Talk:Another World (video game)

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Contents 1 Heart of the Alien was NOT a sequel to Another World, it is a prequel to it 2 Heart of Darkness a Sequel? 3 Mmm... 4 Released to the public domain? 5 Jean-François Freitas 6 Story Analysis? 7 Unconfirmed (?) Info 8 Releases 9 Cleanup tag 10 The image 11 Mac Emulator with OoTW?

[edit] Heart of the Alien was NOT a sequel to Another World, it is a prequel to it

A sequel is set AFTER the original.

Heart of the Alien is not set after Another World. Most of it is set during the same time as the Another World. And some of it is even set BEFORE the original.

A prequel is set BEFORE the original.

In Heart of the Alien, the player takes control of 'Buddy', the alien who befriends the human protagonist in Another World. We see 'Buddy' in events that are set BEFORE the original game.

So, is Heart of the Alien a sequel or a prequel? Clearly, the more fitting description is a prequel. Jimd 00:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

It has been a while since I played this, but I disagree. Granted, some events take place before and during the events of the first game, but some events must take place after as well. I mean, remember how Heart of the Alien revealed Lester's ultimate fate? He couldn't very well have made it to the end of Another World if everything in Heart of the Alien had happened first. Since it does show you events that happen after Another World and it does provide a resolution to plotlines that were started in Another World, I think calling it a sequel/side-story is more accurate than calling it a prequel. Or perhaps midquel would be even better.

HopelessAddict 01:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey, look at Heart of the Alien article and read at the "Plot". It says 'The story picks up immediately after the end of the first game. You begin as Lester and his alien friend, "Buddy," land their pterodactyl in the ruins of Buddy's village'. So it's a SEQUEL. It says nothing about simultaneous action or meanwhiles. Pictureuploader 09:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

HopelessAddict, I understand what you are saying. We see some brief flashes of the future in Heart of the Alien. However the "fate" of Lester in Heart of the Alien could be interpreted in different ways. We merely see Buddy putting Lester into some form of pod. Lester could of been asleep or unconcious, or if he was dead, that pod could have been a regeneration device (has been suggested numerous times before.) Whichever the case, the game was not canon, as Eric Chahi had nothing to do with the development of that game. It is like considering a Star Wars movie as canon which has nothing to do with George Lucas, if you see what I mean. Neverless I agree with your edit, and that calling Heart of the Alien a midquel is reasonable. In fact calling it a midquel is probably more fitting then calling it a prequel. Jimd 11:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Pictureuploader, all due respect, but did you actually ever play Heart of the Alien? We can reasonably discuss whether or not Heart of the Alien was a prequel or interquel to Another World; however to suggest it was a sequel is ridiculous to anybody who is familiar to the franchise. The game starts off with a very brief prologue, set AFTER Another World, in which nothing is revealed. The vast majority of Heart of the Alien co-incides with the events of Another World. We also see events BEFORE the time of Another World, in fact a lot more so then events AFTER Another World. Jimd 11:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

No I haven't, that's why i quote the article. The two articles are mutually contradicting. If you think one is wrong, then please, someone finally correct it. Pictureuploader 11:57, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have corrected the Heart of the Alien article Jimd 17:16, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

User:Jimd, don't get me wrong, but have YOU? The game begins AFTER Another World, then a non-interactive sequence that takes place BEFORE and DURING the original plays. The rest of the game is set after the events of Chahi's production. Heart of the Alien is most definitely a sequel.

[edit] Heart of Darkness a Sequel?

Would Heart of Darkness be considered a follow-up? MajorB 23:05, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Mmm...

I liked Heart of Darkness very much, and it resembles the Another World world in many ways, but it's set in an another world than Another World.. (I'm sure I made some horrible grammar mistake there that would cause English Teachers worldwide to hang themselves from their genitals in despair). Anyways, I added it to the article.

I removed the trivia piece:

• Here's a bug most people don't notice. At the very beginning of the intro, Lester goes up an elevator, and into his lab. Later on, a lightning hits a metal surface on the ground floor, but Lester is sitting right behind it. How is that possible?

It's possible because Lester takes the elevator down, and not up. Somos

• (me again) First of all, even if the elevator goes down, he won't be sitting in the ground floor. Second of all, the lights above the elevator show that he is definitely going up!

Through the crack you see the elevator chamber going down (I'm %96 positive about this, I should d/l Another World and check). Besides, you can see the lightning travel quite a lot in the pipes before it hits Lester.

Does anybody else has an opinion about this?

The elevator goes down, wouldn't make sense to build a particle accelerator above the ground, the lightning then hits the accelerator, or better a piece of the building and the flash enters the accelerator, finally causing the explosion at another point of the accelerator which throws you into the other world. So this isn't a bug at all. Speaking about real bugs I know only one in the SNES version: when one goes from the waterfall to the right and then back again one ends up a screen below and not where one started. There are numerous other smaller issues, but those are not really bugs in the traditional sense, ie. the lion isn't attacked by the worms, when standing in front of the large tank laser beams are coming from the left, but when going a screen to the left nobody is there shooting, in the last screen of the game when one activates the teleporter one can manage it to get shoot shortly before being teleported up, one then ends up as normal on the dragon even so one was a black skeleton a few seconds ago. However those are probally not worth to mention

What might be worth to mention is that the PC, SNES and probally all other non-Amiga versions are longer, then the original Amiga one, ie. in the original you enter the tank directly after one gets rescued by the buddy from the dead-end, on the later version however around 15 new screens have been inserted inbetween that. There also was a version of the game for the Atari computers(disk image should be floating somewhere around on the net), but never officially released.

