Abe's Oddysee HD Remake - What do YOU want to see?
 

It's no doubt highly anticipated from us all. But I'd like to hear everyone's wish list for Just Add Water's upcoming title. Here's mine.

As a PS3 owner, I want trophies of course.

I'd like to see major polygon upgrades for characters and environments, similar to what the Stranger's Wrath HD remake is recieving. That, coupled with high quality audio suitable to todays standards.

Online co-op would be very exciting.

As long as they keep the same atmosphere and feel as the original, whilst still making it look amazing, I'll be a happy man.

That's all I can think of for the moment. So what improvements would all of you guys like to see? :fuzsmile:

I doubt that would work properly.

It would either make the game too easy or just plain complex. If they would add co-op to a new Abe game, I'd be fine with it since it could most likely work if they'd make it... so that it would work... But if it were added to Oddysee, it would change the game so much that it wouldn't probably fit in it.

More environments and a level editor.
'nuff said.

Yeah, a level editor would be a pretty cool addition.
But I'm very happy about the approach they are making.

"Abe HD is going into production. It’s basically Abe’s Oddysee being redone in a 3D physics engine as a 2D side-scrolling platformer. So the way Just Add Water wants to approach it, we thought was very smart; they are not trying to reinvent any wheels. It’s like, ‘Can we make that experience in a new engine, with new tech, in the old way?"

-Lorne Lanning

If they made it exactly like the original local co-op, where if one person dies, it's the other player's turn to play. I'm sure that could easily work online.

Will it be easier to use than hammer editor?

They should keep the art the same, literally recreate the levels down to the details. Hopefully they can recreate the grittiness and atmosphere too, this is particularly important for Stockyard Escape, which was a masterpiece.

I must also insist that, whatever else, it remains flick-screen format, not smooth scrolling.

This is exactly what I hope for too. But I have faith in Just Add Water to accomplish this task. If done right, it will be fantastic. I can't wait for it. So exciting. :fuzgrin:

You don't lie! This is true?

Just like side scrolling in megaman x8.

I wonder how online would work though? Would you and your friend each be trying to save the same mudokon lol?

Here's mine:

HD is a duh.

Upgrade the cutscene graphics.

Trophies: things like 1. Beat the game in this amount of time. 2. Save all the mudokons. etc.

Not necessarily destructible environments, but lets say a grenade blows up under one of the saws, the saw should at least tilt and look bent and such.

That's my wish list.

What would be the point in having 3D environments if there weren't smooth scrolling?

This. 2.5D flick-screen wouldn't work. Each screen would just look like a static diorama.

QUICKSAVE!

Hasn't Quicksave been confirmed on the official Facebook page?

should be unlockable by a cheat code.
Or at least have a trophy for completing the game without it.

I hope that AO:HD will be so magical (in art style) as this trailer below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxb5c...eature=related

I love that trophy idea. :D

What will Bullet Magnet say then?

Just what i want + quickload!
Using F5 and F6 for that.

Cool trailer. I loved the graphics from the first Trine. The art style and atmosphere was beautiful and, like you said, magical.

Abe's Oddysee HD remake? Wait, what? When?

The camera doesn't have to be stock still and static. But it's movement would be limited, more panning than gliding, and our perspective would flick from camera to camera (or the one camera would quickly dart from point to point) as Abe passes out of one's range. That way you would know, for example, that sligs couldn't shoot you from offscreen. There would be some overlap between what each camera could see, which could get rid of some of those niggling issues from the original where a sprite was out of view but still counted as being in your screen and could kick or shoot you from outside the frame.

I'm with Bullet Magnet on this one - the one-screen-at-a-time thing was a major part of the original game's puzzles.

Not to mention the atmosphere: you were never quite sure what was round the next corner.

And the flat irritating vertical line when walking from screen to screen!!!

I'll be brief: new items, new stages, new challenges, more difficult, more Mudokons to rescue and no Quiksave

It would be cool if Quiksave would be available to use after you've beat the game. Or as an unlockable perhaps.

It'd be great if it had a platinum trophy. Having an Abe's Oddysee platinum on your PSN profile would look pretty nice. I'm still not sure if it will have one though. Most downloadable titles on the PS store don't have platinums, with a few exeptions of course. If the Stranger's Wrath remake has one, then this will most likely follow suit.

I'd like to see a lot of moving parts in the backgrounds. Flying birds, swaying grass, rain, smoke, sparks, machinery, etc.

I'm sure with some simple adjustments the puzzles can all be made functional if not more interesting with a moving camera. This is the 21st century, and if the screens were static it would come across as outdated to a lot of people. Sure it's a remake, but the developers shouldn't limit themselves to the techniques of the past for stubborn nostalgic purposes, especially when they're putting so much work into fully 3D environments. The game will still be great, if not much improved because of it.

And as far as the atmosphere goes, having a seamless game world will only improve the player's immersion. You could make the same argument about the thick fog in Munch's Oddysee improving the atmosphere... but of course no one would make that argument. ;)

Exactly. It's the 21st century. If you're going to remake a classic game then remake it with those classic elements. Otherwise, what is the point? They might as well make entirely new Abe game, telling the Oddysee story (game or movie versions) in a lovingly crafted 3D world using all modern techniques and technology. I'd certainly support that. But what they are doing is remaking it with 2D gameplay. Which is fine, but if you're going to do that, then do it properly. Our love of the 2D Oddworld game is misplaced: it's not the 2D that made it what it was, it was the sheer quality accomplished with 90's tools, now enhanced with a not-inconsiderable dose of nostalgia. Even back then, the 2D flick screen game was retro, but it allowed for the pre-rendered sprites and background that the art demanded but real-time technology couldn't deliver.

