A Beginner's Guide to Another World (CRASHING SOLUTION and some tips to make your play a smoother experience)

[kalematsuba]

Hey guys! So, first of all I want to say hi, my name is Kale(matsuba).
I'm a big fan and speedrunner of this game, boasting about 200+ plays and a fastest time of about 10:53. (Not even close to the WR, but i'm getting there. lol)

I'm also actually in development with Eric Chahi as the artist of a potential sequel comic to the game. You can check out my art and updates on that on my twitter! You may have also seen some of my art on the community page already.
@KALEMATSUBA

I'm here to provide sort of a quick beginners guide to the game to make the experience a bit smoother for those who aren't as experienced with older games of this type and level of difficulty.
THIS IS NOT A WALKTHROUGH. There will be no spoilers in this guide, nor will there be any solutions to the actual challenges in the game. Only some guidelines to make figuring them out easier.

I get real sad when people put down this absolutely amazing game because of the harder, unrelenting difficulty, trial and error puzzles, and semi-dated controls... because honestly these things are just products of the time the game was made and shouldn't detract from the game itself being special and worthwhile. It should be treated as a "period piece" of sorts. With this in mind, please give it another chance!

IF YOU WANNA SKIP MY BLABBERING, THE GUIDE STARTS HERE.


1. The Controls and moving Lester

• a. First thing I would suggest is changing the control scheme. Use a keyboard to play. I promise its easier. (Also, apparently using gamepads like the xbox windows controller causes the game to crash constantly due to conflicts with the drivers. So just don't bother with one.) In the options, change your movement to the WASD keys, and the Jump action to J key, and the Run/Shoot action to K key. This is my personal speedrun setup.
  
  
• b. Yes, the controls in this game are a little dated and require specific coordination. There a lot of moments in this game that require you to react quickly, which can make this more frustrating. Use the first few screens of the game to quickly learn how to control Lester. Learn to run+jump, and stop on a dime. That latter one is important because as you will find, Lester tends to have soap on the bottom of his shoes, and slides around a lot when stopping... this is probably the most frustrating part of how this game controls. But it can be managed with a little bit of finess.
  
  
• c. As soon as you get the gun, immediately learn all its functions. It has three. I see many people get stuck in the very first area because they don't experiment and realize the gun has a larger beam type shot.
  
  
• d. Re: Gun - and shields - to use the shield to its maximum ability during battles without frustration: Place shield. Tap forward ever so slightly so that Lester lowers the gun. Then raise it again and shoot. This puts the tip of the gun PAST the barrier. Otherwise, you'll just be shooting at your own shield and wear it down/destroy it. Yup, that's a thing.
  
  
• e for extra: For those who wanna employ some tighter control. Another World is a little different from most newer games in that, the run and shoot action are the same button. this can be tricky for people to get used to. In order to shoot the gun, Lester has to be standing still. The interesting thing (another thing that sets it apart from most other games) is that one tap of the action button when standing still only raises the gun, and subsequent taps shoot it. This causes a bit of a delay in actually shooting, so it should be taken into account. If you want to be REALLY extra, when running, keep the action button held down for a quarter of a second after you've stopped pressing the direction youre moving. Lester will actually raise the gun right out of the run animation and you can start shooting immediately. Definitely makes things go a lot faster/smoother.

2. General Rules of Thumb to avoid the Confusion Stage of Playing

The "puzzles" (I dont like to call them puzzles, theyre more like a sequence of events that require you to use your brain while in the action) in this game can be relentlessly confusing at first, especially when you miss one small objective in the sequence and wind up starting way back. This game boasts a nice little challenge where if you miss a single thing, or do something in the wrong order, you will need to die and start the whole area over, or you wind up at a dead end and die anyway. Again, one of the many difficult natures of old games.Here are a few guidelines to help you skip that frustrating "trial and error" part.

• a. Do NOT leave Buddy (the alien friend) behind, unless he is purposely assisting Lester in escape - then you will reconvene with him later. Otherwise, find a way to help him. If you don't, your progression is halted. This is a pretty key element of the game and should come naturally, but its worth mentioning.
  
  
• b. Make sure you search everywhere, explore each area thoroughly. A good rule of thumb here is, start from the bottom up. Begin the "puzzle" in each new area on the absolute lowest level first, as far down as you can go. Then work your way back up. I think the Caves is where this is the most important to remember.
  
  
• c. Some puzzles require you to BREAK walls/doors, while others require you to USE them. Don't just go breaking every wall/door you see. There's one puzzle with a certain guard in the City area that requires this in particular, and its one I see everybody get stuck on because they BREAK the door instead of USING it somehow...
  
  
• d. watch the reflection of the guard on that ceiling lamp. there's a pattern.

3. This Game Isn't Perfect, but its Still a Work of Art and a Piece of Gaming History

here are some of the ways to deal with the game's clear flaws (although there aren't many)

• a. In the Caves, the "hit boxes" of the monster pits on the ground are crooked and sometimes just totally off. Some'll grab you when you aren't touching them at all, and others you can almost stand right on them. You'll have to just kind of learn where they are. (I may provide a diagram of them later.) This is probably the only thing I can think of about the game that's glaringly unfair/flawed. I just chalk it up to programming limitations of the time. The checkpoints here are pretty forgiving probably for that reason, so don't sweat it too much.
  
  
• b. Sometimes youre pressing the dang shoot button rapidly, and the gun won't shoot or skips shots. I think this is just an issue with the 20th anniversary port, because my 15th anniversary edition on CD-rom by a different publisher doesn't do this. (in otherwords, blame Digital Lounge). Again, don't sweat it too much. Just do all the things I suggested above re: controlling the gun and you should be fine. I promise it'll make dying unfairly a lot less likely.

That's all I can think of for now! If I think of anything else, I'll add it to the guide. Alternatively, If you guys have any questions/suggestions, feel free to reply to this thread and shoot them at me. I'm also always around and more than happy to help people out with hints if they're stuck.

Please let me know if you found this useful! Replies to the thread allow it to be displayed higher in the community page where it's more likely to be seen. I'd really appreciate that!

matsuba!!

[walterjohnhunt]

Thank you for this.

[kalematsuba]

Originally posted by walterjohnhunt:

Thank you for this.

you're very welcome!

[kalematsuba]

putting this up to the top!