-- Grumbel 15:31, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Typically a particle accelerator is built underground as a nature shield. One can easily check the Particle_accelerator wiki. The moving direction of the light can be either way depending on you are inside or outside of the elevorator. The accelerator in this game consists of a linear accelerator, a Synchrotron accelerator and a fixed target. I guess Eric Chahi knows some particle physists quite well. One bug here is that tough usually physists check the condition with an [event-display] just like the octagon(?) shape in the game, no one would sit in front of it as Lester does. You may be kill by the radiation before sent to Another World. Also, there's no beam pipe in the tunnel. Of course, being sent to Another World is the biggest bug. :)

--YChao 11:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Released to the public domain?

Two items in the trivia section get my attention:

   * Recently, this game was released to the public domain for play in the Game Boy Advance and via emulation with raw (Rewritten engine for Another World).

   * It has also been released for the GP32 in the GBAX2005 Handheld Coding Competition.

I can find a link confirming the latter (and Chahi's blessing of it) but the sources I could find suggested that Eric Chahi was discouraging the emulation projects in the interest of a future commercial re-release -- a tricky feat to pull off if it really has been released to the public domain. Can anyone find some links to back this up?

The game is available for GBA from http://www.foxysofts.com/index.php?l=content/gba/anworld.inc However as far as I know its only freeware, not public domain. From what I understand the commercial release never happened and thats why you can get it as Freeware, however only for a limited number of platforms at the moment. The PC version, which was already up and running and closed down due to the possible commercial rerelease is still not available: http://membres.lycos.fr/cyxdown/raw/

-- Grumbel 02:58, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jean-François Freitas

The above fellow should not be credited in the 'designers' column in the info box. Mr Freitas made some sound effects for the game, nothing more, and accordingly he gets a mention in the 'technical aspects' section. The only person who designed this game was Eric Chahi; he designed the game, programmed the game, and even did the artwork for the box. Jimd 00:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Story Analysis?

What in the world is that ludicrous pseudoanalysis supposed to be, and what place does it have in an encyclopedia article?

Relax dude. What makes it a 'ludicrous pseudoanalysis' and what authority do you have to call it that? I included it for consideration by the community, on equal terms with every single other contribution to this encyclopedia. I consider it a description of the tematic elements of the game. If you disagree, you can improve my contribution, discuss it constructively on this page or even delete it, just like in any other article. There is really no need to be an asshole. --AndersFeder 15:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect (I mean that), I too found this section to be a 'ludicrous pseudoanalysis' (and agree with the associated comments). However, I also completely agree with the reply and justification. My two cents. --Fracture98 20:27, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. As I wrote on my talk page, I think that the thematic side of this game is very important to its status as a classic and that an encyclopedia article which doesn't cover this side of it, at least superficially, is incomplete. This was my motivation for iniating the work on the analysis and I would appreciate if somebody produced a 'not-ludicrous, genuine analysis'. --AndersFeder 21:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unconfirmed (?) Info

Can someone please cite the source for "Today Chahi is working on a version of Another World with vector animation rendered at a higher resolution and more detailed background graphics."?

http://www.edge-online.co.uk/archives/2006/04/revisiting_anot.php Here's what I've seen. Ladlergo 18:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

There is a link on "The official homepage" that allows you to download/purchase an enhanced version for XP. I have have a copy I purchased from the link. It is enhanced somewhat (higher resolutions, etc), without detracting from the original (no new levels or over-the-top enhancements). I'll update the article with this information. --Fracture98 20:39, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I added this information and then realized I had duplicated information in the new 'Releases' section. I've removed my edits as redundant. --Fracture98 20:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Releases

I've added a Releases section and moved some Sequels stuff over to it, as appropriate. However this new section definitely needs more information. For example, the game was originally written for the Amiga as far as I know, and different versions have different graphics and sounds than others, and stuff like that should probably go in Releases. CGameProgrammer 21:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup tag

The article is currently inconsistent, has an advocative tone and doesn't really flow properly. I imagine it contains all the right information, but it needs a thorough rewrite for style. Chris Cunningham 09:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks to Retodon8 for doing some hefty cleanup work. The article still needs a bit of spit and polish (especially in the references department) and could be less sympathetic to Chahi but it's much better than it was. Chris Cunningham 10:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The image

The image of Lester crossing a bridge is clearly from an early Amiga version or something.

I'm getting the PC Collector's Edition soon and will replace it with a high-res version.

[edit] Mac Emulator with OoTW?

While searching for a working copy of this game (Running my own actual copy with DOSBox seems to be very screwed up for some reason) I stumbled across this little site-- a Mac Emulator with several games, including this one! Works for me, you don't need the code wheel, but controls aren't specified. (I think they are Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Spacebar, possible tab, and some random button for code inputs, C maybe) Setting it up should be simple enough for anyone with half a brain. Link: http://www.virtualapple.org/outofthisworlddisk.html --Twerty