If you could tweak Munch's Oddysee? -

Admiral Zaarin · #61 11-25-2011, 03:28 AM

If so, let's just hope JAW know their own limitations well and finish what they've started (All this reminds me of OWI's overly ambitious plans and numerous unfinished projects in the past).

Also I doubt that an "old rusty bucket" is a good option to attract people to a "shiny BMW". People may get disappointed with the "rusty bucket" and ignore the "BMW".

***Nate*** · #62 11-25-2011, 03:32 AM

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Puffballs are perfectly fungus-y.

True, but every photo I've ever seen of them just looks like they're fake. Like they've been created by a production designer with no imagination whatsoever. And Spooceballs equally so.

Strike Witch · #63 11-25-2011, 03:53 AM

Make the industrial facilities look like facilities, not a bunch of mechanical platforms and random junk.

Michael · #64 11-25-2011, 05:24 AM

I agree that, if possible, the spooceshrubs could do with a new model, or at least perhaps a more muted, darker texture.

Yes, they are an in-game collectable, but they are supposed to be a part of Oddworld plant life that the characters are aware of. Contrast this to typical game collectables (coins or whatever) that are pretty much superficial for the player, and not considered a physical part of the character's world.

I just feel that the spooceshrubs are so bright and abundant that not only do they not look like a natural part of the environment, it also somewhat ruins player immersion. Instead of being able to appreciate the aesthetics of the landscapes (I actually think MO has a pretty decent colour palette consistent with the older games) the player's eye is constantly bombarded by bright green blobs. At some points, the levels look more like a maze of green balls than they do an Oddworld forest, etc.

If they could be changed to blend in with the environment a bit more- not to become invisible, just so that they look like a natural part of the landscape- I don't think people would mind the whole concept of spooce as much. If it looks like it belongs in Oddworld, people will no doubt accept it as being a part of Oddworld. If every spooceshrub screams in your face for attention as they seem to now, they become annoying! I think having several different models to increase variety would help greatly too.

On a separate note, I know Glitch has said that environment geometry might not be able to be changed. If it can however, check out the video below at 29.45- The door opens and disappears into the floor, but there isn't actually a space for the door to fit into!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcKn69hOvrE

Sekto Springs · #65 11-25-2011, 06:52 AM

Just do the storm circle thing and I'm fine.

Andrelvis · #66 11-25-2011, 04:34 PM

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Also I have to agree with Havoc. It would be better to concentrate on Abe HD rather than wasting time on MO. Improving MO graphics and leaving current gameplay and locations is like painting a rusty bucket car.

Exactly.

OANST · #67 11-25-2011, 05:46 PM

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To be honest I think making an HD version of MO is a complete waste of time all together. The gameplay is flawed at the base and no amount of shiny new graphics will fix that. I understand that it's a marketing thing though, so I agree with Glitch. Do it, but spend as little time on it as possible so there's more time to spend on new and important projects. Abe HD will be the real relaunch of the franchise. It's important all effort goes into that.

I agree. I think the entire series would be better off treating MO as the misstep that it is, and moving on. It was a crap game. It should be left alone.

I'm still waiting to hear back on my petition to remake Legend of Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon.

Andrelvis · #68 11-25-2011, 05:57 PM

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I agree. I think the entire series would be better off treating MO as the misstep that it is, and moving on. It was a crap game. It should be left alone.

I'm still waiting to hear back on my petition to remake Legend of Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon.

I was glad it became available on the PC, because I had never played it. But remaking it HD is indeed too much - the game was bad, whereas Abe's Oddysee and Exoddus, although old, still stand the test of time as fun and atmospheric (specially the first one).

