Éric Chahi

Éric Chahi is a French computer game designer and programmer, best known as the creator of Another World (also known as Out of This World in North America) and Heart of Darkness.[1]

Éric Chahi
Chahi at the 2011 Utopiales
Born
Essonne, Yerres, France
NationalityFrench
OccupationVideo game designer
Known forFuture Wars
Another World
Heart of Darkness
From Dust

Career

Éric Chahi started programming on Oric Atmos and Amstrad in 1983 for the company Loriciels. He worked on games such as Jeanne d'Arc and Voyage au centre de la Terre published for Chip. In 1989 Éric Chahi quit Chip to join Delphine Software International to work on the graphics for Future Wars, a game designed by Paul Cuisset. After this, over a period of two years, Chahi developed Another World (released in 1991) on his own, only soliciting help for the music score. Another World went on to receive critical acclaim for its atmosphere and minimalism, becoming a cult classic.

After leaving Delphine, Chahi founded Amazing Studio and became one of several designers that were working on Heart of Darkness, a side-scrolling game. It suffered numerous delays, and was in development for six years.[2] When Infogrames finally published it in 1998, it was negatively received by critics due to its short length and by-then dated graphics, though the graphics of the PlayStation port were praised.

Chahi disappeared from the game industry for some years but returned to making games with Ubisoft in the 2010s.[3] In April 2005 he released a free Game Boy 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 using a GBA flash cartridge or emulator.

A version of Another World for mobile phones was made with the help of developer Magic Productions and released in 2005. On April 14, 2006, Chahi and Magic Productions released an updated PC version of Another World which featured remade graphics and ran on modern versions of Microsoft Windows. This HD version was ported to Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PS Vita, 3DS and Wii U in June 2014 as a 20th-anniversary edition.

On June 14, 2010, a trailer for Chahi's new game named From Dust was shown at E3. The game was released on July 27, 2011, on Xbox Live Arcade as part of the 2011 Summer of Arcade,[4] is described as a mix between Populous and Black and White.[5] It was also released on the PC later on August 17, 2011, and later was released for the Chrome web browser.

In December 2012, Another World was added to the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art.[6]

In November 2014, he made a 3D Interactive Lava Simulator for the Volcano Museum La Cité du Volcan on Réunion Island near Madagascar.[7]

In 2016, he created the indie video game studio Pixel Reef in Montpellier, France to work on a new title Paper Beast, a title set to be released on PlayStation VR in 2019 and PlayStation 4 in 2020. This project came out of the work he did for the Réunion Volcano Museum while studying the island's Piton de la Fournaise volcano for these simulations. Chahi started Pixel Reef, along with Sahy and two others after the museum project was finished to work on this game, and as of 2019, the team now numbers 16.[8][9]

Paper Beast went on to release for PlayStation 4 on March 24, 2020[10] and on July 24, 2020[11] for Windows.

Games

References
  1. "Quinze ans plus tard, Éric Chahi revient sur son projet, devenu, avec le temps, une référence". Premiere (in French). 2007. p. 117.
  2. Hickman, Sam (June 1996). "One Man and His Dog". Sega Saturn Magazine. No. 8. Emap International Limited. pp. 36–42.
  3. Freeman, Will (January 25, 2012). "Inside Ubisoft Montpellier: A Ray of light". develop-online.net. Retrieved February 6, 2012. It was at Ubisoft Montpellier that [...] where Another World creator Eric Chahi chose to step out from several years in the development wilderness to create From Dust.
  4. "Beat the heat with Summer of Arcade". Microsoft. Retrieved 2011-07-20.
  5. Luke Plunkett. "Another World Creator Back With A New Game: Project Dust". Kotaku.
  6. "MoMA | Video Games: 14 in the Collection, for Starters".
  7. "Simulateur d'éruption". Réunion des Musées Régionaux (in French). Archived from the original on 25 December 2019.
  8. Plunkett, Luke (April 10, 2019). "Another World Creator Éric Chahi Is Back With A PS4 VR Game". Kotaku. Retrieved April 10, 2019.
  9. "Eric Chahi : " J'avais envie de créer un rythme cinématographique pour Another World " | CNC". Centre National du Cinéma et de l'Image Animée (in French). 18 March 2021.
  10. "Paper Beast". PlayStation. Retrieved 2022-08-09.
  11. "Paper Beast on Steam". store.steampowered.com. Retrieved 2022-08-09.
  12. "Ubisoft E3 2010 Press Conference". Ubisoft E3 2010. 2010-06-14. Retrieved 2010-06-14.
  13. "From Dust". Facebook. Retrieved 2012-01-31.
  14. "'From Dust' Tech Demo is Phenomenal".
  15. Moors, Peter (2013). Music and Game: Perspectives on a Popular Alliance. p. 129. ISBN 978-3531189130. ... at least in this respect, be compared to other 'sandbox' titles such as Peter Molyneux's Black & White (2001) and Éric Chahi's From Dust (2011).
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