Collected Works Eric Chahi

The Another World dev looks back on a career that began before he’d even left school.

- Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Éric Chahi had an early start in games. When he was just 15, he made two games, Frog and Carnaval, for the Oric-1, a British-made computer that was briefly a competitor to Sinclair’s Spectrum. A family friend introduced him to the machine’s distributors; he showed them the games and an offer was made: 2,500 Francs (then around £250) or some gear. Chahi took the gear – a printer and two joysticks – and his career began in earnest. While he’s been in and out of the spotlight over the intervening 35 years, he’s never really stopped making games. Here, he reflects on a long, and remarkably varied, career.

LE PACTE

Developer Éric Chahi Publisher Loriciels Format Amstrad CPC Release 1986

Le Pacte was really the transition point from school to a professional career. I decided to quit school when I was 19. For all my previous games, sales had been okay, so I did a simple calculation: if instead of doing one game per year I did four, I could make a living from creating games. But I spent a whole year on Le Pacte. It didn’t sell so well, but the publisher, Loriciels, was really excited about it, and the game is special for me because it was the first time I tried to create a mood, or ambience.