Retro Asylum interview with Lorne Lanning and talk about Oddworld and lots more
 

Hi guys, we thought you might enjoy our latest episode which is part 1 of an interview with Lorne about not only his history working in games making but also his time in visual effects.

The link is below and hopefully we found some new angles in the interview which delivered some new and tasty views from Mr Lannning:

http://retroasylum.com/episode-123-its-an-oddworld/

Part 2 will be available on our site this Friday and we talk a lot about the future of Oddworld. We hope you experts enjoy it :fuzsmile:

Hi Retroasylum,

Welcome to the forums and thanks for sharing this!

I'm looking forward to give it a listen :)

Man this is a long one :). I'm only trough the first 38 min (time it takes to go to work).

0-38: Until now it's all been about Lorne, some of his personal and professional life and his love for old arcade games. Lots of new info and anecdotes in there, just nothing Oddworld related yet.

I'll edit this post when I have listened to more.

The first episode was certainly more focussed on our retro gaming and visual effects topics.

Part two which is out now is very much more Oddworld focussed :fuzsmile: :

http://retroasylum.com/episode-124-i...dworld-part-2/

Just finished listening to the whole thing and it was great. I'd definitely recommend giving it a listen if you like Lorne's insights on the gaming and movie industries. There's a lot of stuff in those interviews I didn't hear about before.

On the other hand don't give it a listen if you are expecting new Oddworld related info. Most of what was discussed is already known with the following exceptions:

- Oddworld was originally going to be called Offworld but the rights to Offworld were already taken (well I knew it but that's always fun trivia :p)
- The BS and S'mo BS sounds of the Sligs are distorted flamingo sounds.
- Lorne's thinking of maybe releasing TzF in episodes seeing how large the game is and how few money people are willing to pay for indie games.
- Doesn't seem Fangus is going to be developed any time soon, the focus is now TzF.
- The Wii U and Vita versions of NnT are going to be released soon, OWI wants to make sure they are quality before releasing them.

I want to thank retroasylum for those very enjoyable interviews and they deserve big bonus points for including the Hello Hello song at the end of episode 1 :D

Releasing games in episodes is a great idea, and by great I mean it's horrible

Discussion about whether AE should be released as episodes has been moved to its own thread.

http://www.oddworldforums.net/showthread.php?t=22021

What's TzF sorry? Also that flamingo sounds things for the slig noises is pretty great. I can't say I hear the similarity myself!

Twice Ze Flavor, although around here it's just called Exoddus.

Just accept it already Alex, that's how it's going to be called anyway :p

Thanks for the positive feedback Xavier.

It's very likely that we'll be speaking to Lorne again so if there are questions that the community have always wanted answering then please pass them on :fuzsmile:

I'm concerned for Lorne. He sounds like he's 2 seconds away from a heart attack.

That's just part of being American.

Zing!

You're very welcome. :)

If you get a chance to talk to Lorne again please ask him what other projects he's working on. He told in the past he was working on an other IP than Oddworld and while I suspect it's Citizen Siege I'd love to know more about this. :D

Good try. :)

Dammit Alex! The people have a right to know! :p

I'm glad you guys are sane, at least.

Twice Ze Flavor is good title and you know it.

Retro Asylum should tell Lorne to simply use Twice Ze Flavor. :p

Ok here's a couple of questions Lorne should be able to answer:

How does it feel like to have those stories locked up in his head for literally decades and not being able to share them to the world?

While I understand he wants to tell them via games he should have figured out by now he wont have the time and budget to build a game for each story he has in mind.

So how would he feel about sharing those stories via an other medium than video games? And, you know, give more Oddworld to the world?

Thank you, Xavier! You took the words right out of my mouth. Me and my fiancé have been discussing the tentative future of Oddworld since I introduced her to the story about two years ago, and we both agree that a more streamlined medium should be used to play out the remaining story. Either via novels, with lots of pretty pictures, or pure graphic novels.

Knowing Lorne I feel pretty confident as to what he would say: Coming from the world of CG animation, that's all he really knows and that's how he wants to tell the story. That's the only way to tell the story properly because he wants the characters to come to life in a way that a novel or a comic book just can't do. So there's only two ways to go about it. A full blown CG movie that costs way too much, or a smaller scale, lower quality CG video game that can be produced for a fraction of the cost and is probably going to reach a much larger audience.

This was pretty much my thought too.

I'm pretty sure that's what hes going to reply as well, still, I'd like to hear it from him.

