Late Night Consoling

Hope you saw that news today about Another World/Out of this World getting rereleased. I'm glad to see Eric Chahi getting back into game development. It really is amazing how frequently I hear from developers that his game was a huge influence on their work. One great thing about the game is that since it is so successfully told entirely without dialogue and depicted in such an accessible yet arresting visual style, it seems to cross cultural boundaries as well. Goichi Suda, the rather insane Japanese designer behind Killer 7 (PS2, GCN) recently stated that Eric Chahi is the game industry figure with whom he would most like to work, and Another World is the game most meaningful to him. I also wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that Fumito Ueda took some degree of inspiration from Another World when designing Ico (PS2). Having played Ico then going back to Another World was a crazy sensation; there are some really strong parallels in the way the games present their characters and story in an entirely suggestive way that truly suits the game medium. Even the control methods share something in common, with no onscreen interface, and the context-sensitive actions frequently mapped to directional buttons in a way that is instantly intuitive. That sort of thing really goes a long way towards creating a true sense of immersion in a game. It's a bit disappointing sometimes that there aren't more games taking that kind of completely ground-up approach, considering every aspect of interface and design in ways that organically mesh with the presentation and storytelling. Let's hope Chahi's next effort is just as memorable!