Cullen Heath · #69 11-26-2011, 01:04 AM

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Not only do we not have the time, we also don't have the tools required to make a lot of changes that we would otherwise want to make
Ledge grabbing would likely have pretty far reaching implications and would require animations, level changes, code changes, and perhaps even new sound assets.
Spooce is here to stay I'm afraid

Having read that, I really loved MojoMan220's idea of minimizing and hiding Spooce, and the whole idea of ledge grabbing, but since it's not a possibility, here's some of the ideas that I really agree with / would love to see in the remake:

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[*]The "Boings"

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-No "boing"s

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doing away with the "boings"

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[*]The "Boings".... they're freakin' annoying, remove 'em...

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Paramites that sound like pigs...

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-Paramites and Scrabs need their original voices.

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changing the paramites and scrabs back to sounding how they did in the original games

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replacing scrab/paramites sounds to "normal" AO/AE sounds is a must-do...

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-changing the sounds to be more like AO/AE (paramites, scrabs)

I think if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's obviously that the "boings" and all of the other cartoonish sounds in the game need to go. For me, this is everything from the sounds of Munch walking, Munch in a wheelchair, Munch falling down, Munch jumping out of water, Munch bouncing off of walls, Abe bouncing off of walls, Abe sneaking, the sound made when someone jumps into a well, the sound Fuzzles make when they move, the sound of Fuzzles responding to Munch, the average Slig's gunfire, the sound of a Mudokon being upgraded, the sound of Spooce being collected...ugh. So, yea lots and lots of sounds that, in my opinion, do not fit Oddworld. I probably missed some, and maybe I'm being too picky on some. But, primarily the first ones mentioned, if those were to be changed I think that alone would make a massive difference in the game.

These other changes I don't think require new animations or whatever it is you're limited to. I know you guys are restricted, but I thought these seemed pretty reasonable:

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When you activate a storm circle, actually make it rain. Natives. Rain dancing. That whole thing. Please please please.

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Please fix their walking speed.

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the shaman could appear and disappear into birds. When portals are used birds should flutter away when they close, and the respawn eggs should be replaced with a bird-respawn.
Birds!

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Instead of just flailing around in the water and then fading out of existence. Have his lifeless body sink to the bottom, or disperse into birds.

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I presume this time around there won't be any SoBe machines.

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[*]Replace the SoBe Vendors with Sekto Springs Vendors.

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More caveart on the walls.

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Perhaps restrict some places Abe can walk on, such as the curved walls on the very first section of the game. From what I remember you could walk to the edge of it and you'd have Abe at a really awkward angle, sticking out of the wall.

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Providing there are no levels where you have to jump from a really high ledge to progress, I think it'd be great that if you fall from too high, Abe or Munch crunches into the ground like in AO and AE.

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removing the cartoony stars which appear when a character gets hit?
blood

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I see no reason to keep blood out of this game this time around.

And then these ones seem a little more far fetched, but would be so amazing if possible!

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- Make Vykkers' Labs feel more intimidating. Have muffled screams and the distant buzzing of bone saws in the background.
- When the Interns are in their idle animation, jammin' out to whatever's playing on their headphones, it would be cool to hear some muffled rock or techno
- Maybe actually include Shock-Rockers this time?

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I do second the motion of making him look more like the long-feathered original design.

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the shaman could look more like the concept art

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[*] Hiding in the Shadows?

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[I][*] Bolamites chillin' in the Raisins Cave
Does it HAVE to be just Fuzzles in Vykkers labs?

If JAW could make a good amount of these changes happen, I think MO would feel almost like an entirely new game. Thanks for asking us our opinions and desires, I really respect that!! I'll get back to you with my own ideas when I think of some.

Sekto Springs · #70 11-26-2011, 10:08 AM

As reiterated above, changing/adding sound, be it part of the soundtrack or dynamic, would make a huge difference. Vykkers Labs never felt scary to me, and it should. You just got abducted and violated by two scalpel-wielding sadomasochist octopoids, and far worse things are happening all around this place. You should feel like you're in constant danger of being caught and dragged back to the operating table.

