sorte de camp de travail, il fait la rencontre d'un compagnon, avec l'aide duquel il s'échappera.

Système de jeu

Another World et Prince of Persia, développé auparavant, ont en commun la présentation graphique ainsi que l'utilisation d'animations réalistes et fluides. Ce réalisme a pour but d'immerger le joueur dans l'action afin qu'il s'identifie davantage au personnage contrôlé. Il n'y a pas d'éléments en incrustation — comme une jauge de vie ou du texte —, dans le but de renforcer cette impression d'immersion. Dans la même optique, les personnages communiquent avec leurs corps, avec des gestes et des expressions, et parfois certains extraterrestres communiquent oralement dans leur langage.

Mais Another World innove et enrichit les concepts de gameplay de Prince of Persia en scénarisant l'interaction du personnage sur son environnement, ce point en fait pour l'époque un jeu unique. Pour exemple, le personnage se trouve vers le début du jeu enfermé dans une cage suspendue, et doit la faire balancer en s'agrippant aux barreaux afin de se libérer. Une telle séquence rompt avec l'interactivité répétitive qui existe dans Prince of Persia et dans les autres jeux de plateformes, constituée principalement de phases de course, de saut et d'escalade. Dans une autre séquence, le personnage se retrouve dans un étroit passage souterrain et doit trouver la sortie en progressant uniquement par des roulades latérales en évitant les obstacles.

Le jeu est une aventure interactive se déroulant en plusieurs phases dans lesquelles le joueur doit trouver une solution pour avancer. Si le personnage est tué, la partie est relancée au début de la phase courante. Il n'y a ni vies supplémentaires ni continue, simplement des phases de jeu à réussir quel que soit le nombre de tentatives, avec toutefois un système de codes permettant de reprendre la partie à la dernière phase atteinte. Une phase de jeu est constituée de une à dix scènes fixes juxtaposées (il n'y a pas de scrolling), et il arrive aussi que certaines de ces scènes soient partagées par plusieurs phases de jeu.

Quelles que soient les versions, le jeu reste assez court (il peut être fini en moins de quarante minutes). C'est un des reproches qui lui a été fait.