Eric Chahi

Early Career (1983-1998)

Chahi's first programming job was for the French video game company Loriciels, programming games for the Oric Atmos and the Amstrad. He later left Loriciels to work for another publisher, Chip, working on games such as Jeanne D'Arc and Voyage au centre de la Terre on the Amiga and Atari ST. Chahi left Chip in 1989 to join Delphine Software. It was while working for Delphine Software that Chahi worked on Future Wars, and his most recognised game, Another World (Known as Out of This World in the US so as to not be confused with the popular soap opera Another World. By sheer coincidence, the sci-fi sitcom Out of This World aired at the same time as the game's release). Another World is considered to be Chahi's magnum opus, and has been cited by acclaimed Japanese game designers Fumito Ueda and Hideo Kojima as an influence in their works. Eric created Another World almost entirely on his own, from the graphics to the final box art, with the only outside help being from Jean Francois Freitas, a friend who wrote the music.

Soon after leaving Delphine Software Chahi founded developer Amazing Studio. There he became involved in Heart of Darkness, an ambitious side-scrolling game with similar gameplay to his previous game, Another World. Heart of Darkness is notable for its FMV cutscenes, being the first game to have its soundtrack scored by an orchestra, and its extreme difficulty. Development of Heart of Darkness took anywhere between five and seven years depending on the source, and was moderately received by the press and public when it was finally published in 1998 after frequent delays.

After Heart of Darkness (1998-)

After Heart of Darkness was published by Interplay in 1998 Chahi disappeared from the games industry for many years, concentrating more on his painting and photography.

In 2005 released a free GameBoy Advance version of Another World. It was created in collaboration with another programmer, Cyril Cogordan, who had originally started the GBA version as a fan project.

Later in 2005, Chahi, in collaboration with developer Magic Productions, produced a mobile phone version of Another World to be sold commercially. The two collaborated again for the 2006 release of the updated collector's edition of Another World, which features higher resolution graphics and can run on modern versions of Windows.

Chahi also appeared in 2005 at the Game Developer's Conference, and has revealed that he is working on a new game, unrelated to any of his previous work. According to interviews this new game will be a strategy game of some kind. He also harshly criticized the modern game industry not sufficiently supporting creativity in games.

Chahi's most recent title is From Dust, a god game that shares characteristics with Populous and Black & White. From Dust was released for Xbox Live Arcade on July 27, 2011, for PC on August 17, 2011, and for Playstation Network on September 13, 2011.