Also he needs to hear that people care a lot for his stories even if they are not delivered via CG. Like I said, it's super frustrating for fans, or at least for me, to have to wait such a long time to get a new Oddworld story. It's been more than 10 years since we had a new story, and by the looks of things we still have to wait at least 5 years to be able to play Fangus Klot if it gets made at all. And Fangus Klot's story is already over 10 years old, who knows all the cool stories Lorne created during all that time.

Turning this around a little then - fire off some ideas and avenues that Oddworld stories could be published as. :)

I'd like to see the universe extended into graphic novels. Molluck's story post-Oddysee has always fascinated me, with his trial, and Margaret's fury. I think I remember reading somewhere that Lorne was going to have Margaret send Molluck to explain himself to the investors about the RuptureFarms and Soulstorm Brewery incident. I think the entire scenario would translate beautifully into a small, sampler graphic novel.

Of course, the medium would also give you guys a cost-effective chance to flesh out the overarching story and essentially show the full vision aside from a few brief (yet still engaging) cutscenes in the games. Not only would it satiate the long time fans who want to delve deeper into the world, it has the potential to reel in a new audience who can appreciate a story, but might not necessarily play video games. :fuzzle:

Also, with the advent of digital distribution, Oddworld can still keep to their independent model and publish the material through all the available outlets that cater to independent material. It's really a no-lose situation, especially considering Lorne's background as an artist. You guys should totally do it.

I agree with kjjcarpenter, graphic novels about Oddworld could be an excellent match. We know Lorne is a big comics book fan and that the graphic novels Slaine (art from Simon Bisley) and Sha (art from Olivier Ledroit) were huge inspirations for Oddworld so it wouldn't be completely impossible for Lorne to at least try out that medium.

At the moment where I live, home of the Franco-Belgian comics, CG in comics/graphic novels is kind of frowned upon because the quality isn't to par with what more "traditional" artists produce by hand. I'm sure that Lorne knows enough amazing artist that would be willing to work with him on this and produce an absolute masterpiece using CG.

Also, I know OWI was thinking about an online animated series with Eruptor in 2000. I know that was 15 years ago but I guess it's still something they could do. Even more so if they turned it into more of a TV series. That's where the money and attention currently is, even more than in movies. Just picture it, Oddworld on Netflix :p

http://www.wefestival.com/ebay/cmk09702.JPG

Or it could also be something wildely different, a bit like what Simogo did with "Year Walk Bedtime Stories for Awful Children". :p

Oddworld graphic novels/comics would be amazing. Not just based on Abe or Stranger. But entirely new characters and locations. The franchise has so much potential.

Munch's Fun Adventures Without Abe #1

Graphic novels would be an amazing idea. You can get some powerful scenes going on full page layouts and Oddworld is so friggin big there is no limit to what stories it has to tell.

If it were up to me though, I would prefer nicely paced CGI animated cinematics with narration telling the stories. Shorts if you will.

Either way, if its expanding on the universe of Oddworld I am so in.

Issue 1:

Do what into the tin of Gabbiar!?

Lorne is lazy. Sure, the man has talent and charisma. But you have to keep in mind that he didn't produce anything new since 2004. Didn't the JAW staff came to see Kojima, sorry Lanning to make the remake and he was like "yes, why not" ? Think about it, it's like Miyamoto made just one Mario and THINK (and not create) about the others he doesn't want to make because of "lack of money" and "big bad studios" (but he loves to talk about it everywhere he can). Absurd. Why are you guys always cutting him some slack ? Everyone has good ideas.

Kojima is amazing. And fired from Konami

Paid millions by doing nothing for years. So he finally gets fired.

Kojima is an opposite of doing nothing. You can't possibly be further from truth.

Vlam, that's aggressively not true.

How about OWF's fun adventures without Varrok? THAT SOUND GOOD?

You disappoint me Varrok. I'm not saying that, but he is no angel : he was fired because MGS 5 costs Konami lots of cash and Kojima was like " just wait, ok ? And give me money". Let's stop the anti big bad studio bias.

You guys understand me ? Don't you agree on Lanning (fact : he didn't produce anything new since SW) ?

What a nonsense title. It's so unreal.

Also, Kojima was fired because Konami CEO stopped being interested in making real games and shifted entirely to mobile games. That led to many people being fired and many to come. Get your facts straight.

Okay, you want to play the "tough guy on Oddworld" but at the same time you see Kojima through rose-colored glasses ? Sure, the big studios are always bad and wrong...

That's really, really not true.

Vlam, you're an idiot if you think what you said there is true.

Firing Kojima
Working conditions
More hostility towards their own staff
"Mobile games are the future"
"Erotic Violence" Castlevania Pachinko
Cancelling the new Silent Hill...
...And raping the franchise's dead corpse