Other Worlds – Preview

Are you a fan of the good old Lucasarts and Sierra adventures? Do you feel lost and hopeless now that Lucasarts has flown to a galaxy far, far away and Sierra is giving the porn industry a run for its money? Well, fear no more, for here comes the army of the independent developers!

Other Worlds is a 2D point-and-click adventure in the old Lucasarts style (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken), using a similar user interface to Sierra’s SCI1 (King’s Quest V, Space Quest IV). Believe it or not, Other Worlds has been in development for about 7 years (!) and actually was intended to be an Amiga text adventure. Here’s what developer, Alkis Polyrakis, has to say about his game’s history:

“After witnessing the decline of traditional 2D point & click adventure games, I decided that instead of complaining I should do something about it. This project started as a text adventure for the Amiga in 1997; I was using the fantastic ADMS engine at the time. However, I abandoned it after a few months because I realized it wasn’t going to be played by enough people to justify the hard work I was putting into it.

A few years later, I learned about the Adventure Game Studio engine by Chris Jones. I decided to try it and I was very pleased to find out that it was by far the best engine ever created for the purpose. That was in 2001. The initial engine was pure DOS-based and progress was slow at first, but as soon as the windows version was released it was a lot more user-friendly. Three years later, after countless hours of editing, drawing, scripting, surfing, testing, correcting and compiling, the product is almost ready.”

The strength of Other Worlds lies in its storyline: on an ordinary day, Natalia – our heroine – returns home to find her boyfriend Alkis gone and the only clue is a cryptic message. So she sets off to find him, but her quest will not be that simple as she will have to visit numerous “other” worlds, interact with common and not-so-common people and overcome a multitude of obstacles. .

Although the focus on the unfolding storyline will keep your interest peaked, it also features beautiful background graphics with nicely designed, early Lucasarts-style characters. After having played the beta version – which comprised about 3/4 of the game – I feel safe in proclaiming that Other Worlds will remind you of the “old-school” days and have you glued to your seat from start to finish. I am eagerly anticipating its release this Christmas and predict it will could be a game that will transcend it’s independent developer roots and gain some mainstream acceptance.