Doors and Wells
 

I've been playing AO for a long time, and lately, I wondered about the actual innards of the parts of the game. I know it's only a game, but it doesn't stop me wondering.

I've been thinking, how do the doors and wells work? Well, I know that the well is a big tube and it leads to a hole in the ground. But, according to the laws of gravity, Abe would get stuck somewhere at the bottom of the well and slowly starve to death (Here's anothere one for Cullen Heath's "Bloopers" thread --- *muffled* "Hello? Hello? Someone get me out of here..." *gags* -Screen goes dark- ). And the doors, they're practically impossible. Unless there was some weird sort of portal inside, there's no way Abe could enter a door and reappear in a different one, when there's absolutely no connection between them.

Any ideas?

There ARE connections between the doors, you just can't see them. As far as the Wells go, I'm stumped! No clue how those mechanisms work.

Some said the native and wildlife wells are living plants that can makesome air go trough it :p
And that the industrials made the same but with technology (fans and such)

as for the doors, Abe may be running trough some coridors that you can't see on the screen :p

I've wondered about that since I first saw one in the game :p

In my theory of wells, there is a trampolin on the bottom of the well, that positioned different ways to make Abe bounce differently. The levers that activate the fans and the trampolin, so the leaves collected on the bottom will no affect the bounce. The trampolin is tighten by the lever, so it is more effective.

Doors could possibly have connections to each other, by corrider, by staircase, or by elevator.

Or perhaps the screens we see are only symbolic representations of how they 'exist in real life'. So you could take a couple of photos of an area from different angles and smooch them together into one image that shows them all related somehow.

Perhaps I'm thinking too hard. Or not hard enough.

Actually there is no connection. When the camera moves, it looks like there's just an end on the door. But you can only see the end on the doors that face sideways. And the wells must have some sort of suction, sort of like those tube thingys at my bank.

I always though there where stairs that went up and down in the doors, and the wells are high pressure holes that suck in and blow out objects, that may be volcanic or tectonic in origin (the Big Well, anybody?). Of course, the mudokons built most of them years ago, but I suspect they were powered by a natural force already present.

Hmm. But, Bullet Magnet, in some cases, stairs are practically impossible, unless they happened to go upside down or in several directions at once.
And the wells, well, I see your point. Kind of like a wormhole. But if there's a bend in the middle, it gets kind of weird.

I see what Xavier means by the plant idea, but I have no clue how air could help anyone get out....

The trampoline is a good suggestion, but then there would have to be some sort of machine moving it so that Abe could bounce off at different angles. And the Natives aren't exactly the machine kind, are they?

To me, the most, er, applicable idea seems that of nate_dog_woof's. It's most probably only a representation of what really happens.

Great ideas, people!

No, it has to be suction because you can see leaves blowing out of the wells.

yep that's why I was sugesting an air transport inside the tube...
I guess that's a part of Oddworld I'll never understand.

What about the Song Engine? Platforms? Zappers? Mudokons aren't as primitive as the industrial races would have us believe. Their lost heritage, though, does mean that they currently lack the engineering technology they used to create such architecture as their ancient temples.

I think the blowing debris you see in the Abe games and the Big Well movie strongly hints at wells being controlled by the movement of air more than anything else. The Big Well demonstrates that this is a natural geomorphological feature.

Doors - oftentimes they could just be ordinary doors, but sometimes they clearly have no corridor behind them. I think they must have ladders (like those seen in MO) inside.

If it was a suction, you could only go up. With a trampoline idea, you could jump in a different manner. Plus, people can sort of tilt themselves while in the air, to explain why Abe jumps oddly. And you didn't read my suggestion of fans either.

But I like Max's idea of an air simulation. That kind makes sense.:fuzconf:

Hmm, that's true. I suppose that the wells have to be controlled by some force that comes from the underground. Although the whole thing is really weird.

