A lovely new interview for us all

[Jordan]

I'm so surprised this hasn't been posted yet!

http://www.vg247.com/2011/07/05/you-...ll-things-odd/

It has some good info in there, such as how puzzles and mechanics will work in AO HD, the "announcement" of some games and also some neat pictures.

[Wil]

Modeller Tom Bramall has posted a couple of higher-res versions of two of those images.

http://thomasbramall.blogspot.com/20...ew-models.html

[Crashpunk]

I'm loving the pictures

Thanks for posting this Jordan

[Bullet Magnet]

I'm liking the tweaks they've been making.

Someone get a message to Gilray for me: In the HD Stranger, put Abe's Moon in some of the skies. There should be more visual links back to the Abe games, and a heavily visible moon that has been in orbit around the entire planet for billions of years is clearly the obvious choice. Its presence in the game needs no further explanation, its absence raises difficult questions.

A scattering of some of Stockyard escape's other moons wouldn't go amiss either.

[Wil]

In the HD Stranger, put Abe's Moon in some of the skies. [...] its absence raises difficult questions.

Questions like "Are we expected to believe that Abe's Moon orbits Oddworld or something?"? Eh, tweeted him a link to your post nonetheless.

[Sekto Springs]

I'm liking the textures on the Big Bro's legs.
The perfectly symmetrical vein patterns on the Intern's belly are glaringly half-assed though.

[Bullet Magnet]

Just saying. It should swing into view every day as the Oddworld rotates. Day or night. Day would be cool. I can't think of a single game that put a moon in during its daytime.

[Dynamithix]

We might also get the chance to play as the part-organic, part-mechanised security henchmen ‘Sligs’, in a game Lanning originally envisioned as ‘Slig Storm’ and that Gilray and team are investigating the potential for.

Yay!

[Wil]

The perfectly symmetrical vein patterns on the Intern's belly are glaringly half-assed though.

Surely that should be "half-bellied".

[Sekto Springs]

*rimshot*

[Bullet Magnet]

Half an hour's* Photoshop will clear that right up.


*Not a guarantee

[Sekto Springs]

Half an hour's* Photoshop will clear that right up.


*Not a guarantee

Less than half if my experience with making skins is any indicator.
Its like paper art, its all symmetrical. Putting in a little asymmetry is imperative to making a character look more natural.

[STM]

The best thing is he loves enough to reference us in a big blue box with quotation marks:

Posted by Stewie:
"To be honest, we got a bit of stick from the PC gaming public for not delivering to them everything that had been promised and rightly so"

Also the new stuff looks fucking awesome.

[Bullet Magnet]

Doesn't it feel great to be a back-seat game developer?

[Manco]

The best thing is he loves enough to reference us in a big blue box with quotation marks:

Pretty sure he's referencing the Steam forums there.

[Nath]

I think i was more excited to read 'The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot'

[Gilrod]

The perfectly symmetrical vein patterns on the Intern's belly are glaringly half-assed though.

Ok so normally you are 100% spot on, however there are some things you need to be aware of ...

1. That model is for Munch's Oddysee only, as such we have to use the way the original game engine worked and that is the models use MIRRORED UV's as such we have to continue with that practice.

2. We have other versions for our new game engine that are modelled without MIRRORING, so do look like that.

3. We cannot use the new game engine in MO.

Pretty sure he's referencing the Steam forums there.

Well the PC gaming as a whole, but primarily the Steam Forums

Questions like "Are we expected to believe that Abe's Moon orbits Oddworld or something?"? Eh, tweeted him a link to your post nonetheless.

Thanks for the tweet

Yes it's an ACE idea, however we're going to have to looking how to do it...

1. I don't believe there are ANY moons in the sky at all, not even in the "night" levels.

2. We would have to add it to the night sky... somehow ...

I'll let you know

[Dynamithix]

Oh REALLY.

[Dixanadu]

1. I don't believe there are ANY moons in the sky at all, not even in the "night" levels.

I remember a few in the Free Fire Zone level in Abe's Oddysee.

[Havoc]

He's talking about Stranger's night levels.

[Dixanadu]

Ah.

There weren't? I can only remember one night level in SW, when it was pissing down. I guess there wasn't a clear sky, then.

[STM]

In Western Mudos, perhaps the moons are too small to be seen across the whole planet. I don't think you can see IO across the whole of Jupiter for example.

[DarkHoodness]

For all people know, Abe's Moon's orbit might be synchronised with that of the planet and therefore only visible from one area of the planet only, much like Pluto and its moon.

Would be cool to see it in SW though, but apart from when it's raining after the part where he kills yo- Uh, I mean, gets revealed to be a steef and escapes (why does he sleep in the rain anyway when there's a big cave right nearby?), are there any night parts of SW?

Oh and cool interview, it certainly answers a bunch of questions that people were asking in the speculation thread about Abe HD.

[Wil]

Maybe Abe's Moon is in an oddeosynchronous orbit, but I doubt that means it would be completely absent from the sky on the other side of a country the size of Nicaragua on a planet ten times the size of Earth.

Depends how high above the planet's surface it is, I suppose. Actually, since this is a planet where objects can levitate, maybe it's not a satellite at all, maybe it's just a hovering rock.

[JennyGenesis]

I found it very interesting what was said reguarding the barrell and the sleeping Slig.

[STM]

I found it interesting that there are plans for HOO, Sligstorm, the Brutal Ballad and a still yet to be announced game as part of the Quintology. Gilray if you read this then thanks for bringing our favourite franchise back to life!

[Manco]

Yeah, I think the Fangus mention was what piqued my interest the most - all the concepts and stuff that were revealed before the project was shut down (evil sheep, rabies, cats-and-dogs, eastern Europe inspirations) made the game sound really interesting, and it's probably the project I'm most disappointed about being cancelled.

[STM]

For me it was HOO because I lurve RTS but I agree, if they make Fangus less human like, maybe redesign meeps to make them hardcore instead of Earthly sheep, then it will be perhaps thebest game yet.

[enchilado]

Even more games have been announced! Wow! I'm just so excited! I can't wait!

[Manco]

if they make Fangus less human like

Just picking up on this - I was reading a thing recently which basically pinned the uninspired human-looking pre-production stuff that came from Fangus on EA, which was their way of trying to blackmail Lorne into giving them the Oddworld IP.

I don't remember coming across anything official about that, so is that true, or is it just conjecture?