Another Mind (video game)

Lore & Background

Another Mind was directed by Keizo Kokubo, previously the main programmer for Chrono Trigger and Romancing SaGa. The original idea centered on creating a relationship between the player and the game's protagonist. Executive Producer Hironobu Sakaguchi was initially reluctant to approve the proposal but was caught by the concept of a 'game drama' instead of a TV drama. Filming took three weeks, with a schedule from 7am to 10pm. Kokubo stated the themes he wanted to explore were ego and death. An episode between chapters five and six, called 'Flash Highway,' was planned but cut due to difficulties obtaining permission to film on a highway.

Reader's Guide

Another Mind represents a unique experiment in narrative-driven gaming from Square during the late 1990s. Its gameplay is primarily shown through still photographs with text overlays, where the player represents 'another mind' residing in the head of the main protagonist, Hitomi Hayama. The player constructs sentences from context-sensitive parts of speech to convince Hitomi to perform actions, rather than selecting pre-made options. The game is divided into ten chapters, each taking several hours, with multiple endings including early 'bad' ends, two main endings, and a third accessible only on a second playthrough. The soundtrack, composed by Junya Nakano using only the PlayStation's on-board synthesizer, was praised as 'stellar' by reviewer Chris Winkler of RPGFan, though he found the game 'bizarre' and difficult to get into due to slow-moving text, occasionally incomprehensible story, and shallow humor. The game's significance lies in its experimental approach to player-character interaction and its place within Square's initiative to foster young talent, though it remains a niche title recommended primarily for those seeking a unique Japanese gaming experience.

Did You Know?

• The game was developed as part of Square's late-1990s initiative to let small teams of younger developers create experimental titles with smaller budgets.
• Director Keizo Kokubo previously worked as the main programmer for Chrono Trigger and Romancing SaGa.
• An episode called 'Flash Highway' was planned between chapters five and six but was cut due to difficulties getting permission to film on a highway.
• The soundtrack was composed by Junya Nakano using standard studio equipment, not limited to the PlayStation's on-board synthesizer.

A Solo Vision Forged in Assembly

Éric Chahi built Another World essentially as a one-person project over roughly two years, handling design, programming, art, and animation himself, with only Jean-François Freitas contributing the soundtrack. His path to the game was set in motion by the commercial success of Future Wars, a 1989 adventure title he had illustrated alongside Paul Cuisset for Delphine Software. The royalties from that project freed him from editorial pressure, allowing him to pursue his own creative ambitions without compromise. Technically, Chahi was inspired by the flat-color vector animations in the Amiga port of Dragon's Lair, which led him to experiment with polygon routines in assembly language for the Motorola 68000. After proving the concept on an Atari ST, he ported the code to the Amiga and achieved around twenty frames per second, a milestone he later called a major turning point. He also employed rotoscoping to plan character movements and built his own engine from scratch, all while deliberately minimizing memory usage through vector-based art rather than traditional sprites.

Silence as a Design Language

Chahi made a radical choice: Another World communicates almost entirely without words. There is no on-screen text, no heads-up display save for a brief oxygen meter during underwater sequences, and every character the player encounters speaks in an incomprehensible alien tongue. The game offers no explicit instructions, no quest markers, and no menu-driven interface. Players must infer objectives purely from environmental storytelling and the reactions of the characters around them. This minimalism extends to the control scheme itself, where running, jumping, attacking, and context-specific actions like rocking a cage are all handled through a simple set of inputs on keyboard, joystick, or gamepad. The stakes are brutally high: Lester and his alien companion Buddy have no health pool, and a single touch from a projectile, a wild animal, or a hazard ends the run instantly. To keep the experience fair, the game is peppered with checkpoints, and on platforms without save functionality, players could jot down alphanumeric codes to resume later. The result is a tense, wordless survival experience that trusts the player completely.

A Story Told in Light and Motion

The narrative of Another World unfolds with a cinematic grammar that was remarkably ahead of its 1991 release. It opens with Lester Knight Chaykin, a young physicist, arriving at his underground laboratory in a black Ferrari during a thunderstorm. His particle accelerator experiment, designed to reconstruct the birth of the universe, is violently interrupted by a lightning strike, triggering a catastrophic fusion that tears a hole in spacetime and flings Lester onto a desolate alien world. From there, the story is told through real-time sequences and cutscenes that blend seamlessly, a technique that earned widespread critical praise. Lester evades predatory fauna, is captured by humanoid aliens, and is imprisoned in a subterranean camp. His escape alongside an alien captive called Buddy sets the duo on a journey through a prison complex, a cave system, and a towering structure, battling soldiers and solving puzzles. The climax sees Lester gravely wounded, yet Buddy carries him to safety, and the two flee on a dragon-like creature into the horizon.

Ripples Across a Generation of Games

Another World's influence on the video game industry is difficult to overstate. Its pioneering blend of cinematic storytelling, real-time action, and atmospheric world-building directly inspired a constellation of later titles, including Ico, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, and Delphine Software's own Flashback. Critics and players alike have since placed it among the greatest video games ever created, a reputation that has only deepened over the decades. The game's reach extends well beyond its original Amiga and Atari ST release; it has been ported to a wide array of home and portable consoles as well as mobile devices, and Chahi has personally overseen several anniversary editions to keep the experience alive for new audiences. Its design DNA, telling a complete emotional story with minimal text, using vector art to evoke mood, and trusting the player to navigate without a safety net, echoes through countless modern adventure and action games. In many ways, Another World proved that a single developer, working with modest hardware, could craft an experience that reshaped what people expected from interactive entertainment.