Eric Chahi's Project Dust

[Kolzig]

Wait, I thought we had already a dedicated discussion for this game?

Oh well, today's news tell us some glorious new exciting news.

Eric Chahi's game is coming to PC and Steam in addition to the originally announced PSN and Xbox Live Arcade!

This was confirmed by RPS.

That reminds me, I wonder where is my activation key/download location email for Another World. I bought it back in 2006 from Eric Chahi's webpage, but I was searching through my old emails and couldn't find it, would be useful to get it unlocked in Steam if possible. Not really interested in buying again a game twice, though I would be supporting Eric directly.

Edited August 19, 2010 by Kolzig

[Twig]

I am a happy person. This is good news to wake up to!

EDIT: I know you said you'd like to not have to buy it twice, but Another World is available on GOG.com. The remastered "HD" version, even.

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/another_world_15th_anniversary_edition

[syntheticgerbil]

I think Project Dust was talked about in the E3 thread. I'm interested, but only because of Chahi, really.

There's the boxed edition of the new Another World, but I don't know if that's any help Kolzig. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Another-World-15th-Anniversary-PC/dp/B000MMUVFK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=video games&qid=1282063664&sr=8-2

[Kolzig]

Yeah, I know the boxed anniversary edition, I wanted it really a lot in 2006, but I'm trying to save shelf space these days.

Lets see, if I don't find the email, then one chance is GoG or the boxed version. GoG is quite possible in one way as I now have an account there. (I already bought Blood 2: The Chosen.)

I should propably also try to email Eric or who ever is maintaining anotherworld.fr about the four year old purchase. Maybe they can send me a new email.

[Salacious Snake]

This game is intriguing. Here's a new and big video about it: http://ve3d.ign.com/videos/play/79263/PC/From-Dust/Cinematic/Tech-Demo-Gamescom-2010/Flash-Video

I've had Heart of Darkness on the mind lately because of Limbo, so I'm all lubed up and ready for Chahi.

[Kolzig]

The project has been renamed as From Dust.

[elmuerte]

Renamed From Dust to ...? what? Dawn?

[syntheticgerbil]

From dust only comes more dust. From ashes can only come life.

[toblix]

At first I was like "That dust thing looked pretty good last time I checked, I'll probably get it," but then I saw that new trailer and now I'm all "hey, From Dust looks really good. I'll probably get it when it comes out."

[Murdoc]

The tech is cool, but what we've seen from the game still looks very much like Populous 3(The Beginning) which doesn't really do a lot for me.

I'd love to see a new update to the god game genre that had a bit of scope in terms of a Civilization game or original preconception of Spore.

The direction of God = nature is fine and all, it's a throw back to Populous and Black and White; but I'd really love to see a game that takes it either in a more intelligent design route or religion focus. a real focus on the people you "manage" more then making mountains.

[thorn]

Thus far it seems like a really cool tech demo in search of a game. This is definately on the 'Wait And See' pile for me.

[Nappi]

From Dust Origins.

The concept seems really interesting. I'm not yet sure what is game in this game, but I'm not too worried about that to be honest. I'm more worried that this game will completely obliterate my graphics card.

[syntheticgerbil]

Just curious, has Eric Chahi only been messing with this game after coming back to the games industry and making the deluxe version of Another World?

[Spaff]

It's hilarious to me that this game features volcanoes

We tried to track Eric down after he disappeared from the gaming scene, so we could do this interview (http://old.idlethumbs.net/display.php?id=44) and I managed to find him via a big gallery of his volcano photos, and politely emailed him if he was the same Eric Chahi that made awesome video games.

We helped him with his another World special edition website too, and as a thank you we got some big prints of his volcanoes, awesome pics But yeah, it's good that he used all that time around volcanoes to think of a new game project...

Maybe Dust is the game he mentions working on in that interview?

Do you have any plans to revisit Another World in some form? More generally speaking, do you think you'll go back to design a new game?

A GBA version of AW may come one day. But more seriously, at the moment, I'm assembling my ideas to crystallise them into a new project.

[syntheticgerbil]

We tried to track Eric down after he disappeared from the gaming scene, so we could do this interview (http://old.idlethumbs.net/display.php?id=44) and I managed to find him via a big gallery of his volcano photos, and politely emailed him if he was the same Eric Chahi that made awesome video games.

