Don't forget the fat ass queens! They're female as well.

Yes. Much better.

"I think Fangus is an outline of Stranger."

Assuming we are talking about the magazine-scan design of Fangus Klot, there certainly are some similarly. Stranger is gorilla-centaur-stag creature who uses a crossbow, a Fangus Klot is a bipedal, almost cat-like humanoid who uses two guns.
However, Stranger is also very cat-like. When he is in 'disguise' form, his face has some very cat (and Fangus Flot)-like characteristics, and his quadrupedal sprinting is very cat like.
However, apart from the thought that Oddworld Inhabitants probably wanted to intensify on the agresive cat-like characteristics of Stranger when creating Kangus Klot, I see no connection here.
All I see is the influence and evolution of one design into another, yet they remain separate and of their own.

However, your statement I quoted still doesn't make sense to me. Do you mean that Fangus Klot looks like Stranger? Or, do you mean to see that Fangus Klot is an early design for Stranger? Or, perhaps, something else?
Your use of 'outline' is curious; it's a very vague word to use.

Too bad the game was canceled... The character sure did suck, but the scenery and weapons made me spontaneously ejaculate.

Are you guys nuts?! You'd rather have nothing instead of a new, possibly somewhat unoriginal game? Sure it's not very Oddworld-esque, but isn't something better then nothing? The gameplay could have been great, and isn't that all that matters. Besides, they look really awesome if you forget about Oddworld's early work. Oh well, at least we have... well, I guess there's not really much to look forward to anymore. Poo.

Great find Xav!

Something is indeed better than nothing, and Lorne + Sherry are working on a film. Which is something.

Yay!!!

Of course not! Compelling stories, characters, design, originality and charm are all Oddworld neccessities. And Fangus was very much lacking in those factors.

Why would you want to do something like that? The earier games were amazing.

We've only seen a few pieces of early concept art. You can obviously see the difference between the two fangus designs we've seen, so it's silly to think there'd be no changes made for the final product. It's all void now, considering it's been cancelled.

By the way, i'm not really looking forward to the Oddworld movie, but they might suprise me. It's the games that interest me.

Well, I think the two different designs are for non-rabid Fangus and rabid Fangus, so that point isn't really valid.


Yes that's true, and while I don't know if I would have liked Fangus, I would give anything to have OWI back together.

Honestly, I was hoping for a game as well. but if it's something unoriginal-seeming like Fangus, I think I'd rather have a unique and Oddworldy movie.

I used to think you were cool, Lorne.
 

That's the whole reason that my fan character is a female.

On topic, I am so glad this game was cancelled. I mean, look at Abe, Munch, and even Stranger. Their anatomies are distinctly different from a human's. Then look at the concept for Klotz. It's almost like looking at a photo of a relative. Fangus Klotz is WAY TOO HUMAN. I completely agree with you, Scrab Watcher. If you take the Odd out of Oddworld, you have a whole different product.

I had faith in OWI that they would keep on staying true to their series' namesake. If they start creating characters that look this human, I refuse to buy their games.

Wierd creature and character designs was what made them so cool, and this is BULLSHIT.

Well, Xav said that there'd be more to come. Let's just hope that we see a shift in the later designs that tilts towards him being less human.

God, what a thing to see on my birthday, eh?

Confusion's funny, but when I do make people confused, no body gets me.
Yes, I said Fangus looks like Stranger. That's what I said. When I saw the Newspaper article fer Fangus, I thought it was Stranger at first. (but then noticed the very evil-looking sheep next to him) Saw the name Fangus, and my story then changed. If yeh still don't get's me, ferget that I said anything. :p

Yes. 'Tis such a horrifying sight? Cover yer eyes, and look away. ;)

Uck. Fangus is a human. His enemies are the Remans from Star Trek, aren't they? That is, humans in make up. Can anyone seriously imagine a Mudokon standing next to these characters without it looking like some sad fanwank of shipping Muds to Earth? The helicopter is awesome (nice to see the rotor design recycled from Stranger), but strangely for Silvio, the other hardware seems to lack inspiration, except the gun turrets which just lack odditude in my opinion, but then that's a spirit that's bound to be hard to capture. It makes me wonder if OWI placed as much importance on iteration as they did in their opening years.

Why is Silvio still designing characters? His vehicles are the best on Oddworld, and his illustrations bring real life and depth to everything, but his characters are consistantly the least inspired in terms of body design. The only three characters I saw on his website that I would let onto Oddworld without any niggles would be the first two ‘wildlife’ creatures (not the boar) and the hunched-over bird.

That's by no means an attack on Silvio, by the way - I don't even know that all those designs were intended for Oddworld. It's more a knock at the quality control at OWI before it disbanded.

EDIT:
My god, really? How's about that, then.

