One man made this game. A single person. Think about that and cry.
March 4, 2013 2:56 PM Subscribe
A short French documentary (Part 1). (Part 2). on the making of the classic platformer, Another World (released in the US as Out Of This World).
I just plain loved that game.
posted by aubilenon at 2:59 PM on March 4, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by aubilenon at 2:59 PM on March 4, 2013 [3 favorites]
I just beat this on my iPad (w. retro graphics, of course.) It is a wondrous, beautiful and absolutely fucking infuriating -- STOP. DROWNING. -- game. I wish I had played it back during the console days, just because there were so very few games that accomplished what it did.
posted by griphus at 3:01 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by griphus at 3:01 PM on March 4, 2013
This game was the first that blew my mind chunks beyond this milky way. Sure, Prince of Persia and Karateka had the similar rotoscoped cinematic feel. But this game took it to a whole 'nother fucking level. The first time I played this was the SNES version, which I had rented on December 31, 1991. I played it for about an hour, and immediately called every friend I had to come over and see this holy-fuck-I-never-knew-a-video-game-could-be-this-transcendantly-good cart I had rented.
From the opening cut scene on, the game just throws you into this universe and insists you figure it out on your own. Amazingly difficult sometimes, since you were given very few hints on how to get by. Trial and error was not the annoying grind it often is though because of the sheer beauty and artfulness of the game. Not to mention the many amusing death cutscenes.
It was the first time I ever viewed a video game as something more then a video game, on the level of high art.
posted by mediocre at 3:03 PM on March 4, 2013 [3 favorites]
From the opening cut scene on, the game just throws you into this universe and insists you figure it out on your own. Amazingly difficult sometimes, since you were given very few hints on how to get by. Trial and error was not the annoying grind it often is though because of the sheer beauty and artfulness of the game. Not to mention the many amusing death cutscenes.
It was the first time I ever viewed a video game as something more then a video game, on the level of high art.
posted by mediocre at 3:03 PM on March 4, 2013 [3 favorites]
THAT IS THE BEST GAME AND WHY DID THEY NEVER MAKE IT A FILM
Who would play opposite Ron Perlman?
posted by griphus at 3:06 PM on March 4, 2013 [2 favorites]
Who would play opposite Ron Perlman?
posted by griphus at 3:06 PM on March 4, 2013 [2 favorites]
WHY DID THEY NEVER MAKE IT A FILM
You know.. the game functions so well as a cinematic experience I don't even think it's necessary. Watch a longplay of the game, it views like an arty sci-fi movie.
posted by mediocre at 3:07 PM on March 4, 2013 [2 favorites]
You know.. the game functions so well as a cinematic experience I don't even think it's necessary. Watch a longplay of the game, it views like an arty sci-fi movie.
posted by mediocre at 3:07 PM on March 4, 2013 [2 favorites]
I remember playing this on a friends Sega Genesis. It blew my mind... and reminded me of the old CinemaWare games from... far too many years ago.
posted by PROD_TPSL at 3:11 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by PROD_TPSL at 3:11 PM on March 4, 2013
The first time I saw OoTW, it was running on a demo computer at Best Buy. I was blown away by the animation and sound, of course. The computer had one of them newfangled CD-ROM drives hooked up to it, so I assumed it was one of those fancy new CD-ROM games.
Nope! The whole game fits on a 1.2MB floppy disk. I was impressed back then and I'm twice as impressed now.
posted by neckro23 at 3:11 PM on March 4, 2013
Nope! The whole game fits on a 1.2MB floppy disk. I was impressed back then and I'm twice as impressed now.
posted by neckro23 at 3:11 PM on March 4, 2013
Very impressive how he created his own GUI tool to draw the animations.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:16 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:16 PM on March 4, 2013
I came here to gush over this game, with one exception: the "awesome particle physicist who drives a ferrari to his awesome lab in the rain" opener was, while utterly awesome, among my first tastes of "hm. this may be overkill. then again, maybe I'm just buckaroo banzai..."
I think I've only finished like two games among the many, many I've expensively invested in over the years. And they were all by Valve. I realize I must have never finished it. But I loved the crap out of it.
Maybe it's time to find OoTW for Xbox...
posted by abulafa at 3:19 PM on March 4, 2013
I think I've only finished like two games among the many, many I've expensively invested in over the years. And they were all by Valve. I realize I must have never finished it. But I loved the crap out of it.
Maybe it's time to find OoTW for Xbox...
posted by abulafa at 3:19 PM on March 4, 2013
STOP. DROWNING.