I'd like to cite the medical levels of Quake 4 as a good example. Here, the strogg carried out some brutal, bloody, and generally fucked-up experiments on humans. The walls were caked with dried blood, you heard the distant, agonized screams of multiple victims and you could only imagine what horrors they were enduring. It felt like an animal testing lab, which was made all the more fucked up by the fact that the animals were your race.

Simply put, good sound design isn't that hard, but it can make or break the atmosphere. I think tweaking the sound design in Munch as a whole would make it about 50% better.

Glitch · #71 11-28-2011, 01:34 AM

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On a separate note, I know Glitch has said that environment geometry might not be able to be changed. If it can however, check out the video below at 29.45- The door opens and disappears into the floor, but there isn't actually a space for the door to fit into!

At the moment it's not a case of won't change it; it's more a case of can't. The plugins used to make Munch don't work with today's version of 3Ds Max, and although we can get hold of the version they do work with, that version doesn't work with modern operating systems.

Obviously this means that we need an older PC on an old OS. It's getting to the point that where the amount of prep we would need to do for big changes would negate the changes we could make because of the time taken.

***Nate*** · #72 11-28-2011, 03:13 AM

If that's true, how is it possible to HD-ify the game at all?

Sekto Springs · #73 11-28-2011, 06:09 AM

It's not. He's been pulling our leg this entire time.

***Wil*** · #74 11-28-2011, 06:34 AM

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If that's true, how is it possible to HD-ify the game at all?

By upgrading the characters, audio, textures, menus, etc.

Glitch · #75 11-28-2011, 07:32 AM

Most companies just tend to tweak textures slightly and up the output resolution. We are trying to do as much as we possibly can.

***Nate*** · #76 11-28-2011, 02:29 PM

Won't it look wierd to have high-poly characters in a low-poly world?

Sekto Springs · #77 11-28-2011, 03:14 PM

I have a suggestion.
Maybe make the bone powder kegs look like actual barrels instead of just wrapping a barrel texture around a sphere.

AlexFili · #78 11-29-2011, 12:23 AM

I read the comments and I agree, swapping the sounds is easy and would be the best possible option. A few extra suggestions:

- Make the players spoocecount regenerate over time.
- Make spooce rarer but more valuable.
- Focus on making the controls usable

As for players, autosave often.

Glitch · #79 11-29-2011, 01:25 AM

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Won't it look wierd to have high-poly characters in a low-poly world?

It depends on the game style. In a first person this would certainly be a concern, however, in a third person, when characters are further away from the camera, not so much.

Saying that, if we take for example Half-Life 2, the character models in that are comparatively high poly (about 8200 for Alyx) compared with the brush based levels, which are generally very low poly blocks. The characters don't look out of place because of the props and texture detail on the blocks themselves.

Overall it's all about texel density; if the texel density of the new textures is matched with the general poly count of the new models, it doesn't stand out as much as you would imagine, and, because it's a 3rd person game, it stands out even less to start with.

Rayrockslots · #80 11-29-2011, 06:56 AM

Leave it alone. I don't know what position you guys are in but leave Munch be and focus on Abe HD. I think everyone here will agree that MO was not the Oddworld game we wanted as part 2 or the oddworld quintology, little tweaks will ultimately not satisfy us fans. The only way is of course to start from scratch. If you not in a position to do so then keep moving forward until you are. Personally I believe tweaking MO is a waste of time i'm sorry to say. Chances are most people who play it will be people who've played it before. Occasionally thinking "Oh they changed that" and I honestly do not think it's worth all the effort you'll go though to do it.

You guys are great, love your games, but this is my honest opinion.

Sekto Springs · #81 11-29-2011, 08:51 AM

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It depends on the game style. In a first person this would certainly be a concern, however, in a third person, when characters are further away from the camera, not so much.

I know you're the game-maker guy, but I personally disagree with this. In third person games, the environment tends to be the star, especially if you're considering pulling the camera further away from the character as mentioned above.

