PlayMaker NZ

Developer Retrospectives at the AGW

At last night’s Auckland Game Works Meetup various members of the community gave a quick rundown (10 slides for 20 seconds each!) of favourite or influential games from their past. They gave us some new and interesting perspectives on classic games and I thought I’d cover them off over the next few days.

First up is the classic French adventure puzzler Another World, presented by Ben. Besides spoiling the ending for those who hadn’t played it ; ) he highlighted the aspect of the story that intrigued him most about the game – the question of one’s significance and positive or negative impact as a protagonist in a world that goes on largely without your involvement.

Another World had beautifully fluid animation for its time and whilst I found its punishing stop-start / right-wrong gameplay a little hard to swallow at first, the overall narrative and reveal of the alien world kept me, and many others, well engaged throughout.

Another World was followed up by the more conventionally beautiful – yet less dynamic and “open” – Flashback (not a sequel), and Heart of Darkness was another aesthetically pleasing game in a similar visual style by Another World‘s designer, Eric Chahi. The lesser hyped Heart of the Alien for Mega-CD was the “official” sequel but Eric Chahi was not involved and also says he intended Another World to be a standalone story with the ending intentionally left open to interpretation.

I’ve always been a fan of cinematic presentation (no distracting HUD or meta-info) so anything like Another World nowadays gets my attention!