Obsolete OWI Official Ideas: The Habitales (tm) & The Fearietales (tm)

[DarkHoodness]

I don't think anyone's mentioned this before. I mean we've all heard about OWI's cancelled projects such as Hand of Odd and Sligstorm. But OWI also seemed to have some interesting ideas that they wanted to work on - And they went so far that they mentioned them in the Abe's Exoddus manual in the PC version re-release. Read for yourself:



It isn't mentioned anywhere in the Oddworld book and no-one seems to have talked about it which is odd 'cause theses ideas seem to have been around for as long as Exoddus has.

My guess is that these ideas died during the production of Munch. But has anyone else heard of them? Did Lorne ever talk about them? Do these ideas count as another of thier cancelled projects?

[Wil]

Wow, you never heard of the Habitales and Fearietales, Ed? Sheesh. A quick search of the Forums reveals that ‘Habitales’ is mentioned in 130 posts in 64 threads dating back to May 2001. Unfortunately, all we really know about them that isn’t mention in the AE manual is that Oddworld: The Hand of Odd was the first Habitale.

[Bullet Magnet]

It's not in my AE manual...

[Xavier]

well it is in mine, you must have a more recent version when they realised they didn't want to continue to develop those ideas anymore.

[Wil]

As far as I know, it's in the PC manual, not the PS manual.

[Zerox]

That would explain why it's not in mine either.

Interesting that I hadn't heard of it either, despite being here for 3 or so years.

[DarkHoodness]

Interesting that I hadn't heard of it either, despite being here for 3 or so years.

My point exactly. Alector and Middlesboogie (who both were around OWF during the old days) never heard about this either. :P

But yeah, perhaps I should've done a forum search beforehand. Shame no-one seems to know much about them it seems, though.

[GlukkonGluk]

I've never heard of them, and AO was one of the first PS games i played, and i got a PS when they first came out. I don't get it, though- were they supposed to be genres for the different quintology games, or were they supposed to be made seperately to them? And while we're on the subject, why did OWI announce that they were going to make more OW games (Sligstorm, Hand of Odd, etc) when they were going to stop making games? Oh, and why, since they made 4 OW games, were only 2 of them counted as part of the quintology???

[Wil]

The Oddworld Quintology was from the start a five-part story, each part introducing a new character that sides with Abe. Munch was the second part, Squeek the third. That's why only the two Oddysee titles are so-called ‘anchor’ titles within the Quintology.

To be a pedant, SligStorm was never announced, and Hand of Odd, Habitales, and Fearietales were announced over five years before OWI decided to stop producing games in-house. A lustrum is plenty of time to change your mind.

My understanding is that the Habitales and Fearietales were two sister series, to be produced alongside the Quintology.

[Bullet Magnet]

Was Fearietales Oddworld or no?

[Wil]

I believe so.

[GlukkonGluk]

OWI were a bit ambitious, weren't they? They really planned ahead, giving us loads to look forward to, and then never even finished the original idea. Shame. Although I do recall that they wanted to do movies to start with, but back then it was a bit too expensive for them or something.

[Jordan]

To me they both sound like Hand of Odd. Maybe they were going to be expansion packs to it? I didn't get a manual with my PC version, so I didn't see it.

[Xavier]

I don't realy see how HoO could have been part of the Fearietales...

none of the concepts of it we know of realy invoques terror or something similar.

[Jordan]

"The Habitales series allows users to experience days in the life of many of the creatures of Oddworld as they struggle for survival and balance in their natural environments."

Hm... I just kinda thought it sounded a little like Hand of Odd.

[Bullet Magnet]

I always thought that Hand of Odd was the first instalment of the Habitales.

EDIT: okay, that's weird. Until just this moment I have been pronouncing "Habitales" as "ha-bit-AH-leez"

[Oddey]

That would actually be awsome if they ever made it. Unfortunately I think that it's one of those big plans where half of it gets lost and they don't find it until ten years after. I doubt it refers to Hand of Odd, because that's meant to be some type of strategy. No I think it may have been meant a bit like the Sims just more about keeping them alive rather than fufilling their wants. As a small note my manual has colour. Unless that's something about the scanner.
Edit: An interesting link to something a little related.Short thread related to to this discussion..

[Fuzzle Guy]

I don't think that picture looks like a scan. The text is too clear to be a scan.

[Xavier]

It's probably because it was taken from the pdf file of the AE manual, I found it on the net too some years ago... that's where those balck and white images come from:
http://oddworldlibrary.net/archives/...php?menu=OTMA1

[DarkHoodness]

As a small note my manual has colour. Unless that's something about the scanner.

It's probably because it was taken from the pdf file of the AE manual

Yeah, I screenshotted it from my PDF AE manual. Which is in Black and White. Which also has low-quality and very pixellated images.

Re-Releases really suck sometimes.

[MeechShrykull1029]

The Habitales and the Fearietales will probably come out several years after Citizen Siege and Wage Wars.

[Leto]

No, they probably wont.

Just being realistic.

It'd be nice though, I never heard of those, and they sound pretty awesome. OWI were pretty damn ambitious.

[MeechShrykull1029]

Munch's Exoddus will probably come out after the second Citizen Siege game. Why not Habitales and Fearietales?

[Leto]

Munch's Exoddus will probably come out after the second Citizen Siege game.

Where was this stated?

[Fuzzle Guy]

I doubt we will ever see Munch's Exoddus in Game or movie form.

[MeechShrykull1029]

Where was this stated?

I don't think they would continue the Quintology without Munch's Exoddus. If they won't release it, I might forget about Oddworld (even though I liked it for 6 years) and move to Mario and Shonen Jump.

[Xavier]

You can go play to Mario right now then...

OWI's main plan now is to only release the Oddysee's in Movie form. Of course there might be games coming with it, but nothing is less sure then having Munch's Exoddus released after the MO movie.

[Leto]

And if Abe's Exoddus is anything to go by, it didn't strictly count as 'one of the quintology', ergo if they were soley focusing on releasing quintology titles, they wouldn't focus on something that is an extra or bonus game

[Nate]

Besides, Munch's Exoddus was never officially announced. It was merely implied that all of the games would have bonus Exodduses. Seeing as work immediately switched to SW after MO, no preliminary designs would have been done on ME at all.

[MeechShrykull1029]

I read an interview with Lorne Lanning that said that they might still release the canceled games, except Nod's Oddysee, which is a fake rumor. The Quintology would seem unsymmetrical with only one of the 5 characters having a bonus game.