Yeah, I was going to suggest to look at the leaves that fall out
of the well. But Abe also has to pull levers to activate
some wells. I wonder what the effect is on the inside.

Just take a look at some of those Scrabania screens. You
can easily see the well tubes traveling over the skyline
in some screens. If the native muds really went at the effort to
design metal gadgets in the sky and on the ground for means of
getting to point a. to point b. they,re more advanced in some
types of techniques than even we are.

I kind of always wondered what would the reaction would be if the
glukkons encountered a human civilization in Oddworld just as advanced
as ours.

They'd kick our arses, as has been discussed elsewhere.

In terms of Abe pulling levers, I suspect that opens and closes valves that connect the various tubes.

Mabye it could be a natural valve that when Abe pulls a lever
he open the crossways to different tubes. Or maybe those metal
structures that you see in some screens on which the tubes run along
in possibly tighten to restrict the airflow.

i agree with the volcanic theory. maybe the wells were powered by natural gasses seeping through the ground from past volcanic activity. maybe the mudokons found concentrated areas and put barriers or tanks over them, so that when a lever was pulled, a valve would open and the gas inside had collected enough pressure to push something through the well at high speeds.
as for the doors, maybe there are small hidden wells or quick portals inside. but i've always wondered what made the doors open and close, especially if it's stone or imbedded in stone... hmm...

Generally I think the suction idea would be the most feasible, and it could get Abe around a bend if the pull was strong enough, but then he would come out upside down.

I think the volcanic gas theory for the native wells is the best-the gas could easily propel Abe through the air if focused enough, but if it was from Oddworld's core it'd probably scald/burn/whatever overly hot air does to you Abe to death. Hmmmmm. The industrial wells I'm betting are some sort of suction or fan system. as for the doors, they probably lead to tunnels which interlink- when there's no passage behind a downward shaft with some sort of ladder/rungs leads down to a tunnel.

No one actually said Abe travels through upright, the way he went in. For all we know he tumbles around inside like a ragdoll, but it is not the sort of ride I would expect of the mudokon techsperts. Perhaps he curls up and spins inside like in the wells of MO.

I do think it is a natural phenomenom, with the answer deep inside the planet. We all know abot water cycles and nitrogen cycles etc on Earth, how water can end up underground for thousands of years before it reaches the sea again. Perhaps the wells are natural passages of an air cycle, and the mudokons simply built well tubes as a way of exploiting the force. And the industrialists would have realised the hard way that blocking them of is detrimental to their facilities (KABOOM!) so build them into the floor. Doesn't explain the wells in Vykkers' Labs, though.

I really don't care much about the mechanics, that's what I love about Oddworld, there's so much surrealism in every level, so I just sit back and watch it at work.

But if you want mre to get techncical on things, I would say the natives use their windmills in Paramonia or their balloon things in Scrabania to somehow power their wells. Probably to turn fans like the industrials porbably do, only the industrials would use electricty.

Wait a sec...who said industrials had electricity

-_-


Joke or no, the sheer stupidity of that statement makes me realize why oanst gets so mad sometimes.

Is this guy the least intelligent person ever or is that just my imagination? I mean, I don't have much of an imagination so........I'm assuming he's a fucking retard.

No, seriously, they might use a different system. Something more powerful.

I doubt it. The magog cartel runs on fossil fuels and other gasoline like fuels.

maybe he goes though the door and walks a bit and comes out the next one super fast

Uhh...how is that supposed to work?

About the surrealism...Oddwolrd is no magical fairy-land. Everything has to have a reason, right? Even if it’s a videogame.

Like I said in another discussion, I think the physics we see has to be plausible, but it doesn't really need to have an explanation. Setting definite rules could limit the possibilities for future stories, which is really the most important part of Oddworld.

In that way, Oddworld won't (I imagine) develop a background laws of physics in the same way that - say - the Discworld series will. Discworld (which I refer to simply because I'm currently reading and enjoying the series) seems to have stories to explore the physics, as opposed to the other way around.