Heh.. yeah, that and the gladiator arena segment were the most frustrating for me. I mean holy fuck, you literally are just supposed to blindly stab at buttons on a completely alien console in vain hope that you enable and activate the ejection pods before your vehicle is blown up. But that was part of the amazingness of the game, it put you there. If you were actually in the situation, blindly flipping switches and pushing buttons would be your only hope.
By the time I finished the game for the first time, I was just about crying from the utter breathtaking beauty of the game. Half dead, crawling away with your last ounce of strength when it appears your alien friend has been killed by an equally alien guard, flipping a control panel switch, and crawling outside with your strength fading.. then your alien friend reappears, rumors of his death having been greatly exaggerated, picks you up, mounts a dragon-thing, and flies away. THE END.
Tears man, tears.
posted by mediocre at 3:26 PM on March 4, 2013 [4 favorites]
Heh.. yeah, that and the gladiator arena segment were the most frustrating for me. I mean holy fuck, you literally are just supposed to blindly stab at buttons on a completely alien console in vain hope that you enable and activate the ejection pods before your vehicle is blown up. But that was part of the amazingness of the game, it put you there. If you were actually in the situation, blindly flipping switches and pushing buttons would be your only hope.
By the time I finished the game for the first time, I was just about crying from the utter breathtaking beauty of the game. Half dead, crawling away with your last ounce of strength when it appears your alien friend has been killed by an equally alien guard, flipping a control panel switch, and crawling outside with your strength fading.. then your alien friend reappears, rumors of his death having been greatly exaggerated, picks you up, mounts a dragon-thing, and flies away. THE END.
Tears man, tears.
posted by mediocre at 3:26 PM on March 4, 2013 [4 favorites]
Mod note: Folks, it's totally okay to just link to massive blog posts, no need to do a giant copypaste in a thread.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:33 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:33 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
You know.. the game functions so well as a cinematic experience I don't even think it's necessary.
I agree. There's one sequence where you're making your way across the level when suddenly the music changes and in the foreground your alien friend runs across the screen ahead of a volley of laser blasts.
Absolutely brilliant.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 3:35 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
I agree. There's one sequence where you're making your way across the level when suddenly the music changes and in the foreground your alien friend runs across the screen ahead of a volley of laser blasts.
Absolutely brilliant.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 3:35 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
As a 14 year old with an Amiga this and Hunter were the most exciting things I had ever encountered. Seminal is the word.
posted by mani at 3:37 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by mani at 3:37 PM on March 4, 2013
I loved OOTW, still do. Also Flashback, which is very similar.
posted by xedrik at 3:38 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by xedrik at 3:38 PM on March 4, 2013
where I get? I pay monies. No get? No pay maker for do nice work? Sadness.
posted by aesop at 3:40 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by aesop at 3:40 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
As a 14 year old with an Amiga this and Hunter were the most exciting things I had ever encountered. Seminal is the word.
"Seminal" is the word to describe the computers (or at least keyboards) of most 14-year-old boys.
posted by xedrik at 3:41 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
"Seminal" is the word to describe the computers (or at least keyboards) of most 14-year-old boys.
posted by xedrik at 3:41 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
By the time I finished the game for the first time, I was just about crying from the utter breathtaking beauty of the game. Half dead, ... a dragon-thing, and flies away. THE END.
Yeah, no kidding.
OTOH, don't play the sequel. Heart of the Alien. First of all, you have to figure out how to emulate a Sega Mega-CD. Once you get that working, the new game picks up RIGHT where the first one left off - Lester is still crippled, and you play the friendly alien. But the deaths are way more stupid and arbitrary. Like a perfectly normal looking hallway. You can wait as long as you want, but if you start running down it the ceiling collapses on you killing you. Why? Because fuck you. So not only do you have stupid hard timing puzzles all over the place, you have hidden stupid hard timing puzzles.
After like 4 of those, I gave up. Probably what I should do see if I can find a replay on youtube, maybe with most of the redundant deaths edited out.
posted by aubilenon at 3:42 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yeah, no kidding.
OTOH, don't play the sequel. Heart of the Alien. First of all, you have to figure out how to emulate a Sega Mega-CD. Once you get that working, the new game picks up RIGHT where the first one left off - Lester is still crippled, and you play the friendly alien. But the deaths are way more stupid and arbitrary. Like a perfectly normal looking hallway. You can wait as long as you want, but if you start running down it the ceiling collapses on you killing you. Why? Because fuck you. So not only do you have stupid hard timing puzzles all over the place, you have hidden stupid hard timing puzzles.
