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There were a lot of 2d platforming games like that back in the day.
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This.
Around that time 2D platformers like that were the norm, much like FPS's these days. They were everywhere. Oddworld was different to any game back then that I know of as Abe was not a violent character and he was unarmed. The other thing that the vast majority of games back then lacked (that Oddworld had in spades) was a deep narrative.
I'm pretty sure Lorne got his inspiration from the film industry that he worked in. As he mentioned, he wanted to tell a story and he saw games as the way of the future. They would have looked at how the more popular games worked at the time and adapted the story to work with that sort of gameplay.