Humans on Oddworld, wow. It's unbelievable that Fangus could of been made by oddworld. When you first look those concepts of Fangus, you would never they could of come form oddworld, because form the looks of it, it doesn’t seem they are oddworld creatures at all. There is nothing wrong with designs, the costumes and stuff are nice, that character looks cool, It's just that not in Oddworld! Oddworld is supposed to have creatures which are odd, strange, and look very unusual to us, but this is like taken form Earth.

:

Can anyone seriously imagine a Mudokon standing next to these characters without it looking like some sad fanwank of shipping Muds to Earth?

I thought the same thing, it's hard to imagine. Back in the days of MO, if someone says there's going to be human like characters, no way anyone would believe that.

I can see how oddworld is drifting from what it's supposed to be another planet with odd content, to more humanoid, ending up with Earth's inhabitants. It's no suprise why older fans like Abebabe is loosing interesting in oddworld, because in a way the oddworld is fading away, well not completely... I hope. Sure OWI might say it's an oddworld creature, but oddworldian style is going. But these are only concept work, so it isn't that shocking.


But what I like about this is the dark tone it has, the atmosphere I likw very much.
The guns on Silvios website are slightly different Fangus ended up holding. The ones in his hands were more designed, have of a style, and I think they can fit in oddworld. Alot of the hardware (except the gunes) and machinery are pretty cool, except the helicopter. It's not bad, but it could have more of an oddworld character to it, maybe. As for the environments, they look good, some though might look like that it could of been on Earth. However some remind me of the interiors of Rupturefarms.

:

Well, Xav said that there'd be more to come. Let's just hope that we see a shift in the later designs that tilts towards him being less human.

I think there is more, because there one which showed a copyright belonged to oddworld, which appears to be a city!

:

Why is Silvio still designing characters? His vehicles are the best on Oddworld, and his illustrations bring real life and depth to everything, but his characters are consistantly the least inspired in terms of body design. The only three characters I saw on his website that I would let onto Oddworld without any niggles would be the first two ‘wildlife’ creatures (not the boar) and the hunched-over bird.

Oh yeah. That bird like Doctor looked very cool (reminds of a vykker, including the teeth) that leggless baby mudokon look-alike was great too. These sorta stuff are what we want to see in oddworld.
Oh and I think every designer get's a turn to design the next main character.


Anyway, Fangus didn't end up being a human, but more of a cheetah humanoid, which isn't as bad.

And great work Xav!

I agree, the upper-class hunched over bird looked particularly good in my opinion.
It's a shame they're probably only an early idea for what turned out to be Vykkers.

What about those cartoon dogs in the 'Other' section? ;)

What's the subtitle to the old 'Stranger' logo on the site?
I think it's Wrath of the Wild, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Yeah, cartoon dogs in oddworld?? No way. Mabey something which belongs to oddworld inhabitants, and not oddworld in general. Weird. I think that name would of been better instead of Stranger's Wrath.

Oh, I see you changed your name, Esus, I mean Shrink. Very oddworldly ;)

Why'd you do that, Esus? I liked that name, it was original. I was planning on naming a character in the Actra series after you.

I had grown to despise the name. Particularly the way (not on OWF) people had started calling me Jesus, as if it was inspired by Jesus' name.
During this time, I also began to love the name Shrink, even though the Oddworld character is more, The Shrink.

Anyway, it awesome that you was going to name a character as Esus. :D

Oh, I thought it was a take on the name Jesus. That's what I thought was cool about it. Oh well. I blame Luke for being too nice.

I hadn't thought about the birds being early Vykker designs. That would be a shame. I liked the idea of them being engineers and politicians as well as doctors. The politics on Oddworld would be fascinating to learn about. More fascinating than Earth politics as filtered by the mass media, anyway.

I failed to comment on my opinions of the environment designs. They were okay, I suppose. The concept art for the Stranger environments never particularly excited me, though. I just long for the amazing vistas and viaducts seen in the backgrounds of the first two games. The usage of regular squarey shacks doesn't please me. They need some distinctive style like the barrels in Clakker buildings.

guys what I poste on my site is for/from oddworld
when I said there was more I was referring to the stranger and other section on togg wich are now updated.

on the other hand there is a possibility to have even more later but I can't promise anything.

I worked hard to have most of the pictures in the right sections ;)

PS: I think I can post some 3D still of some fangus stuff later when I come back home

Glad to see you back MAX!

You're a complete star, Xav. Good to see you back too, as you've been away for a bit. Great work on keeping TOGG updated and full-to-the-brim with the latest released Oddworld pics. I can't wait for the chance to see even more new stuff. ;)

I might just mention:
On pictures that are not specifically for showing off characters, take the humanoids on them with a pinch of salt. Basically, they often put human shapes into Oddworld environments just to get a sense of scale.
They did it with some of the MO concept art in the AoO book.

I do agree with many on the human thing. It wouldnt of worked.

Meh, it was cancelled anyway so I guess it's not much to think of anymore. But Lorne, he better whip up some unique ideas or I will stomp around muttering angrily :rant: :compmad:.

