Have a realistic progression of ability instead of "Abe's stitches don't work" at the start.
No talking/chanting until his stitches are cut.
No mudokon rescues until return to rupture farms.

That would be changing the game far too much.

That would mean removing crucial gameplay features until the end of the game. How would that make any sense?

It would also mean removing Abe's stitches, which are quite an important of his appearance and character.

Welcome to the forums fleechguy!

I know what you're saying, I actually thought about some kind of skill progression, and thought about his stitches in the same way. I seem to remember hearing that OWI considered the same thing back in the day too, they just didn't go ahead with it because of time constraints.

Problem is that Abe's stitches are iconic to his character now, you can't really remove them without removing part of his charm.

Also, everyone on this forum would hunt me down and kill me.

You could keep them, but loosen them over time.


Also, I wouldn't suggest getting too attached to fleechguy.

Well in my opinion it would make sense to have just "more" stitches to shut his mouth and to lose his ability to talk and remove a few of them if he reaches Monsaic Lines. You can see that the original game design of Abe's Oddysee was more about to sneak instead of possessing Sligs. You get the first hint if the player comes to the Monsaic Lines.

It just makes not so much sense in the Original that Abe has such powers in the beginning, to posses his enemies. So I would really like to see some more story wise elements combined with the gameplay in the beginning.

You could have the stitches cut at the bottom, so they still hang over his mouth. That would look pretty much the same.

Except when he speaks. Or moves his head.

Note the qualifier 'pretty much'.

I think speech would look better with fluttering stitches, anyway. Along with his ponytail, it would give him some momentum.

Anyway, JAW give us some info about "how long" we will wait till first arts/screens etc. Show as some arts for game (you definitely have some).

They can do that already. Admittedly, it will just be the production art for Abe's Oddysee, but it's still accurate.

Re: stitchlips, I think it’s stretching suspension of disbelief to tell the audience that Abe has never spoken or opened his mouth before a certain point in the gameplay where his stitches get cut/removed.

Wasn’t the original justification that his stitches were loosened over the years?

The idea of Abe not being able to speak at the start of the game is a remnant of an earlier time in development when none of the characters communicated coherently and there was a much more language-less Another World quality to the game. Neednless to say, this is not what Oddworld has become, and the power and appeal of GameSpeak should be present from the very start of the game.

Our concept art is the concept art for Abe's Oddysee, which you've seen. You can see the character models, albeit not completely finalized, on Facebook. Anything like an ingame screenshot is months away, and anything you'll get before then will be in confined to dev diaries where the WIP context will be at its most.

I'm not even at a point where I could write a dev diary worth reading to be honest, at least not without talking about ideas that have yet to be properly nailed down.

Oh I have plenty of ideas for dev diaries you can write. I'll get them jotted down for when you're back in the office.

I'm not sure why, but that worries me.

It's probably all the nude photography it would involve.

How do you guys put up with this guy around the office without a weekly sexual harassment claim??

Bribes. Lots and lots of bribes.

It's not harassment if they like it.

You're assuming there are no weekly sexual harassment claims. Problem is that it's Wil who handles all the paper work.

Lets just say that Wil's shredder is a lot more busy these days.

Also, shredder isn't an innuendo.

I agree that speech should be there from the start, and that Abe would lose a lot of his uniqueness if he were to lose the stitches altogether. I would however love to see some actual development of his abilities after he escapes RF.

How about just explaining his stitches stretched as he got older? If accepted continuity is that Sam sewed his mouth shut to stop him crying as a baby, then it follows the stitches were only intended to be temporary until he learnt to keep his mouth shut! Maybe Sam used a stretchy material knowing as he got bigger and stronger, he would eventually be able to talk?

As far as his abilities evolving, have Abe learn possession once he reaches the Monsaic lines. Any mudokon can talk, so it's natural Abe can from the beginning. I think the biggest debate is how he knows spiritual stuff without being exposed to it. Learning chanting from the natives would really show that Abe's journey taught him something and that he changed as a result.

In fact, possession is not explained in game until Monsaic lines anyway. Most (if not all) of the rescues pre-escape rely on gamespeak, mines, levers and boulders to kill sligs anyway. In my opinion, we can keep all of the early puzzle and gamespeak learning from the beginning in place, and perhaps expand on the possession element at the start of the Monsaic lines.

Abe is supposed to feel like the little weak guy sneaking out of RF, then gaining power and going Rambo on his way back in! I think a greater emphasis on hiding from sligs during the escape would add loads to the tension of being caught. We simply do not need possession right at the beginning :)

However, we do have to have it before he returns to RF because otherwise he will get chanting at the same time he gets shrykull.

I was thinking more that he gets the chanting ability at the beginning of Monsaic lines, before Paramonia and Scrabania. He would get Shrykull afterwards. I think thats quite a large chunk of the game in between :)

This game needs some real co-op play. Not that take turns after dying bull crap that was in Exoddus.

Let's have some blind mudokons with stretchy stitches as well. We could start a trend. Sligs with stretchy pants. Glukkons with stretchy lapels. It could run and run.

It is sort of already like that, except that his abilities are skewed slightly. He does leave, then come back stronger, but I have been thinking about how come he can already chant.

The problem is that the first area, which is ostensibly a training area, would be much more difficult without the ability to posses that first Slig.

I came to the conclusion that limiting Abe's abilities for the first third/quarter of the game isn't the right approach to take. As it would change the original core gameplay too much, and a certain amount of the levels would need to be messed with the make it work.

We also can't really change the story; if we add scaffolding as to why Abe can chant, then who are we doing it for? I think the accepted explanation is that Abe has a special talent for it, so perhaps he never saw a need to use it up until then? After all, as far as he's concerned, he has an awesome job. Why would he jeopardise it by possessing/killing a guard? When he realises they're going to kill him, he has nothing to lose by using it.

There are other things of that nature that I've had to ignore because explaining it isn't as good an option as changing it, and I can't change it.

An example is why is Monsaic lines so close to RF? Wil gets annoyed when I pester him with that question.

That's fine. You just need to make players aware of that.

One could also ask why Abe didn't simply use his chanting when he peeked into the boardroom. Knowing what they were doing he could have easily posessed a Glukkon or the slig and done something about it.

I do think that there should be some incline to Abe's powers. It just doesn't make sense that he's fleeing the factory but apparently always had the ability to help his friends out and set them free. Yes the first part before the stockyards are essentially training, but the training could be split up in two parts (controls, shadows, levers, etc & possessing, slig controls, stuff like that). Big Face could teach Abe about chanting (or teach him how to use it to posses creatures, since chanting itself seems to be a common thing among Mudokons).

It would require some level redesigns, but I don't see how that would be a problem. You're not just remaking the textures like you're doing on Munch HD. You're building the game up from scratch, the levels will have to be designed and built anyway. So why not use that opportunity to introduce things that were cut or couldn't be put into the original? Abe only learns about his fate after escaping, it would make sense from a story P.O.V that he would only become serious about rescuing muds and stopping the Glukkons after learning that fate. Before that he's just a scared floor waxer trying to get the hell out.