I remember some of Gautam Babar's original artwork for MO was a little glimpse at what it might have looked like in two dimensions.

Can you give examples of what you mean?

Omg seriously? That sounds pretty amazing .I'm So googling this shit right now.

I can't seem to remember such a thing. Pics or it didn't happen

To be clear, I wasn't saying the artwork was made with the intention of visualizing it as a 2D game, just that his style is very 2D.

There's plenty of examples in the art book.

Abe in hd, wow.

Yep. The concept is mind-blowing.

In the "What a drag" FMV sequence could you make Abe's knock out less comical such as removing the stars orbiting his head. I just never really found that bit funny even if you added bird sounds to it.

It's subtle humour, you're not supposed to have an aneurysm from the hilarity of the situation. The game's dark as is, you don't need it to take itself any more seriously.

I suppose your right the game is dark so a little subtle humour does fit in the sequence.

Yeah, I said it before but I think AO got the humour level just right, AE was slightly too cartoony IMO.

Indeed, very much so.

Any chance the gamespeak can be changed be more like AE? Laugh, and Angry don't really do anything gameplay-wise, and fart can easily be relocated to the x button. Also, any chance farting could be used to move mudokkons a step away again?

As a kid, I played AE first so when I bought AO, I always missed the "Work", slap and "All o' ya!"...

I would like to see more of the backstory of RuptureFarms, when abe decides to escape, did Molluck give orders to the Sligs to shoot abe on sight? Maybe provide a scene of the Boardroom being alerted that Abe is on the run and Molluck giving the order to the Slig beside him to have abe captured? Only a brief idea.

I'm not sure about that. During the initial escape, I doubt Molluck even realised Abe existed. Security would have been handled by Sligs and they only would have reported to Molluck when the shit really hits the fan. That would probably be when he returns and saves the rest of the Muds.

If Molluck didn't know Abe existed, how was he employee of the year?

Meaningless middle management incentivization.

Oh i see, anyway could you possibly explain realtime rendering? Does this mean that (for example) when abe rolls through to the stockyards we see him rolling from the gameplay Into the video and when he falls out of the barrell and lands in the stockyards he gets up and we control him again?

No, FMVs are when a prerendered (they made it at OWI in 3D and converted into a movie file) movie plays (like in the roll scene you mentioned), realtime rendering is when the scene is being made by a game engine every time you watch it

People are more inclined to make .mkv files or .h264 at best.... I'd be happy with .avi or .mp4 I don't care.

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but since h.264 isn't a file extension, I'm pretty sure you don't either. Let's call it even.

Oh i think i understand, does this mean that the cutscene where Abe falls down the cliff will have to be altered? because in gameplay, he jumps down the cliff to activate the cutscene which starts with him on top of the cliff looking at his moon

I think it is wonderful that you guys keep in touch with us, its rare that game producers do this, but it really establishes a relationship between the two sides, the developers and the players. Anyway, my question would have to be;

As Abe's Oddysee consisted of screens, the chant detectors would stop working if you move to the next screen, how will this be established in a smooth scrolling HD re-release? Would it show a visible radius or would it be made so that when it is no longer visible it will stop detecting your chanting?

The cutscene begins with Abe jumping down from a higher place to the ledge on which the first part of the cutscene occurs. Seems fine to me.

Oh i see, forgot about him jumping down at the start, thanks for the correction.

This is one of many, many things that's going to have to be worked out in the transition from screen-scrolling to smooth-scrolling. It's also probably one of the easiest since a) they have the simplest of AI, if you can even call it that, b) they're static, and c) they're free-floating. If we make them only work when visible on-screen, we can fluidly control how large an area they affect by changing its depth into the background.

This is just me thinking out loud; I don't think we have a definite solution to this problem.

I know you've all already thought of this, but wouldn't it be easier to have chant suppressors only be active within a certain radius? Then as a gameplay mechanic, only flash and make (subtle humming) noise when active due to the player being close to it.

That way you have more control over them and won't be restricted by, say, having the camera needing to pan out to reveal parts of a level but also having a chant suppressor in sight when it's not supposed to be. You would also be able to make them follow the player to cover a longer area of a level to replace the parts of AO where you have multiple suppressors for multiple screens, for example.

I was just about to suggest the following chant suppressors!

If this ends up being the case, make the orbs static and the drones mobile. I never understood why they had multiple kinds of suppressor, other than the drones looked better at floor level.