Eric Chahi Interview

[Rob_D]

For those interested about Another World and where Eric got the ideas for the game and why the sequel was on the Sega Mega CD only {and a flop compared to the first game} you should check out this recent interview from 2003 that was on French site Grospixels, which covers many topics spanning his career.

It is in French however.

http://www.grospixels.com/site/chahi.html

Bablefish Translation

[b0b]

That's a cool interview, I think between my school-level French, and the Babelfish trx I got most of it. I did read this though :

GP : Which are your projects today? Did you completely give up the universe of the video games or preserves you of the bonds with this last?

E.C: I do not have a project in the ludic field, I will return it there is certain. Currently the leading medium is not brilliant, too large, without heart.

This makes me weep. Does he genuinely believe there's no "heart" in the games industry today? Or is he just using some kind of prissy Frenchness to justify not bothering to try and produce something good? I think he's living in the shadow of Heart of Darkness, which considering it supposedly shifted 1.5 million copies, is an odd thing to do. Maybe he hated it. Maybe it completely disillusioned him. I don't know. Sad though.

[Alex]

According to my girlfriend (who did A level french, so she knows that of which she speaks) he's saying:

GP: What are your projects at the moment? Have you completely abandoned the video games sector or do you still maintain links with it?

E.C : I'm not working on any game-related projects at the moment. I'll go back there, though, that's certain. Currently the corporate situation is not great. It's too big and soulless.

Mind you, the...alledged success of HOD seems a little dubious to me considering the fact that it was a 2D PC game when the likes of giant 3D monoliths to contend with. Anyway, i understood that it was pretty poorly received all round.

[vimes]

Hearing of Eric Chahi reminded of how merely all the stars of the 90's game industry were outrunned and how, nowadays, you can't dinf a "character" behind a game. Sure there are David Cage, Gabe Newell and Spector but nothing like the good ol' "Bruno Bonnel presents"...

I think that Eric Chahi and others former stars are a bit lost because a game can't be made by a single person anymore and you have to focus on a single area if you want to join a dev team. That's a bit sad, to me.

[Lama Himself]

I think Eric left the gaming industry mainly because Heart of Darkness was a really exhausting. If I rememeber this is the only game he made with a team. I think he only want to make game without problems with other people like team members or publishers, like this is nearly impossible today to do that he prefer working on something else.

I contact him some months ago to be consultant on one of our game (the gameplay was inspired by Flashback and Another World) but he was too busy to work with us. But he gave us some short advices. He seems to be a really nice person with some great artistic skill and programming.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Wow! Two really interesting things: Another World was inspired by Dragon's Lair! Yipe! (All those who complained about the trial and error gameplay... !)

Secondly, the sequel wasn't really helmed by him and he didn't like it. I've played it briefly and WAS missing the magic of the first one. Not using polygons gave it a weird feel, too.

Great interview!

[spaceship789]

Mind you, the...alledged success of HOD seems a little dubious to me considering the fact that it was a 2D PC game when the likes of giant 3D monoliths to contend with. Anyway, i understood that it was pretty poorly received all round.

It had a good front cover. An eye catching logo, with a picture of a a dog with a boy holding an imaginative gun. It really got the imagination going. I'd suggest it probably helped to sell the game in the shops.

It was generally poorly reviewed because of its trial and error gameplay and some reviewers said it was too easy/short ( I still haven't finished it )

I thought it was a little unfair since the crash bandicoot games are also trial and error, but I guess HOD was a little more unfashionably oldschool because it didn't have polygons.

What is interesting is that the graphics were done in 3D and then rendered - would be cool to see the authors do something with the 3D assets. They are timeless pieces of work, and good art, animation, and stories stand the test of time. At some point, Spielberg even wanted to make Chahis Heart of Darkness into a movie!

What is Eric Chahi doing now?

[Lama Himself]

On PC HOD was critized also mainly because he had a crappy resolution (320*240 if I'm right). On Playstation the review of the game was better.

In fact this game is great, it's maybe short, but it's like a good movie, we can replay it several time and the magic is still here.

Now Eric chahi work on nothing related to video games if i'm right.

I heard he was a photograph but I'm not really sure.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Crash Bandicoot wasn't trial and error! Lol! You could complete levels in Crash Bandicoot without having to die on your first time (although you'd have a crappy time at the end).

[Rob_D]

Good & bad news:

The bad news is the RAW project has been discontinued which allowed you to play the AW game on a varierty of platforms.

The reason why is the good news Eric Chahi has said that a re-release or remake of AW is in the works !

http://membres.lycos.fr/cyxdown/raw/

http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1070398&forum_id=115756

[b0b]

Rerelease?

ReMAKE?

omg folks.

My cup runneth over.