I like it too. Seems like it could get a bit frustrating (as a lot of videogames' escort missions are) but VERY rewarding. A combination I'm quite familiar and fond of in Oddworld.

So is Alf's escape after or before the events of new n tasty? If Alf's Escape takes place before Abe's escape, then he would be the 300th Mudokon, making the actual game start with 299 :P
Or it could take place after RuptureFarms shuts down.. But then machinery would be powerless due to Abe cutting the power. However, it would be awesome to explore a desolate, run down version of RF, which could be creepy :P

If anything, I'm more fine with this. It does make me wonder what sort of creature might be in the stage though.

Scrabania, presumably they will just place Alf's Escape as a chapter somewhere during Zulag 2-4 so, if you have it downloaded, it feels like a natural part of the game.

I could be wrong, though.

It could be a great excuse to add in some Elum sections to AE! It could be an old Meech temple that's been partially destroyed in the Magog's efforts to hunt down the increasingly scarce Meeches.

They could also use this section to introduce the Mudombies as obstacles (as obviously the temple will be devoid of all Meeches) and maybe fill the rest of the tunnel with Fleeches and maybe a mix of some Paramites and Scrabs that found a way into the ruined temple.

Just some ideas :fuzwink:

I fancy the idea of new places to explore! Might be a bit of work for JAW, though. Either way, I would just be chuffed that Exoddus is being remade.

If I recall correctly Alf is one of the group of mudokons that assists Abe in his journey to the mines at the beginning of AE. If we put what happens to these mudokons next within a framework that makes sense they get recaptured and forced to work in the mines meaning Abe has to rescue Alf again in AE.

True, it would give Alf all the more reason to volunteer to venture on with Abe in the beginning of AE. Interesante. But, there's already a perfectly good thread dedicated to this topic, so back onto the extra areas.

I would be almost as happy with a fully fleshed out Fee Co Depot (not the exec offices, but the actual hub) as I would be with access to different factories. They gave us a little taste of puzzling and combat scenarios in the Depot, but a full, Slig Barracks/Bonewerkz sized progression area would make me incredibly happy.

Oh, how I hope they reach that 250k unit goal soon. It's obvious they're going to exceed that goal, but it's a matter of how SOON??

I'm dying for it!

It will probably be a wee while. They've only released on one platform and it's only been a week. Plus ol' Gilrod said they essentially ate into Exoddus' pre-production since they spent 9 more months on the game than initially anticipated. So they won't start working on the game for another 3-6 months apparently if they get the sales needed.

3-6 months is bearable. I'm just happy Oddworld is back after such a long hiatus. I only hope I get to see the whole Quintology pan out. Long live Oddworld.

I was always under the impression that it was so deserted and heavily guarded because Abe was coming. But, yeah, I'd like to see some stuff going on in there.

No swinging boulders? No problem.

DODGE THE TRAINS

bwaaam bwaaam

That would be awesome . And for boneworkzz instead of meat saws, there can be streams of bone dust you have to dodge and maybe some bone hammers that turn everything to dust

I believe the bone drills already replace AO's meat saws in the currently existing version of AE and are found in more places that Bonewerkz.
That zulag in SoulStorm Brewery comes to mind.

Those would be very cool changes. I'd love to see JAW take liberties with little things like that .

HOMINIX, what I meant with balance is that there are already more industrial places than nature places in AE. Also making a game longer is not always a good idea as you have to maintain the gamer's attention for all that time. For hard core fans it might seem unimaginable that people can get bored of the game but trust me that happens.

Hopefully it's something like that. I don't see how it would make sense for Abe to go back to RF between AO and AE.

And Abe wielding a lance.

It would be really cool to see Elum in Exoddus. I always wondered why they didn't show up in Abe's Exoddus. Perhaps something to do with insufficient disk space.

While I love Elum, I don't think he'd suit Exoddus levels. There aren't the same sort of open areas such as Paramonia and Scrabania. Besides... MINE CART!

Alcar...

