Another World Windows

[Spaff]

let's move the discussion here!

Original post:

http://forums.idlethumbs.net/showthread.php?p=57621

wooot:

http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/index.htm

[Moosferatu]

The hardest thing for me so far has been the slugs at the very beginning. Is there something special you're supposed to do to get by them, or do you just have to time your jumps to perfection?

[n0wak]

  Moosferatu said:

The hardest thing for me so far has been the slugs at the very beginning. Is there something special you're supposed to do to get by them, or do you just have to time your jumps to perfection?

That's what I used to think and that's what I always did (on the SNES, at least), until I (just moments ago!) realized that

  Reveal hidden contents

you can kick them

Yup.

[SpiderMonkey]

  n0wak said:

That's what I used to think ... until I realized that

  Reveal hidden contents

you can kick them

Me too (but just now in the demo) - I was getting pretty pro at all that jumping. Then when I got onto the next screen,

  Reveal hidden contents

I spent an age trying to jump and kick over that beast before I figured out what I was supposed to be doing instead.

How long is the full game? (In whatever metric you choose - screens, hours, what proportion is the demo of the full game, etc.)

[Oath]

  SpiderMonkey said:

How long is the full game? (In whatever metric you choose - screens, hours, what proportion is the demo of the full game, etc.)

Oh, about 17 minutes and 20 seconds...

I'd love to see something similar done to Flashback, but I doubt that's ever going to happen... I mean an enhanced version, but a speedrun would be cool too I guess. I spent so many hours trying to make my way through it as a kid, but never managed completely.

[toblix]

The game seems so choppy... Even the mouse cursor in the menu jumps around like crazy. And everything is so slow, even with the speed boost on. I don't remember it being like this when I last played it, and that was only about a year ago. Is everything smoothed out in my memory, or doesn't it handle high-res scaling well?

[Moosferatu]

bah. For some reason I just lost all of my progress. Can someone give me the code for the area right after your friend helps you escape the two guards who chased you down the tunnel?

[brkl]

  toblix said:

The game seems so choppy... Even the mouse cursor in the menu jumps around like crazy. And everything is so slow, even with the speed boost on. I don't remember it being like this when I last played it, and that was only about a year ago. Is everything smoothed out in my memory, or doesn't it handle high-res scaling well?

It's not choppy at all for me. Esp. not in the menu.

[Erkki]

  SpiderMonkey said:

Me too (but just now in the demo) - I was getting pretty pro at all that jumping. Then when I got onto the next screen,

  Reveal hidden contents

I spent an age trying to jump and kick over that beast before I figured out what I was supposed to be doing instead.

Heh... that reminds me of how difficult the game is the first time. I did that too. There's a lot of that in the game. But for some reason I remembered all the tricks pretty soon now even though the last time I played it was many years ago.

[n0wak]

  Moosferatu said:

bah. For some reason I just lost all of my progress. Can someone give me the code for the area right after your friend helps you escape the two guards who chased you down the tunnel?

This happened to me too Luckily, because of having to redo one area over and over again, I somehow managed to remember the code. Phew.

[Moosferatu]

I just re-did it all. It's amazing how much easier it is the second time through.

[Ezgamer]

That Demo was too short. I did a speed run through it and its much easier then doing a speed run through the genesis verson. I beat the game on genesis but not in a speed run but I hope to some day. Im definatly going to try to get the full verson of this.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Holy cow, I can't believe someone actually did this! For all the games I'd love to see remade in hires (The Secret of Monkey Island for one), I'd have never have picked this one... don't get me wrong, I can't wait to see it and will DEFINITELY be buying it, but it's mainly for nostalgia reasons than anything else.

So, why did they do this? Was it cheap to "remake"? Could we be seeing more classic games remade in such high quality? clickBOOM were busy remaking old Cinemaware titles, but I've never actually seen one nor know of anyone being interested in playing them (except me).

Another World wasn't renound for its lastability back in 1991, and was mainly seen as an incredible exercise in graphics and sheer inventiveness. The brilliant and clever opening of the game (telling a story with practically no cut-scenes -- and they said Half-Life was revolutionary!) gave way to repetitive and annoying gameplay later on (I'm thinking particuarly of those damned annoying caves!). While Half-Life had excellent gameplay anyway, Another World was actually kind of empty in terms of playability (although it was still a beautiful experience overall).

It's going to be really interesting to see what 'modern' gamers make of this.

Is it still beautiful? (The story is, I imagine.) Is it still revolutionary? Can style still outweigh substance?

Time will tell!

[ThunderPeel2001]

UGH!

That's my reaction to playing this new version. The sound is HORRIBLE worse than the Amiga version for no good reason (although the music is great). There's still the same embarassingly bad animation (walking 'into' and 'out of' the camera, drinking the cola etc.), the same bizarre "real world" that looks even more out of place in hires because you can see how odd it really looks.