What this is is an HD remake just above the level of a remaster. It is not Doom 3. We should not support the making of a new 2D Oddworld game because "that's what makes Oddworld great", because it isn't. We should support it because it is classic Abe's Oddysee, updated. Changing the 2D gameplay mechanics will result in an entirely different game, and I can't see the point of making an entirely different 2D Oddworld game except to please a fanbase whose adoration is misdirected. They might as well go full 3D, if that's the case.

I see this and the HD Stranger's Wrath as a stepping stone only, putting Oddworld (and JAW) back on the map and sufficiently funded to move into the future. Not to diminish either of them, but none of us want to see Oddworld "living off the royalties" of its past successes forever.

I just wanted to highlight this point, because I 100% agree with it.

Every time someone posts about how they want to see a new 2D Oddworld game, it irritates me because people equate 2D with quality for this series.

People are, I think, misled because of MO's lacklustre quality - they see it as proof that only 2D can work for Oddworld. It absolutely is not the case, and I wish more people would realise that.

BM, you identify that the flick screen mechanic allowed the backgrounds to be higher quality than late 90s realtime could provide, but that's not the case now. You say that changing from flick screen to smooth scrolling would make the game entirely different, but you don't cite any puzzles where this would be the case, and if you would care to cite some, I'll cite a greater number where very little would have to be changed to make the puzzle work.

And it does stand to reason that puzzles will be changed. The reason bats and pendulum traps have never been since AO is because the majority of players hated them. To include them as gameplay elements would be a strange decision.

That is actually a good point, and I certainly hadn't considered the removal of bats and the Paramonian swingballs. I suppose it's AI behaviour mostly. You know that a slig in the next screen won't hear you talk to a mudokon, and you know exactly what screens constitute a scrab's territory. Could be easily solved with programming, but something in me opposes it. Such peculiar behaviour was weird enough in the originals, but it made a certain amount of intuitive sense. Without those semi-permeable barriers those behaviours would seem even more unnatural.

Okay, when I try to imagine 2.5 HD Abe, I see something that looks like it was made by Twisted Pixel, none of the coloured fogs and mists, high polygon counts, motion and focus blur, depth of field, particle effects and complex lighting that we can be assured will be present in Abe 2.0. I'm just about getting out of it, but an aspect of the Abe games that we rarely consider is that Abe moves about all over the screen, from one corner to the other. In analogue scrollers, the player character is always in the very same patch of the screen as the camera follows, locked onto him. I really think that will be detrimental to the recreation of Oddysee. With flick screen, Abe moves through the world. With scrolling, the world moves around Abe.

That much is true.
Let's not forget however that this is all being done for the sake of marketing. They have the resources at this point to make a whole new game, but they aren't going to do so until they remind the new generation of gamers what Oddworld is. Polishing up their two most acclaimed games from the franchise and putting them on display.
To ensure renewed interest and a fresh crop of fans, they're going to have to choose whats marketable over kitsch value. We're a bunch of stuffy veterans who are used to the original games, but I'm pretty sure that newcomers to the franchise will be downright annoyed with a 2.5D game with flick-screen dynamics.

I don't see how flick-screen can be considered annoying, but maybe that's the rose-tinted glasses speaking.

Try and imagine Little Big Planet with flick-screen and see how much you want to play it.
A sidescrolling environment will full atmospheric fx and interactive background elements is far more enthralling than walking through several linear, static matte paintings. Also, bear in mind that 2.5D is in fact 2.5D because there's a shift in perspective as you move, like a real environment. Would your perspective reset itself with each new screen? That doesn't sound slightly irksome?

But I digress, this is an HD remake of AO, not a complete re-do. Maybe they will keep the flick-screen for the sake of not diverging too far from the source material. It's just that given the state of games today, I don't think 2.5D flick-screen will really fly with anyone who hasn't already played the originals.

Speaking of Little Big Planet:

"So how do you know your done?"

"You don't"

It would be pretty cool if they added new levels to Oddworld like every week or something, IDK.

With clever use of the camera my concerns could be abated. Keeping it stationary until Abe reaches the screen's edge, for example, then following him, and panning to reveal the enemy behind you and the hazards before you during chase sequences.

Why not, allow the player to move the camera within bounds? The problem with non-flick screen is that if it flows, what constitutes when a slig stops chasing you or when you know that a slig won't see you? I think this might have been said before but it's a valid point.

The in-universe explanation is that Sligs have poor eyesight. They could program it so that you have to be within a certain radius to trigger a response.

Unless they had an extensive level-building engine with interchangeable parts and presets, this is highly unlikely (and also kind of pointless).

I'm still wondering if the camera moves everytime Abe does, I wonder if it would be easier or harder for he and Elum to jump the gaps and such. I think I'd rather have it so I see the whole screen first.

Hmm.

I doubt they'd leave any blind jumps. Except maybe two…