Not going to lie, I mostly didn't care for Elum parts in AO. The deaths felt cheap from button lag or the graphic not seeming like it lined up for the jump right. I really like Elum as a character/creature, but the gameplay was just bad. And
The mine cart was kinda whatever storywise, but really fun to play with.

Ah, yeah. Now that you mention it, AO did much more horizontal level structure than AE overall. But if they ever remake it, there would still be hope for some extra areas peppered throughout the game.

I was playing AO yesterday and was thinking about this. I think since his legs are on the back end of his body, it threw my jump timing off. I find myself often mistiming his jump right when his front half reaches the jump instead of when his legs reach the jump.

It seems in New n Tasty that the Elum jumps are a little more forgiving now that Abe/Elum doesn't move along a fixed grid, giving them the ability to shorten the jumps a tiny bit while still having them wide enough for Abe alone to be unable to jump them.

I was thinking about Abe and mudokons riding some Elums in the desert at the beginning.

Insufficient memory, actually.

That makes sense. I'm impressed they were able to cram in all those features in the first place. And I'm beyond impressed that they were able to put out a gem like that in only 9 months!

You know what would be pretty interesting in an AE remake? More puzzles centered around pants-less sligs. They could potentially have pretty unique solutions/obstacles.

I wonder if they'll give Greeters different voices? Supposedly they didn't want to waste memory on unique sound files for them in AE...

I expect not. They're supposed to be mass-produced utilities, after all.

I hope they get their own robotic voice that isn't just a pitch shift. Great, now even I'm talking about it like it's confirmed.

Greeters having pre recorded non electronic voices would be the best and most unsettling imo

Or better yet, have them voiced by Microsoft Sam and Google Translate

That does sound cool, but pretty early in their design (pg. 128) it was decided they should sound "like an old tinkertoy". That doesn't really mean much to me (Google Images* just turns up some kind of wooden Meccano), but I imagine that buzzing, whining, unwinding-clockwork ring to their voice is probably here to stay.

It would be a good opportunity to expand their dialogue, though (and we all know how much JAW loves expanding dialogue).

They were originally programmed as robot shills, taking investors on pre-recorded tours of facilities, or just generally harassing people into buying useless cack. The whole electrocution thing was them taking forceful marketing a little too far, but the Glukkons found it more cost-efficient to repurpose them as guards than actually fix them. I guess we'll probably hear them dropping broken fragments of sales jargon like "SPECIAL OFFER!" or "BUY NOW!"

*Or "!gi" as I now call it - thanks, DuckDuckGo!

That would be really fucking cool actually.

*zaps* EVERYTHING MUST GO.

That would be quite cool. Greeters could also shout the various taglines for Magog products. "It'll cost you and arm and a leg!" "Say it, don't spray it!"

Damn right! And all the better for it I say.

I think it would be cool if some/most of them have distorted and broken voices to show that they're old and are malfunctioning.

Or even something simple like shouting freeze! If they start chasing you.

If they crash into a wall, they should switch to a random language.

I think I'd prefer the creepily friendly "Hi!"

I love it

I like that idea, Meech, but I can see some silly players thinking they've encountered a bug!

"Why are they speaking French in Oddworld? This must be the French dub files!"

The logic doesn't exactly hold (why are they speaking English, eh?) but I could see people complaining online about it.

I say playtest it and see how they respond. Then do it anyway because it's a cool idea!

I love how we talk about Twice the Flavour as if it's already in production.

I think it'd be fairly obvious that it's intentional. Games such as Portal feature this random language switch gag and it doesn't ever come across as a bug.

Ah, but the one in Portal 2 is very clearly established as Wheatley says something like "I'm a genius now!" speaks some Spanish and then says something like "I don't even know what that means!"

I was just feeding off some of Valve's game commentaries where they explain removing a couple of nifty features that were incorrectly perceived as bugs by some playtesters.

I was imagining the Greeters' language change to be more akin to the one heard around 1:02 in this video, but I definitely see where you're coming from.