After like 4 of those, I gave up. Probably what I should do see if I can find a replay on youtube, maybe with most of the redundant deaths edited out.
posted by aubilenon at 3:42 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
I loved OOTW, still do. Also Flashback, which is very similar.
I liked flashback okay, but it felt a lot more like a conventional platform puzzler/shooter to me than OOTW, which really felt special. My pirated copy was corrupt and I couldn't get past the Running Man gameshow level without falling through the floor though, so I never finished it.
posted by aubilenon at 3:44 PM on March 4, 2013
I liked flashback okay, but it felt a lot more like a conventional platform puzzler/shooter to me than OOTW, which really felt special. My pirated copy was corrupt and I couldn't get past the Running Man gameshow level without falling through the floor though, so I never finished it.
posted by aubilenon at 3:44 PM on March 4, 2013
Another thing the game did that was unintentionally revolutionary, the game featured very little music. Apart from the start, the end, a couple brief cues, all there was was silence (particularly effective in the caverns sequence) and ambient noise/sound effects. It had a very profound effect, music in a game is a way of reminding you "YOU ARE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME.", and when this game features almost total silence, it's more like "Oh shit, ohshitohshit, what's that giant black.. aaaaaggh RUN RUN RUN!!!!111"
posted by mediocre at 3:48 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by mediocre at 3:48 PM on March 4, 2013
Great game. A real classic. (Was just waxing nostalgic at this site, which emulates the interface of the Amiga's Workbench 1.3 in javascript.)
posted by Catblack at 3:58 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by Catblack at 3:58 PM on March 4, 2013
Oh man, this thing. Like the original Alone In The Dark this was seriously frustrating, though lovely to look at at the time.
posted by turgid dahlia 2 at 4:03 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by turgid dahlia 2 at 4:03 PM on March 4, 2013
Oh I remember that game! Man, it was hard, though. And I guess I always thought rather obscure? Apparently not so much.
posted by likeatoaster at 4:05 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by likeatoaster at 4:05 PM on March 4, 2013
No pay maker for do nice work? Sadness.
You can buy his updated remake at DotEmu and GOG, if anyone's wondering.
posted by GenericUser at 4:15 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
You can buy his updated remake at DotEmu and GOG, if anyone's wondering.
posted by GenericUser at 4:15 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
I remember playing this game on an old 286 12mhz monochrome laptop in the early 90's and remember being impressed on how smooth it ran on the hardware (compared to most sprite based games of the same era). Great game.
posted by samsara at 4:18 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by samsara at 4:18 PM on March 4, 2013
Matsaruba!
posted by teppic at 4:36 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by teppic at 4:36 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
Dead End Thrills artwork
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 4:54 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 4:54 PM on March 4, 2013
I always thought it was mai-too-wah. Amazing game, so hard. Flashback was underrated I thought - lost the cinematics, but so much fun to play.
posted by cmicali at 5:02 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by cmicali at 5:02 PM on March 4, 2013
I loved this game! I played it on my PC as a college student. It was awesome at the time. Probably the gameplay and difficulty don't stand the test of time, but I have fond memories.
posted by Joh at 5:44 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by Joh at 5:44 PM on March 4, 2013
This game was amazing as noted, but for me it just reinforced that what could be done with the processing power of the time was more limited by imagination than technology. This opinion is little changed all these years later.
posted by meinvt at 5:53 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by meinvt at 5:53 PM on March 4, 2013
I still need to play this, since Tim Rogers reckons it's the best videogame of all-time.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 8:11 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 8:11 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
Heh.. metz-sroo-buh has been my incoming text tone for years. On the odd occasion that someone recognizes it I get all giddy with both validation of my tastes in custom tonery and the quasi smug only-us-two-get-why-this-is-awesome feeling you get when your personally curated personal sound selection gets props.
posted by mediocre at 9:32 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by mediocre at 9:32 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
The creator gave an hour-long "postmortem" talk at GDC where he went over the development process in more detail. Also told an awesome story about a fax machine.
posted by mshrike at 9:34 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by mshrike at 9:34 PM on March 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
so, while a grand total of two people have ever placed my text sound.. not a single person has ever recognized my primary ring, the English opening theme from Spartakus And The Sun Beneath The Sea. Original,season one opening that is.. not the Menu do theme of the second..
posted by mediocre at 9:35 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by mediocre at 9:35 PM on March 4, 2013
Why would I think about Out Of This World and cry? That game is awesome.