:banghead: Im already stomping around and muttering angrily :fuzmad:

Hey Xav, you still haven't answered the question asking where you got those fangus pics from. We know who Deep Throat is now, so you can reveal your source as well.

On a different topic; I find it hilarious how upset people get that Silvio has some non-oddworldesque pictures on his site. The guy doesn't live in OWI HQ. He can draw whatever the heck he wants in his spare time and put it on his website. In fact, I'd say he intentionally put some non-oddworldy designs up so that potential fans/employers can see his range.

I have the pictures from Silvio and he helped me a bit for determining what picture should go in what section... ;)

so it's quite accurate

Wow, straight from the horses mouth.

I wasn't talking about the ones on your site though, just the ones on his. If you look closely, the ones he did for OWI have a watermark saying (c) Oddworld Inhabitants. The rest, which include some that people have been describing as "unOddworldy", were done by Silvio for Silvio.

on the other hand blitzer's gun doesn't have the oddworld watermark on it...

I don't think there should be a human on Oddworld. It would destroy all the "odd-feeling" if you know what I mean. I was very surprised to see this human like creature.
A female hero would be quite odd, yeah :D

I am going to go out on a limb here and say why can't there be some sort of sub species of homo sapians existing on Oddworld? Afterall we haven't really explored everything of Oddworld we only looked at a small cornor. I remember there was a statement a while back stateing that inhabitants of different parts of Oddworld look completely alien to each other. Maybe (and this is my theory) Fangus is located on some other continent on the other side of Oddworld where the inhabitants look closer to human and very different from the peoples of Mudos.

Its an interesting concept but rather far out there but thats just me. I just have an open mind on things but your right Humans and Oddworld don't mix, it might work however they would need to really be careful with the concept and make it Oddworldly enough that it makes sense to the phelosphy of Oddworld.

Lorne has said before that there are not and never will be any connection between planets Earth and Oddworld.

And I would hate to see any sort of humans on ow. The whole subtly of the Quintology was that we sympathised with characters who looked alien but who's plight was familiar.

I think we can safely say that this move towards more humanoid characters is 100% a marketing decision.

Well those concept art pieces of Fangus looked really good. But I'd settle for a sequel to Stranger's Wrath....c.c;

Hmm I wonder, do the people at Oddworld Inhabitants ever visit message boards like these?

Do any game developer companies randomly visit message boards created by fans, just to see what people think about their games?

Yes, but seeing as how OWI no longer exists, I don't think that'll be happening anytime soon.

Arg. Nobody ever tells me these things. That and I'm very slow on the up take...

I've been to a few video game, cartoon and sit com message boards where members of the development team at least read people's opinions. Vivendi Universal's Crash Twinsanity board was visited by developers who posted all kinds of trivia, artwork and unused concepts for the fanboys and fangirls there.

OWI does still exist - it's just that all internal development has stopped, and almost all Inhabitants have gone on to other jobs.

hmmm... I'm afraid I have to agree with majority in the sense that I personally dislike the direction it appears Fangus was heading.

I wouldn't say they are "not odd" or that they would "ruin oddworld" or anything, but I definitely feel that Oddworld's strongest elements have been fading in the past couple games.

I've loved all the previous titles (just to assure you I'm not a hater or anything) but the main attraction I had to Oddworld (and the main element keeping me interested) was the contrast of "cute" unique and artistic character designs with the dark, demented and sometimes extremely twisted social environments and stories.

Lorne always blames Munch's failure on Microsoft or the machine's capabilities or his team's capabilities within the given circumstance but, in my opinion, it's the writing that lacks the most. With Stranger as well; things like Clakkers, Grubs, and the Wild West aren't really very unique or odd. Great games, but there's a certain element lacking that we found with Abe's Oddysee and Exoddus. Certainly, it helps that the world was new and fresh with us, but it was the INHABITANTS, writing, and gameplay of Oddworld that were far more distinct, unique, and innovative. Munch lost the gameplay factor with its systematic monotony and Stranger lost the inhabitant factor. Both of them had weak writing in my opinion and that's going to carry on to the rumoured movies if it's not remedied.

Lorne mentioned wanting Oddworld to feel more 'real' but I think he's heading in the wrong direction. Instead of making characters who are more 'real' like Chickens, Grubs, and Human/Jaguars and Sheep, I think he needs to direct his company into the realism of the dark and twisted stories that Abe's jorneys first introduced to us to. Hell, he should push that envelope.

I think ODDWORLD needs to get their writing back in shape if they're going to succeed where they have great potential to do so. ODDWORLD's goals are admirable but they may be making it harder on themselves than it needs to be and pointing fingers and the industry instead of their own (sometimes) poorly executed good ideas.

Great drawings on Silvio's part, though.


Edit: hahaha That wasn't a very "Quick Reply," was it?

I liked Stranger's Story. And maybe I'm not a deep oddworld fan but Stranger was the first character I felt connected to. But I do agree about the writing. It could have been better.