Low poly environments works with games like Half-Life because of the high texture detail, but environmental detail is one of Munch's major failures. If you aren't going to improve the polys of the environment, then you're going to have to re-texture the whole thing hardcore.

Glitch · #82 11-30-2011, 01:25 AM

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I know you're the game-maker guy, but I personally disagree with this. In third person games, the environment tends to be the star, especially if you're considering pulling the camera further away from the character as mentioned above.

Low poly environments works with games like Half-Life because of the high texture detail, but environmental detail is one of Munch's major failures. If you aren't going to improve the polys of the environment, then you're going to have to re-texture the whole thing hardcore.

I think you misunderstand me; my comment was in regard to the character detail level seeming out of place with the world. With the camera further away, the characters doesn't seem to be overly detailed because they are a small portion of the screen.

Retexturing the levels is something we can do, and indeed, are in the process of doing.

***Nate*** · #83 11-30-2011, 01:50 AM

To Rayrockslots (and others): They're not HD-ifying the game for us. They're doing it for the hordes of people who've never played Munch before, who had no idea what it was supposed to be. People like that will likely appreciate the upgrade and enjoy it far more than we will.

elums mum · #84 11-30-2011, 07:51 AM

The majority of the people buying Munch will be new to the franchise so i feel JAW should spend as much time as they can revamping it so that people who buy the game dont just think that oddworld is a crappy series and then ignore future games. Munch needs to bring in a lotta new fans and in it current state it defienently wont. Dont rush it just to speed up developent of Abe Hd, we all want Abe Hd but we dont want people thinking oddworld is crap because then eople wont buy future games!!

Sanssouci · #85 11-30-2011, 08:09 AM

I like the bounce sound.

Sekto Springs · #86 11-30-2011, 08:53 AM

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I like the bounce sound.

Leave. Now.

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I think you misunderstand me; my comment was in regard to the character detail level seeming out of place with the world. With the camera further away, the characters doesn't seem to be overly detailed because they are a small portion of the screen.

Retexturing the levels is something we can do, and indeed, are in the process of doing.

Ah, okay. As long as the levels are re-textured, I'm game.

Revisiting the Storm Circle issue, would it be within your do-ability to keep the rain falling after you activate it? It makes slightly more sense than my former suggestion of having it rain for five seconds then stopping, and could provide a nice change in atmosphere. Maybe this is just me, but I love rainy levels in my games.

Put some rain ripples on the water, show the spooce engorging. Would be lovely.

Glitch · #87 11-30-2011, 09:34 AM

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Leave. Now.

Ah, okay. As long as the levels are re-textured, I'm game.

Revisiting the Storm Circle issue, would it be within your do-ability to keep the rain falling after you activate it? It makes slightly more sense than my former suggestion of having it rain for five seconds then stopping, and could provide a nice change in atmosphere. Maybe this is just me, but I love rainy levels in my games.

Put some rain ripples on the water, show the spooce engorging. Would be lovely.

If I can figure out a way to modify in level scripts it may be perfectly doable. I just need to find out where they're kept, how they're triggered, and what control, if any, I can exude over them.

Sekto Springs · #88 11-30-2011, 09:43 AM

That would be wonderful. Some lightning flashes and soft thunder rumbles too.

I wonder how sligs feel about the rain. On one hand, they're a swamp-dwelling people, so it stands to reason they love moisture. On the other hand, it probably has adverse effects on their pants.

STM · #89 11-30-2011, 10:09 AM

Oh man that sounds sex.c, on the issue of sligs and rain, if sligs are anything like slugs, then they require moisture, but not excess moisture, or they would drown through their skin. The may have to seek solitude in heavy rain.

Fuzzle Guy · #90 11-30-2011, 10:14 AM

Slig One: Awww man the rain. I'm gonna get wet!
Slig Two: Just like yo Momma
Slig One *shoots Slig 2*