Eric Chahi

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Eric Chahi is a French computer game designer best known as the creator of Another World (known as Out of This World in the United States).

[edit] Career

Eric Chahi started programming on Oric Atmos and Amstrad during 1983 for the company Loriciels. He then confirmed his talents on platforms such as Atari ST and Amiga with games such as Jeanne D'Arc and Voyage au centre de la Terre published by Chip. In 1989 Eric Chahi quit Chip to join Delphine Software to work on the graphics for Future Wars, a game designed by Paul Cuisset. Chahi then developed Another World (released in 1990) almost entirely on his own, from the story to the box cover; later it received much critical acclaim for its atmosphere and minimalism.

Flashback: The Quest for Identity, another game made at Delphine Software, is often mistaken to be a sequel to Another World. Although there are some similarities, Chahi had no involvement in its production and there is no relation between the games.

After leaving Delphine, Chahi became one of several designers working at Amazing Studio on the ill-fated Heart of Darkness, an initially ambitious side-scrolling game. It suffered numerous delays, being in development for anywhere from five to seven years. When Atari finally published it in 1998, it was moderately received by critics due to the game's short playtime and, by then, dated graphical resolution.

Eric Chahi disappeared from the game industry for some years, but has recently regained interest in making games. In April 2005 he released a free GameBoy Advance version of Another World. It was created in collaboration with a programmer named Cyril Cogordan, who originally started it as a fan project. It can be played by using a GBA flash cartridge.

A version of Another World for mobile phones was made with the help of developer Magic Productions and commercially released in 2005. On April 14th 2006, Chahi and Magic Productions released an updated PC version of Another World. It features higher resolution graphics and runs on modern versions of Windows.

Chahi has shown interest in working on an entirely new game, though has criticized the games industry for not sufficiently supporting creativity.

An interesting tendency in Chahi's games (seen in Infernal Runner, Another World and Heart of Darkness) is the amount of work put into the extremely detailed death animations - players can expect to see their character die in various ways on every screen, if they fail to control it properly.