Out of This World

Out of This World is a cinematic platform action-adventure game designed by Éric Chahi and published by Delphine Software in November 1991. In North America it was published as Out of This World. The game tells the story of Lester, a young scientist who, as a result of an experiment gone wrong, finds himself on a dangerous alien world where he is forced to fight for his survival.

Another World was developed by Chahi alone over a period of about two years, with help with the soundtrack from Jean-François Freitas. Chahi developed his own game engine, creating all the game’s art and animations in vector form to reduce memory use, with some use of rotoscoping to help plan out character movements.

Both narratively and gameplay-wise, he wanted the game to be told with little to no language or user-interface elements. The game was originally developed for the Amiga and Atari ST but has since been widely ported to other contemporary systems, including home and portable consoles and mobile devices. Chahi has since overseen release of various anniversary releases of the game.

Another World was innovative in its use of cinematic effects in both real-time and cutscenes, which earned the game praise among critics and commercial success. It also influenced a number of other video games and designers, inspiring such titles as Ico, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, and Delphine’s later Flashback. It is now considered among the best video games ever made.

Gameplay – Out of This World

Another World is a platform game, featuring a control scheme where 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.^[8] 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.^[9] 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 an unintelligible alien language.

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