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 9:47 PM on March 4, 2013
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 9:47 PM on March 4, 2013
Cry because this one man made a game that will forever be seen as a groundbreaking artifact of video game history. A game so rapturously elegant, tasteful and artistic that it is a museum piece, literally, as one of the very first games to achieve and deserve the status as high art. One man, did all this in a game that fit on a single 1.4 meg floppy. One man did what countless teams and thousands of man hours could barely aspire to. He didn't just author, design, and code the game. He invented a custom system to design the characters and rotoscope them when he couldn't find what he wanted in existing design tools. One man created this immersive, beautiful experience that even today looks impressive using computers less powerful then the average wristwatch these days.
What did you do today?
posted by mediocre at 10:40 PM on March 4, 2013 [7 favorites]
What did you do today?
posted by mediocre at 10:40 PM on March 4, 2013 [7 favorites]
Wow. Had no idea this was made by one person.
Our home computers would not run it, so a high school friend and me would take the city bus to school at 6 in the morning to take turns playing it on the principal's computer for an hour before class. It took us a couple of weeks to finish it, and then we did it again.
This was the first game to completely blow mind.
BTW, that principal was awesome, he trusted us enough to give us unsupervised access to his computer and to leave the door unlocked every morning. It strikes me now that he would make a very good mefite. Just on the astronomically tiny chance that you are one of us, thank you Mr. P. Knighton.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 12:36 AM on March 5, 2013 [5 favorites]
Our home computers would not run it, so a high school friend and me would take the city bus to school at 6 in the morning to take turns playing it on the principal's computer for an hour before class. It took us a couple of weeks to finish it, and then we did it again.
This was the first game to completely blow mind.
BTW, that principal was awesome, he trusted us enough to give us unsupervised access to his computer and to leave the door unlocked every morning. It strikes me now that he would make a very good mefite. Just on the astronomically tiny chance that you are one of us, thank you Mr. P. Knighton.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 12:36 AM on March 5, 2013 [5 favorites]
I loved it dearly. And although I did finish it, watching the longrun I have no idea how. Must have been different me.
posted by hat_eater at 1:17 AM on March 5, 2013
posted by hat_eater at 1:17 AM on March 5, 2013
This game was amazing as noted, but for me it just reinforced that what could be done with the processing power of the time was more limited by imagination than technology. This opinion is little changed all these years later.
Hear, hear.
posted by ersatz at 6:23 AM on March 5, 2013
Hear, hear.
posted by ersatz at 6:23 AM on March 5, 2013
Also impressive is that such a revolutionary game (both in terms of artistic ambition as well as the new technological approach) was how well it was ported to so many platforms, more or less intact. (The only notable difference I can spot immediately is lack of musical cues in the Amiga version)
Also impressive how such things as truly "cinematic" cut scenes, polygons replacing sprites, and story-driven gameplay (as opposed to points or level-clearing goals) were all being introduced (somewhat) for the first time by a single game, which was really more of a "cult favorite" than a mega-hit, despite the fact that so many of its innovations are now pretty much industry standard.
This was the game that inspired me to run my SNES through a VCR back in 1992 to make my own "walkthrough video" (with deaths edited out.)
I don't think I ever watched the tape once it was completed, but for some reason I correctly remembered its run time of 22 minutes twenty years later.
posted by ShutterBun at 6:57 PM on March 5, 2013
Also impressive how such things as truly "cinematic" cut scenes, polygons replacing sprites, and story-driven gameplay (as opposed to points or level-clearing goals) were all being introduced (somewhat) for the first time by a single game, which was really more of a "cult favorite" than a mega-hit, despite the fact that so many of its innovations are now pretty much industry standard.
This was the game that inspired me to run my SNES through a VCR back in 1992 to make my own "walkthrough video" (with deaths edited out.)
I don't think I ever watched the tape once it was completed, but for some reason I correctly remembered its run time of 22 minutes twenty years later.
posted by ShutterBun at 6:57 PM on March 5, 2013
This was the game that inspired me to run my SNES through a VCR back in 1992 to make my own "walkthrough video" (with deaths edited out.)
Did you... did you invent the Let's Play?
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 7:28 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
Did you... did you invent the Let's Play?
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 7:28 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
Had it occurred to me to run the audio through my Radio Shack mixer & do a voiceover, I might very well have.
But really it was just an appreciation of the game as a piece of cinema, not unlike a typical film-school final project.
posted by ShutterBun at 9:34 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
But really it was just an appreciation of the game as a piece of cinema, not unlike a typical film-school final project.
posted by ShutterBun at 9:34 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
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