Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee & Exoddus HD Lifting?
 

Firstly I don't mean to undermine the hard work that you guys have put into New 'n' Tasty, it's a fantastic remake and I'm enjoying it immensely but Munch and Stranger both got a HD Lift which now replaces the original versions.

So I'm wondering, have you guys considered the original Oddysee and Exoddus games for the same treatment in the future? Perhaps just as a side project...

Check out this artist working on the Hydra HD Lifting from Heroes of Might and Magic III:



Original discussion on Steam - Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty - General Discussions.

It's impossible. Source code is lost forever. It fell off Lorne's pocket.

Eh. I don't see that much of a noticeable difference "HD-ing" the sprites.

I think the 3D models in New 'N' Tasty were the best possible way to remake the game.

@Varrok - It must be somewhere? Why is source code forever being lost...

@Crashpunk - True, like I said it's a great game but a stand alone title, in my games library Oddysee and Exoddus are feeling neglected by comparison.

No, it doesn't have to. It's not necessarily a material thing, it can be deleted. Plus, as I said before, it fell out of Lorne's back pocket.

Is that true? How bad are OWI's organisation skills that they can't even keep hold of the most important part of a game? The source code. Really?

OWI was pretty much non-existing at some point. Also, it's been like almost two decades and they didn't think they would need it anymore.

I'd be pretty perplexed if JAW suddenly announced they'd be doing a HD lift for AO/AE considering they did a grounds up remake of AO already.

I'm sure this situation isn't exclusive to OWI. I bet lots of companies don't even have the original source code for games that are almost 20 years old.

They're proud of their work, why would they just delete it? In most cases I'd assume even the creators of 30 year old games have the source code somewhere. Yeah, it wouldn't make any sense and would be entirely pointless.

Well then go ask them, ask the remaining core-OWI guys. How many of them are still left, again?

Last time I asked Gilrod he said they'd have to reverse engineer the game to even do a resolution patch.

I believe that they didn't lose the source code. It's just incredibly outdated and it would take longer to put together a build system using tools that aren't available any more than it would to actually make any changes.

HD remakes are more for bringing the game to a brand new audience. NnT has already filled that position, and so will the exxodus remake.

They've lost the PC code though, I believe.

Or it got corrupted...

Somebody ask Lorne on FB.

Facebook's still a thing?

@HolySock we looked into it, but the final PC code for both titles was lost :( so other than reverse engineering it no :(

— Stewart Gilray (@stewartgilray) April 9, 2014

That settles it.

Thanks Holy Sock :)

The sprites where not hand drawn, upscaling using this method probably wouldn't work very well.

Also even if they did have the latest PC source the PC port was junk, it would need a lot of work. Probably easier to start again.

I wouldn't call it junk. In fact, it still works on my new computer. Not every 1997 game can manage that.

It was a pretty shitty port.

Nep, that's just because you have weak little fingers and can't press the keys on your keyboard properly.

I have never had a single issue with the PC port, ever.

Neither have I. There's one puzzle where two Mudokons are about to be killed by bonesaws - and you have to very quickly say "All o' ya, Follow Me" - that gets me when I replay due to the speech delays. But I don't know whether this is th same on the PS1 version...

I believe it's basically the same.

The only issue with the ports is the swapped speakers bug. That’s it.

No no no, guys the reason its junk is because we where totally short changed. Remember that "happy oddmas thing JAW did? THOSE are the sprites the "hi-res" PC version was supposed to be using. Native 640x480, not an upscaled PSX emulated 640x240 thing with even worse sound emulation.

I guess whoever was doing the port couldn't get it to run fast enough due to the cheap emulation - so the just used slightly higher res sprites instead.

You mean like this?

http://img.gamefaqs.net/screens/b/c/d/gfs_42658_2_2.jpg

I always got the impression these were promotional screens only.

Now don’t get me wrong, I would have loved if this happened, but being an exact playable copy of the console game rather than having higher-res graphics doesn’t make a game a junk port. Rather the opposite in fact.

The point is it could have been done much better. The sound was awful, the secret area noise killed my ears every time it played, and the controls weren't very responsive.

I still have no idea what you mean with any of that. The only time I hear any difference is if they are played side by side.

From your work with the LVL stuff it looked like the engine on the whole was a bit hacky and inflexible too, right?

e: @ Paul, new page

Also just because it plays well doesn't mean that it's a good port, or that it would be easy to bring to any modern platforms.

These were photoshopped beauty shots, before the port was completed.

No that’s exactly how it works.

Criteria for a good port:

• Does it run?
• Is it buggy?
• Does it have all the same content as the original?

You can’t tell me AO/AE PC are bad ports because they don’t have high-res graphics that the original game never had in the first place. I get that PC games are all about the sweet graphics but they’re sprite-based games from the 1990s, get over it.

Being able to reverse-engineer it to port it again isn’t a criteria to judge it on either. You judge the original game or the source code on that.

The controls were very responsive. In fact, I'd argue I had a much easier time completing AE on PC than on PS1 because of the ease of pressing my keyboard keys.

A good port should transition the same game to new hardware, working around whatever pros and cons that brings. AO on PC still feels like it's limited by the PS1 specs, with random hangs between scenes and disproportionately long loading times. Also, the loading times are pretty inconsistent. It's not even (usually) relevant to the gameplay, but I doubt that bringing AO to PC architecture was a particularly well planned process.

Also the input problems come when you try to tap keys, or press certain combinations. I find it hard to believe that you can play through the game without getting annoyed at Abe's twitching. I think it still happens in the PS1 version though, so it's not really port related to my knowledge.

And before anyone tries to be smart like me and say that the input feels different because the PC port is translating digital keyboard strokes to analogue (pressure-sensitive) inputs for the engine, the PS1 controllers didn't have pressure sensitive buttons. The more you know!

Manco is right. Also, back in 1997 nobody could predict the boom for hd remakes such as NnT or remasters so they didn't really code the engine to be friendly for such future things.