Hill Billy Chickens
 

Do you reckon the chickens could be a hoax? Or maybe a Khanzumer TV show with people in costumes? Cos they dont look Odd worldy to me...

uh....dude, the hickens arent guys in costumes, lorne lanning (the creator) said they were townsfolk and are chicken bird influences, they are not fake...why dont you read the steef's oddysee thread...

Yea they are chicken and bird influences. Most likely they all look different. I wounder if they are part of the natural world or the industrial world.

I don't like the Hickens, but I don't think Lorne wants you to like them. He explained them as sort of arrogant townsfolk.

Agreed the Hill Billy Chickens (or 'Hickens') don't look like something out of Oddworld (they're Mudokon similarities aside), but I'm pretty sure they're real creatures. I'd figured they were native, like Mudokons, but much more easily influenced by the Industrial types of this new Western world we'll be exploring in Oddworld 4.

Someone (Sal and Faz spring to mind, but I honestly can't remember) came up with the idea in the Steef topic that eventually Abe would find he was also the saviour to these people, but that they didn't actually believe in the saviour and were completely unwilling to co-operate. Nice twist, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Oddguy, that may be, but I'm thinking they're going to be the comic relief in Oddworld 4. Frankly, if that's what they are, it means Mudokons and Sligs can stop using such dreadful terms as "Hey, what's happenin'?" and "Hey, butt-wipe," which was appauling to hear coming from them in Munch's Oddysee.

I agree that it would be great if most of the humor involved the hickens. That way the other characters can be more serious. I like humor in oddworld, but only in smallish doses.

Which Steef topic? Theres like 5. And the main one that has the most stuff is like 5 pages long;)

9, methinks. True, it may be quite long, but it probably makes the place look a lot tidier than Steef topics left and right.

Urg, I've just used a typewriter, and I can't get used to this touch-type keyboard. Brrrrrrrrrr :S

i don't know about the Hickens but they look cool

I thought that the Hickens' relationship to the Mudokons was similar to the way humans and other apes are linked. Eventually a smaller group of hickens strayed away from the main group, and they did not evolve nearly as fast as the original, larger group, as they all hickens in the larger group eventually evolved into mudokons. It sounds very stupid, but that's only due to my bad wording of the concept. I think that's how the humans/apes story goes, but I could be mistaken.

I think it was the other way round with humans - we evolved in one place, then spread. I expect OWI to reverse this, though.

well as we know the mudokon skull design was influenced of that of a bird, maybe lorne liked the idea and built up on it thus creating the hickens; lorne then added the western and arrogant personalities to match up with the new game. thats how i see it.

My first impression of Hickens were that they sported the same ponytail head desin...much like mudokons. If Abe did have to save these creatures, that would be an interesting twist. I even like the idea that they don't believe in the savior, thus making them reluctant to being rescued. I had a theory simaler to that in the "theories and what ifs" thread. A batch of labor eggs are bread by the gluks and brainwashed into believing that Abe was a terorist, making them actually not want to go with Abe and sound alarms if they saw him. Interesting methinks.

On another note...The Hickens do seem to be geared toward comic releif. "Hey I got an idear. Why dun't we git auselves a fine meala pork n' beans!"

comic releif; maybe. Abe as their savior; no, i dont think so.
i guess it's plossible but doesn't seem to fit with their over-all character, i could be wrong seeing as we haven't been thoroughly introduced to their personalities, but i dont see how abe would even get involved with hickens like these supposedly on another continent, and Abe isn't included in this game i think they may be exclusive to oddworld 4 alone.

Someone else said something about Abe having involvement with Hickens...I just commented on how that might be interesting. Knowing that Abe isn't going to be in Steef, makes it seem more logical that Abe won't have to save Hickens. But if not in this game, maybe the next. Ya never know, so I'm just keeping an open mind.

I doubt Abe's going to be the savior of the Hickens. They don't look like they need to be saved from anything.

except speech impediments.

:lol: I kinda like the Hickens. They have the whole Mudokon pony tail thing going, but other than that, I think they're just there for background characters.

i don't see a similarity between the hickens and mudokons ponytails as potent as everyone says, i hardly see any similarity between the two.

I agree. There is no similarity between the two. I reckon that "ponytail" is probably just a play on a chickens crest.

