Do what you please with gore, just don't make the blood splatter on the screen.

I'm pretty sure I remember Slig gibs bouncing off my monitor.

Oh, but it was OK when Abe's decapitated (low res) head came flying at it?

E: Varrok, you speedy shit.

I'm so fast

Hi, I'm Varrok!

EDIT: I am so fast.

Sorry for triple posting, guys :/

Apropos of nothing, I played AO for five minutes whilst trying to come up with an answer for SgabbitGabbiar and the thought struck me that I really can't wait to get my hands on Abe HD.

I know its a 1995 game buts its not 1995 anymore blood in a game isnt exactly controversial anymore.

So go play Call of Doody if you want gore? Or Gears of Gore, for that matter!

I'm with you on that one, Nate. I had to go and check for any news, I was looking for any sort of unseen artwork or beta screen that I might have missed, yesterday.

Oh. Shit! I didn't even notice.

1997

Wow i just have read this topic. It tooked a couple of days. I'm going to post some of my ideas and thought soon when i cool down and think over about some stuff

I hope this hasn't been mentioned but...
In Scrabania all the ledges were/are jump-able for Abe which kind of made me feel Elum wasn't exactly necessary if it wasn't for the bats hovering the ledges, I was wondering if you could make the gaps slightly bigger.

But as the bats were hovering at the ledges, they weren't jump-able, so your point falls down. I liked that, it was different to Paramonia which was good.

I thought bats were going to be removed, so larger gaps would have to be used, unless they put a floating mine to replace it, but i think that would look weird.

Nothing has been confirmed yet, these are all ideas.

Instead of the bats, make the edge of the ledge crumble. So if Abe attempted to jump the gap alone, he'd have to be hanging on it and hoist himself up, but before he could, the ledge would break away and he'd fall to his death. Jumping with elum would make the ledge break, but elum would be clear of it by the time that happens.

How would you warn the player of the crumbly edge?

If you were to do that, perhaps run visible cracks through the ledge, visible but not obvious, then people will know if they jump there, they die.

I still like the bats, though. It'd be like taking something out of the mix to remove them.

You know how you get the little pebbles that fall from ledges that are climbable? If they're to be included in Abe HD, why not make the crumbly ledges have larger stones falling from them to tell the player to be cautious? This might be confusing though, I dunno.

I had the exact same idea with crumbling ledges, talking of elum and stuff, will we probably see the elum traps by vykkers labs?

There are no plans to include it. We've got the original NURBs for it plus a [broken] animation for it. But it's a pretty weird thing, with no explanation for who put it there or why or how it works. It was replaced for a reason.

Don't the bees and honey replace the elum trap anyway? Makes more sense too rather than a gismo made by the Glukkons out in the middle of nowhere that you have to deactivate.

The crumbling ledges may be a good addition as a more feasible way of preventing players from jumping across gaps that they're only meant to be able to traverse with the Elum, rather than bats, but that would confuse players of the original game who associate falling rocks with showing the way up into a screen above them. Simply widening the gaps may do the trick.

I think bats makes more sense than crumbling ledges, personally.

What about introducing some kind of deadly thorny plant, (like a spiky tumbleweed-cactus thingamajig) that grows on cliff faces throughout Scrabania?

It could be placed below the long gaps, growing out of the cliff face, so if Abe jumps and doesn't make the gap be falls onto/through the thorns and dies? There would clearly be no way to hang from the ledge because of the thorns.

A dry dusty plant like this would fit with the hostile desert theme quite well I think!

Fairs. Whats happening with the hidden, unused screens, i assume it was decided not to include them in the final cut but using a cheat on pc you can access them. My point being, is there new scenes/is it going to be a larger game than original (but obviously the same buildup)?

But yet again, we're faced with the problem of gore. The game can't be too violent, if anything it was more acceptable back then.

I don't like the crumbly-ledge idea. It means that you can't backtrack, for instance to find rocks. Or just to explore.

That said, it would make for a very dramatic and clear way of letting the player know that they can't go back that way.

The crumbling ledges could be implemented in the final rooms of the temples as a source of suspense, perhaps?

The player would be able to back track if the crumbling ledge consisted of 1 pace (the furthest abe can jump without elum) but he can still make the jump With elum.anyway i thought there was only 1 bat in the gap at the right hand side so a crumbling ledge wouldnt make a difference. (unless you go for the crappy regenerating sprite type thing)

Then it wouldn't need to be crumbly. It could just be that wide.

I don't like being herded in one direction. That was one of the things that annoyed me with SW.

I wanted to discuss about one aspect that makes me worry about posted by Wil two months ago on 53 page of this topic.

If i understand it correctly that means AbeHD will be sidescroller platformer instead of platformer where level is divided to separate screens? That would be bad imho. It would require redesigning a lot of puzzles and makes running from scrabs and slogs less exciting as you could see that distance between you and it would be constant. (Well it's not that exciting for me as i finished AO and AE twice, but it was exciting for the first time).

And btw. Whats about moving characters? It would be continous or discrete like in original game? By discrete i mean that Abe is making always equal steps.

So?

As opposed to the original where despite continuously catching the player up, arbitrary points in the world suddenly widen that gap.

At the moment we're playing with a combination of both.

I liked the way Abe always made equal steps, it made it more certain if you would make it over an obstacle or not.

For the mines and jumps that need to be made standing still, I think Abe should have equal steps and jumps. Much of the difficulty was in the player needing to learn patterns and execute a series of commands with good timing.

I feel this would be lost with unequal steps etc. AO is one of the few games where, if I fail a section, I know without a doubt that it's due to my own error- purely because the game runs on precision. It's almost mechanical in a way!

Not once do I recall ever shouting at the game from failing because it was 'unfair' and things hadn't worked as I expected. I'd be more inclined to look where I went wrong and say 'fair enough' than throw the controller down in anger! Even though the game can be maddeningly difficult at times, it remains highly playable because it's all about practice and developing skill, as opposed to grappling with unpredictable gameplay.

In my opinion, uneven movement risks changing the game from challenging to frustrating!

Was stranger done in equal paces? I managed jumps with that, but i can understand where people are comIng from, it would be irritating to be near a mine and move abe a fraction too far and get blown to bits

Most games these days go for the free-step style, but the gameplay mechanics of Abe's Oddysee mostly rely on the even-step style of walking, it kinda needs to stick like that!

Nearly all 3D games operate on a free step style, as it makes for more realistic and fluid gameplay in a three dimensional environment. Even step works great in a two-dimensional environment, but in three dimensions, I think it would be maddeningly stiff.

I'd be interested to see how you tackle this in 2.5D. Will you be toggling walking/running motion to how hard you press the thumbstick, or are you going to have button combos like the classics? You're going to have to re-design everything from the ground up either way. Good luck.

I suppose it could be free for running and even for walking, since I'd imagine someone on a path full of meat saws would be watching their step pretty damn carefully.

One thing that concerns me is the "slide" mechanics that are present in almost all 2.5D games. What I loved about the 2D games was that you could start/stop on a dime. Nowadays, characters in a 3D environment can't even turn around without you fucking sliding a few inches in that direction. It's like the floor is covered in birthing lubricant.

I'd say take the high road and do away with that slip n' slide style of motion from the off. Precision is the name of the game, and you should be able to go from standing perfectly still to a full sprint almost instantly. Same goes for rolling. Rolling gave you the speed of running but allowed you to stop with no skid. Keep that in.

I hope they keep all the controls anc gameplay the same, it was a huge element of abe's oddysee. It would feel wrong to have abe jump at the push of the X button! Which reminds me, will you keep the Dpad controls of move to analogue stick, or both?!