Lurking quietly in the background of almost all side-scrolling adventure/puzzle games today, are the two giants of my childhood: Jordan Mechner and Éric Chahi (and I would add a third: David Crane, and a fourth: Paul Cuisset!). Mechner, the auteur of Karateka, Prince of Persia, and The Last Express among others. Chahi, the creator of Another World (Out of this World) and Heart of Darkness. Although it is easy to come up with visual or gameplay similarities between both developers, Dieubussy of the CoreGaming network puts it just right: Jordan Mechner and Eric Chahi’s games are part of the same spiritual nexus that cannot be reduced to a single game element. Anyone who plays the aforementioned games, whether they like them or not, has to be astounded at the highly focussed and concentrated design efforts involved. Rather than depicting (or representing) the narrative and environments through photorealistic visual styles, both authors refined subtler and more suggestive/evocative visual styles. The best adjective that I could use to describe their games is “strong”.
A developer himself, Eric Viennot has interviewed Chahi and Mechner, each answering the same question. It is an interesting opportunity to see how two authors who may share a spiritual style, living on opposite sides of the ocean, come up with different answers. I firmly believe that a game can (and must!) be understood and enjoyed without referring to the life of the artist or their opinion, but for those who have already played their games and admire their artistic styles, the interview is a goldmine. This is part of a series of interviews that Viennot has done of the giants of gaming… a prior interview between Frédérick Raynal (Alone in the Dark) and Paul Cuisset (Flashback: The Quest for Identity) is just as fascinating. I hope that you can read French – if not, try out one of the various translators (Google translate seems to do an okay job)… otherwise, Gamasutra is in the midst of translating the latest interview into english.
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A memorable moment. I’ve been asking for this for a long time. Glad someone worked out how to unite two of the most brilliant game design luminaries in one place.
Dieubussy was so right when he described this link as some sort of spiritual bond (when isn’t he right, anyway?) I’ve given much thought to this matter… sure wish I could see an actual video interview to see how the two lone game designers would react to one another. Wouldn’t you?
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In fact, it seems like Jordan Mechner was partly responsible for the hook-up as he was trying to track down Chahi.. I think Eric Viennot knew Chahi personally, and agreed to be the linguistic in-between and interviewer.
I’d *love* to see a video interview some day, but I can’t imagine that happening unless Mechner spends some more time out in Paris some day. Thanks for the response Holly!
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I remember db saying that Mechner had met Chahi in person around 1992. But it was a private reunion of course, of which there is no record. He said something about being on the process of translating the video interview Chahi made, exclusively released in the French version of Another World 15th Anniversary. I’ll be honest here, I don’t know a thing about French…
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Do you know when the interview will be done being translated and posted on Gamasutra? Or have I already missed it?
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