Ah, I remember that interview, I didn't realize it was on Idlethumbs, but that's my fault. I guess I assumed I had read it at another site.

We helped him with his another World special edition website too, and as a thank you we got some big prints of his volcanoes, awesome pics But yeah, it's good that he used all that time around volcanoes to think of a new game project...

I didn't realize you guys helped with that at all. That is a great site because that was the only way I found out he had made about 7 or so games before Another World. Too bad some are all in French. Thanks for making that, comprehensive sites on important people's work in games seems to be all too rare.

[Kolzig]

Yeah, I know the boxed anniversary edition, I wanted it really a lot in 2006, but I'm trying to save shelf space these days.

Lets see, if I don't find the email, then one chance is GoG or the boxed version. GoG is quite possible in one way as I now have an account there. (I already bought Blood 2: The Chosen.)

I should propably also try to email Eric or who ever is maintaining anotherworld.fr about the four year old purchase. Maybe they can send me a new email.

Didn't get a response through Chahi's website, it's propably been totally Out of this World since 2006.

I did however find my old emails from 2006 era Thunderbird profile stuck on my harddrive and I found my registration key to Another World HD version! I played it yesterday after a few years since the last time and almost had way too much fun with it and completed maybe 50% on one run.

But like Twig said earlier, it's also available at GoG and very tempting as it has all the extra features of the collector's set like the making of video, soundtrack, development diary and technical handbook. I'm propably going to get that at some point. Well, actually the Amazon.co.uk sellers are selling the boxed set for one penny, wtf!

Also found the registration code to Mr Smoozles goes Nutso which is also find from the email archives.

One thing I found while searching Thumbs archives was this thread:

http://idlethumbs.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5079

What happened to the comic book, did it actually ever come out?

Shame that they never legalized the GBA version as far as I know but I've played it ages ago and it worked wonderfully.

What the hell is this? I've never seen that "UFO".

[syntheticgerbil]

What the hell is this? I've never seen that "UFO".

Thanks Kolzig for pointing that out! I'm going to try that on my next playthrough.

[Orv]

I said "Hey. Dust looks like a new Populous, right on!" in the E3 thread, and my feelings continue in that vein. Even more-so now that I hear it's on the PCs.

[ThunderPeel2001]

What the hell is this? I've never seen that "UFO".

Unbelievable!

[Kolzig]

I'm kind of tempted to resurrect an old thread from 2006 concerning Another World, but lets just go with this thread even though less people might read it (or more?)

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33356/GDC_2011_Eric_Chahi_Retro_Postmortem_Another_World.php

This was one of the best bits of GDC and makes me wish I was a games developer and could attend GDC. I even think Thumbs crew got to hang out with Mr. Chahi himself later in the evening during GDC.

Awesome guy.

[toblix]

I watched Chahi's (and a/the programmer) GDC Europe 2010 presentation on this, and holy volcano does this thing look good. They did some really smart bit-twiddling stuff to able to process all the information on PC, Xbox and PS3, and found whatever common ground they could to be able to code once for all of them. I hope the PC version will take advantage of whatever hardware is there, though.

Anyway, if you can, check out the presentation (the same video might be available elsewhere, too). The way the terrain displaces water as it rises out of nothing is fucking majestic.

[Nachimir]

Somehow the IGN quote in this trailer is actually reasonable when compared to the Destructoid one.

Please stop ruining literally.

G7NtfXxdhDU

Also, this game look great.

Actually kind of worried that's it's moving away from being an interesting system to poke at like Populous, and instead is going for CINEMATIC DRAMA. Your followers being kind of faceless and without backstory seemed to be a major part of the point of Populous to me.

[Murdoc]

Hard to say from trailers, but it basically looks like Populous 3.. which wasnt the worst Populous, but wasn't the best.

I like the idea of having less direct control over followers, but ah well, still looks cool. The tech they have going is awesome.

[DanJW]

Reminds me of Black & White. And Magic Carpet.

Oh man, Magic Carpet!

[Gwardinen]

It annoys me that the two games in Summer of Arcade that I'm interested in, Bastion and From Dust, are the last two on the list to be released. Even though I might not even get these games on the 360, they probably won't be released before then on any other platforms.