Another World
1991 · Action Adventure · Amiga
Overview
Another World (known as Out of This World in North America) is a 1991 cinematic action adventure by Éric Chahi, in which physicist Lester Knight Chaykin is teleported to a hostile alien world after a particle accelerator accident. Created almost entirely by one person using filled polygon animation, the Amiga version was one of the most acclaimed releases of the year and remains a landmark of solo game development.
Deep Dive
Another World was almost entirely the work of one person: Éric Chahi, who designed, programmed, and drew the entire game over two years. The game used filled vector polygons rather than sprites, allowing fluid, expressive character animations that pixel art could not match. Chahi rotoscoped real footage for key animations, then stylised the results. The result felt less like a game and more like an interactive film, with no HUD, no score display, and no health bar cluttering the screen. The gameplay mixed platforming, stealth, and puzzle-solving with brief but intense action sequences. Death was frequent and often sudden, but the game was structured into short checkpointed segments that made repetition manageable. The partnership with the alien Buddy — rescued and freed during the opening sequence — gave the game an emotional core rare in games of the era. Their friendship was conveyed entirely through animation and context, with no dialogue. Another World received universal critical acclaim and won numerous awards. Its influence on cinematic game design was enormous, directly inspiring Flashback, the Oddworld series, and later games like Journey. The clean aesthetic, the narrative delivered entirely without text, and the focus on creating a complete experience over maximizing content made it a landmark. Chahi remastered the game in 2011 and it remains available on modern platforms.
Developer Story
Éric Chahi created Another World over approximately two years working alone, contracting with Delphine Software for publishing. Chahi had no formal programming education and was entirely self-taught, developing all the game's systems from scratch including a virtual machine powering its scripted cutscenes. His ambition was to create a game that felt like a film — an experience rather than merely a challenge. The result was one of the most celebrated games of the early 1990s and a testament to what individual vision can produce.
Did You Know?
- Another World was created almost entirely by one person, Éric Chahi, who spent two years programming, designing, and animating the game alone from his home in France.
- The game used polygon-based graphics rather than sprites, which allowed smoother animation but required Chahi to write his own rendering engine from scratch.
- Chahi rotoscoped real video footage for character animations, filming himself and colleagues performing movements that he then traced into vector art.
- The game was released as 'Out of This World' in North America because the title 'Another World' was already trademarked by an American television soap opera.
