What's next for oddworld? JAW speaks

[STM]

Well by comparison, what platformers have sold fantastically? Baring in mind Limbo and Braid were branded indie games for a reason.

[Nate]

'Splosion Man, Trine, Super Meat Boy, etc...


Having said that... Starcraft II.
Not that I'm suggesting that OWI/JAW could ever reach Blizzard's success levels. Just listing it as a successful recent RTS.

[Xavier]

Well as platformer there is also Rayman Origins that was well received and was even sold at retail.

[Wil]

Well by comparison, what platformers have sold fantastically? Baring in mind Limbo and Braid were branded indie games for a reason.

Because of how they were made, not because of how they sold.

[STM]

Exactly, they weren't massively successful going by money, which is what seems to define how successful a game is in the current industry. Not that I agree with that. Give me Limbo over CoD any day.

[Auriel]

Well by comparison, what platformers have sold fantastically?

I'd expect Sligstorm to be an FPS or FPS/adventure hybrid like Stranger in this day and age but ok

[STM]

I certainly hope not.

[Slog Bait]

I'd expect it to be a hybrid as well, and that's part of the reason I want to see it made. Stranger's Wrath pulled it off really well, and something like Sligstorm could take it to the next level or something.


In the end I don't care as long as there's some nice puzzles in it because puzzles are niiiice.

[Nepsotic]

Make your mind up. You can't have both. Unless you're talking about Portal. Which you aren't.

[DarkHoodness]

One thing I do know is that I'd like to see some sort of first person game in the same area of Oddworld where we first see Abe. Doesn't even have to be a shooter. There are a lot of games which prove that hybrids work well... Depends how brave OWI and JAW are feeling, I guess.

[STM]

Well if they felt like reusing the engine and some of the assets they're building for N 'n' T they could make it another 2.5D platformer. Otherwise I'd like to see a first person isometric 3D puzzle game with an RPG progression system and cover based shooter elements.

[Auriel]

Make your mind up. You can't have both. Unless you're talking about Portal. Which you aren't.

I'll just presume that was sarcasm to help myself sleep at night.

One thing I do know is that I'd like to see some sort of first person game in the same area of Oddworld where we first see Abe. Doesn't even have to be a shooter. There are a lot of games which prove that hybrids work well... Depends how brave OWI and JAW are feeling, I guess.

OWI has already proven fou-erm, three times that hybrid games work well.
But as far as combining first-person (shooter?) gameplay with the locations in the older games goes; well that could easily work even in the quintology. Abe can possess sligs can he not? And the most useful feature (besides the BS gamespeak sounds of course) of controlling a slig is its gun. Therefore, an entire genre of video games can be successfully incorporated into a quintology game purely based on slig possession.
Incidentally, the same applies with Munch's "possession" of snoozers which makes me wonder if OWI planned on incorporating first person gameplay into the unique powers of each of the five heroes with the advent of further advances in games from the very start.

[Nate]

Exactly, they weren't massively successful going by money, which is what seems to define how successful a game is in the current industry.

I don't know what you're basing your numbers on, but they've both sold high hundreds of thousands of copies, if not millions.


They both paid off their development costs many times over, which is what is important to a developer or publisher.

[Phylum]

These figures are XBLA sales only. STM has no idea what he's talking about.

Braid on XBLA has sold more than twice as many units as it cost dollars for Blow to get it finished, including paying someone for art.

[Xavier]

I love to see how people have such huge hopes for SligStorm when it was basically just designed to be a small bonus game following an albino Slig larva escaping in a level that would be the size of the Slig Barraks. I'm not sure much story was even written for it.

Somehow playing a Slig larva in first person view doesn't sound that exciting

[Bullet Magnet]

Depends on what slig larvae are like. To they fly? Swim? Burrow into living hosts to chow down on their pancreatic ducts?

[Sekto Springs]

One thing I do know is that I'd like to see some sort of first person game in the same area of Oddworld where we first see Abe. Doesn't even have to be a shooter. There are a lot of games which prove that hybrids work well... Depends how brave OWI and JAW are feeling, I guess.

In the big suggestion thread, I half-heartedly posed that when you possess a Slig, it switches to first person. I think that would be especially nifty if you were specifically using the Slig to clear a room of other Sligs. Of course, the problem is that the game is 2.5D and such a limited spacial plane wouldn't work for FP. Every area where you needed to posses an enemy to progress would need two versions; the limited 2.5D and then a more spacious one that accommodates 360 movements for FP. Unless you made it a rail shooter.

It might actually not be as complicated as it sounds if all you were doing was expanding the floor space and copy/pasting the props, but I don't know how that works, and it's still extra work for something that the original game did fine without.

[Slog Bait]

I love to see how people have such huge hopes for SligStorm when it was basically just designed to be a small bonus game following an albino Slig larva escaping in a level that would be the size of the Slig Barraks. I'm not sure much story was even written for it.

Somehow playing a Slig larva in first person view doesn't sound that exciting

It's been quite a while since the original idea. It's possible that the story could grow to be bigger than what was initially planned, if even by a small margin. And, assuming all sligs can retrieve pants regardless of age or status, there is still opportunity to do more than crawl around on your belly. If no weapons became available to you in-game and it allows you to walk about in first person for whatever reason, I'd imagine the movement to be similar to xenomorphs in AVP.

[Xavier]

Hand of Odd, Abe karting game, Stranger's Warth 2 and the Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot discussed here:

http://www.oxm.co.uk/53775/features/...rld-isnt-dead/

With some follow up here:

http://www.oxm.co.uk/53796/exclusive...of-fangus-klot

[STM]

Interesting about SW being MOII. Also, the news about Fangus sounds promising.

[Wil]

When I find the time, remind me give that a proper read and correct all the little mistaken and misleading things.

Right off the bat, there was never Abe Racing. It was Vykker Racing.

[Xavier]

Actually I'm not against an Oddworld racing game, as long as it makes sense with the rest of the canon. Now I am wondering, why would Vykkers race?

Or would Vykkers make their creatures race? And them genetically manipulate them to become better racers? Somehow this makes more sense.

[Vyrien]

If I were a Vykker, I would race the fuck out of those harvester pods.

[STM]

I'd soup up a slig tank and just run down the opposition. Because big-arse heavy tank.

[Nate]

So does this mean that Glitch wasn't speaking quite so hypothetically?

[Crashpunk]

I'll have Abe in a mine cart. Crush everything!

[Jbot123]

One of the cars must be a hot dog and/or banana or I an boycotting Oddworld forever.

[Vyrien]

Lady Margaret on Kinto slaves please.

[STM]

Munch's wheelchair?

[Jbot123]

Stranger's boat with grubbs carrying it as wheels.