Also, people were saying that the humor in MO was too much, but if you think about it, if the other two games were made for the X-Box or PS2, wouldnt they have just the same? I mean, the only reason theres less humor in the first two is because theres less FMVs because theres less power on a PSX then on a next gen console like the X-Box

I think the Hickens are going to be sort of a nuisance for Steef like he needs to get somewhere but the towns folk aren't letting him. Just like a western only Oddworld style. Like Steef is being hunted and then he wonders into this town with these towns folk that don't take kindly to strangers where he must stand off to that hunter guy. Just like Clint Eastwood. OMG that could very well be what its about!

Also Steef I think takes place on Mudos because you have Mudokons and you have sligs with Snoozers. All of that is Mudos origin so logic tells me it could be Mudos on that river maybe at the border since this will be sort of a western.

HMMM...sounds good to me! I heard a rumor that Abe has to save the Hickens, is that true??? Thanx!

it's a rumor, so probly not :dead:

Ok good, I was kinda mad about that!

Well, you never know, it just might happen.

Remember, everyone thought that the monkey-horse with the boat was a lie. Now look where we are.

Personally, I wouldn't like it if Abe was the savior to the Hickens. We need a break from saving entire races. All the other games were about it.

Yeah, I agree Mac. Plus I think that Hickens would get anoying after awhile.

What does everybody think about the salamanderish things? What part will they play in Steef's story and whatnot?

I hope they aren't in it. To me, they're just crap characters. Horribly unoriginal design and such.

My guess is that the Hickens are just suspossed to be an annoyance in the plot, kinda like when certain characters in storys keep preventing the main character from accomplishing something important and the such. Like Lorne said we are suspossed to hate the Hickens, so they just might be there to get you more into the main characters deilema and make you feel like your part of the story.

As for the Salamander things, well in the prod. designs I have to admit that they looked not so bad but when I saw them in the CG sequence doing that little screaming thing it just reminded me of something from "Croc". I do think that prehaps if OWI changed them quite abit and just made them like little people (I always imagine them as high-pitched and miniature little things running around...yes..) that always wanna help Steef or something but just get him into more trouble/ always ruin his plans then prehaps I'd like them alittle more. But at the moment they don't look to appealing

Lorne never said we were supposed to hate or even dislike the Hickens, all he said was that they're arrogant. I know arrogance isn't usually an appealing feature, but then Aslik is an arrogant character, and yet he seems to be a fan favourite.

As for the salamanders, I've not really any idea what role they're play in the game, but I know for a fact I really don't like the look of them. They're just so bland and unoriginal, it's seriously difficult to imagine them belonging to Oddworld. What peeves me even more is the females, which look like the males, except they've got skirts, bikinis and eyelashes. Maybe it's just me, but that's how you make a stick man into a stick woman, no? And why are they hula dancing? Couldn't OWI think of anything better for them to do, like something that isn't actually taken directly from Earth? Other than that, I have this sneaking suspicion that they're quite a tribal race. Their personality had better be A.L.I.V.E., because their appearance certainly isn't.

Well I haven't seen the video's in quite awhile (seince I sent them infact) but I could have swore I heard Lorne say that "You aren't suspossed to like them" in the video when the Hickens came up?

The Salimanders looked interesting in the Story Board scetches but in CG they look rather fake. Remember when this was filmed it was a year ago. The characters and designes could have undergone some interesting changes since then. Like makeing things more realistic and such.

We are going to see a whole slu of inhabitants in Steef. More then any game thus far.

I do hope you're right, paramiteabe. OWI seem to have lost their distinctive style when Farzad left, but I guess all that ultimately matters is what we're shown in the final product. As for new creatures, I count 8 (9 including the bandaged thing) in Oddworld 4, yet 14 in Abe's Oddysee.

Im sure that we've only just seen alittle bit of the new characters in Oddworld 4. It seems as if we are finally getting hints of the "BigCity" comming, with what looks like small farms and western type boom towns. If this is true then we should be seeing alot more types of Industrialized Inhabitants.

Oh and let us not forget that its almost August, which in turn means that we might be getting more recent information on Oddworld 4.:fuzsmile:

Can someone please post a picture of the salamander concept art?

What are those called anyway?

um, salamanders, how the hell should we know?

Those salamander guys looked like they were doing some sort of ritual around the fire from that clip I saw on X factor. Do you think they have powers like muds?

i think they're stupid, they'll probly drown by stearing up at that rain storm with their mouths open.

Most likely.