It still has the same pointless gameplay (kicking worms), backwards 'trial and error' game design (if you go left and swing on the vine then you can't complete the level = death and try again). Really it's just a bunch of sub-games with amusing deaths thrown in. In fact, it's often more fun to see the 'death animations' than to play the game. (The 'death by worm' one is still brilliant.) What's left is a slightly more interactive Dragon's Lair, with a better atmosphere.

What's really shocking is how this perfect 'hi-res' presentation (you couldn't ask for more) reveals the lacklustre game within!

Of course, the plus side is that you get all this new artwork for a mere 7 euros / $8.50 USD / £4.85 GBP, which is still WELL worth the money. (As soon as they accept PayPal I'll be getting my copy!)

[Moosferatu]

That entire end sequence is absolutely beautiful and a great change of pace. I really liked it.

  Reveal hidden contents

That part in the tank thingy towards the end was perfect. You have no idea what you're doing. You just smash as many buttons as you can as quickly as you can and hope something good happens.

Oh, and I also enjoyed the credits.

[edit]

  Reveal hidden contents

I just realized that when you look out the window in the tower towards the beginning of the game you see the bird creature that you eventually fly off on at the end.

[netmonkey]

  Moosferatu said:

The hardest thing for me so far has been the slugs at the very beginning. Is there something special you're supposed to do to get by them, or do you just have to time your jumps to perfection?

  Reveal hidden contents

Teh secrit is to run fast and jump over them. sure, sometimes you might get stung by one of them if you don't jump at the right time, but... it's hella lot faster than trying to time the kicks and such, methinks.

[David]

Wow, I think I hate this game.

[edweird]

It's flaws are more obvious now, and knowing the game pretty well takes away much of that sense of discovery and the unknown (part of what made the game immersive to me the first time was not knowing where I was going to end up or how much of the game or world I had left to see, or even if I was necessarily going the right way or doing the right things), but I still love it.

I just wish Chachi would do another game with this kind of tone and atmosphere. Heart of Darkness was entertaining, but the cartooniness, characters and plot bothered me a bit. It was a much more polished game, but a less mature one. I think that's partly what made this game stand out so much in it's time - it was quite a mature game in a genre populated by countless immature, over the top or cartoony games.

[brkl]

Hey, aren't you the guy who was going to remake the score of Beneath a Steel Sky? What happened to that?

[edweird]

Yeap, that was me. A series of strange occurences later I've been without the internet for a long while (just rectified this week), and free time is a pipedream. I do hope to get back to it (I was having a lot of fun with the tracks I was working on, even started multitracking some live violin with nice results), but in future I'm certainly not going to go on about what I'm going to do until I've basically already done it Lesson learned.

It seems the audio restoration is on hold too due to missing tapes or something? It's a shame I guess, but it does mean that the possibility of having both the music and audio restored to release at the same time is still there. I'll be sure to post more music on the scummvm forums if I get a chance to work on it.

[brkl]

I have a hunch the audio restoration won't happen. A new soundtrack would still be awesome.

[toblix]

What audio restoration?

[Moosferatu]

Here are all of the codes if anyone needs them.

  Reveal hidden contents

Arrival - KBAB

Arrival - KNNN

Arrival - KFBN

Jail - HPBC

Jail - XACN

Jail - KNTC

City - CKKB

City - KNAG

City - XBBT

Caves - BGAF

Caves - RNTA

Caves - FXKC

Caves - RABH

Caves - ARFA

Caves - FRPX

City 2 - AKFN

City 2 - GKHH

City 2 - PPCP

City 2 - XTRP

City 2 - HRPN

City 2 - TCGN

City 2 - NRPB

Palais - PFNN

Palais - CRGN

Palais - PXHF

Palais - XXKF

Palais - THTK

Arena - CATK

Baths - KFCA

Is "palais" French for "palace", or is it a typo?

[Spaff]

  edweird said:

It's flaws are more obvious now, and knowing the game pretty well takes away much of that sense of discovery and the unknown (part of what made the game immersive to me the first time was not knowing where I was going to end up or how much of the game or world I had left to see, or even if I was necessarily going the right way or doing the right things), but I still love it.

I just wish Chachi would do another game with this kind of tone and atmosphere. Heart of Darkness was entertaining, but the cartooniness, characters and plot bothered me a bit. It was a much more polished game, but a less mature one. I think that's partly what made this game stand out so much in it's time - it was quite a mature game in a genre populated by countless immature, over the top or cartoony games.

Hang on a second. Heart of Darkness was super. And it was dark and awesome and amazing. It wasn't immature or childish... (=Yufster)

[nsps]

  Moosferatu said:

Is "palais" French for "palace", or is it a typo?

It's French for palace. You may have heard names like palais royale?