New N Tasty Costs $30. Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot likely to be the first new game.

[Daxter King]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-oddworld-game

Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning told Eurogamer today at GDC that he only needs to sell 250K copies of New 'n' Tasty to fund a remake of Abe's Exoddus, the next planned project in the series. Selling more will help fund an all new Oddworld game after that, and Lanning believes he can create this offering if New 'n' Tasty shifts half a million units.

There will be one major hurtle New 'n' Tasty will need to overcome to see these kinds of sales: Its price. Lanning told us today that he's planning to charge $30 (about £18) for it.
That might sound like a lot, but Lanning is very confident about its quality. He explained that unlike most indie games that cost about $100K or so, this remake has a budget of nearly $5 million with about $2 million coming out of pocket, while the rest is based on an estimated $2-$3 million in assets the studio kept from back in the day, then later touched up.
"This game will play better, look better, and you'll have more fun with for more hours of play than games you're paying $60 for," Lanning said. "That's a promise. And I can say that with absolute confidence."
"If this had a publisher, the price would be higher and they'd be calling in triple A."

Lanning was quite clear about his desire to make The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot, a project he's resurrected to tinker with some more. "Over the last year and a half, I've designed Fangus extensively. And I would like to be able to move into Fangus as soon as a new IP in Oddworld," Lanning explained. That being said, he noted that the studio has other ideas as well, so Fangus Klot is not guaranteed to be the next original Oddworld title if and when the studio gets enough capital for it.

More at da link.


discuss

[DarkHoodness]

Heh, I guessed correctly.

E: Will be it worth it for new players? I now think it'll be very much so, judging on what's been said/shown, but time will tell. I bet people will complain about it anyway.

Space Engineers is priced at that and has a lot less going for it with fewer followers, but it reached 250k sales within four months.

--

Fangus isn't really news, it's something Lorne's been wanting to make into a reality when he can, along with several other IPs. Although I thought they wanted to do Squeak first.

[Varrok]

I wonder how Lorne's kind of expects to sell half a million game copies, while the official youtube trailers have about 90k and 222,5k views.

"If this had a publisher, the price would be higher and they'd be calling in triple A."

I can't recall any triple-A games using such cheap and indie-friendly engine as Unity. It also doesn't look AAA. It looks great, its graphics are much nicer than most/all indie games, but AAA? Really? We're talking about Crysis levels of beauty. Or MGS:Revengance

[V_O_T]

Foof $30. Good thing I'm a chicken farmer and get paid well. I still stand by getting multiple copies upon launch for PC users. As console will be a bit harder to send out.

Speaking of however, I did a competition on their FB page for my runners up code in that achievement naming contest and well, it bombed hard as no one really paid attention

So its up for grabs guys, 1st in gets the juicy odd box code.

4CCN-KJNE-NPF6

REMEMBER its a Europe/Australia/PAL code, so it wont work for those in North America soz Ameribros. Also i think this code is for PS vita and consoles but im not sure. Try it out anyways :P

Anyways, Enjoy! *to who ever gets it 1st* <3


On a side note, i honestly think they will get the a majority of the 250k goal when pre-orders pop up on steam or console.

[El Dango AGAIN]

They seriously, desperately need to market this thing a lot more than they are currently doing. I know they will release some new stuff tomorrow, but from there on they should keep up a steady release of trailers and advertisements.

[Xavier]

Yes Fangus! I really hope OWI will be back on track after NnT and will be able to make it.

30$ seems like a decent price, especially when you know you can expect OWI's level of quality. But with that price, I agree with El Dango AGAIN: OWI and JAW should definitively start to market this thing now.

Thanks for sharing this! (and especially posting quotes, as I can't access the site at work.)

[Scrabaniac]

I'm interested in the 'expansion packs'. How could Abe's Oddysee be expanded once rupturefarms is shutdown?

[Xavier]

I'm interested in the 'expansion packs'. How could Abe's Oddysee be expanded once rupturefarms is shutdown?

Sligstorm?

[El Dango AGAIN]

Yes Fangus! I really hope OWI will be back on track after NnT and will be able to make it.

Forgot to comment on that, even though that's like the best part! Yeah, bring on the Fangus!

[JennyGenesis]

Considering how well Stranger's Wrath HD sold, I've no doubt that New N Tasty will smash that goal.

I find it quite interesting that secretly at the back of our minds we all new Exoddus would be given the New N Tasty treatment, but it seemed that the developers were really quiet on it and never said a thing. I get the feeling though that Exoddus would be developed in a much shorter time than New N Tasty if they follow the same process that they did when they developed Exoddus back in 1998, keep the same engine and assets from AO but just add new characters and objects. For a more modern take, look at Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.

I think it would be ridiculous to expect them to pump it out in 9 months again, the development time would be much longer since the environments actually have to be built rather than being a series of pictures. At least when they come to do Exoddus they don't have to design new puzzles and levels expect maybe adjusting a few of them to work properly on the new scrolling camera.

As for the price, I think £18 is reasonable, but my perspective may be different from everybody else. The last time I used Steam was back when you could only buy Valve titles off it, I never had a Playstation 3 and of course the Xbox 360 used Microsoft Points. So I don't really understand too much about the pricing on an indie game, but for me, it will be nice to get a PS4 game for a decent price, I got Battlefield 4, Lego Marvel Super Heroes and Need For Speed Rivals all in my PS4 Bundle, the only game I've bought since is Rayman Legends for £30 and even then that was only because it was on sale at the shop I bought it from. But to see EA (Who I assume set the price) charging £54.99 for a downloadable copy Need For Speed Rivals is just disgusting, even the extra cost of using the diesel in my car or paying bus fare to travel to a shop to pick up a copy still works out cheaper than downloading it, and it's not just EA being ridiculous as usual, COD Ghosts is the same price to. So I think £18 is an absolute bargain, I'd happily pay more but it seems people are unhappy paying just £18...

I would be happy to pay more not just because it's an Oddworld title, the game looks like a really high quality title and if the cost wasn't so high to get the game boxed and on a shelf then I could easily see this game being sold at shops.

[Crashpunk]

Aww yeah, A very nice price indeed. I hope it sells well. I think so far, it's getting promoted fairly well so I have no worries it will. And once it's out on Steam, I reckon that's where most of the sales will come from. OWI wouldn't go far adding Steam Trading cards and badges as well.

Also. I want that Abe's Exoddus remake more than anything on this planet.

Not to mention Burtal Ballad of Fangus Klot! I've always liked the look of that game in the concept art. i'm very glad to hear it's return.

I find it quite interesting that secretly at the back of our minds we all new Exoddus would be given the New N Tasty treatment

It would only make sense. Since they were very similar games. Not like it would be difficult to make either.

Also the fact Liam pretty much told me back at Eurogamer 2012 that JAW were planning an Abe's Exoddus remake all depending on the sales of New N Tasty

[JennyGenesis]

I think so far, it's getting promoted fairly well so I have no worries it will.

I have to disagree with you there, what have we had apart from 2 trailers and magazine articles? I know OWI and J.A.W have a limited budget but marketing is an investment, so putting money into something that could potentially give you more back, but I understand that investment is a risk to.

I'm of the opinion though that if we see no more marketing, seeing it advertised on Steam when it's released will explode sales.

[Crashpunk]

Most indie games don't get a lot of promotion and rely on it's fan base and social media. Oddworld is lucky because it's a fairly well established franchise and it's very good at social media and it's fan-base are awesome. (I do my best to do my part!)

It also seems pretty well known in the Playstation community.

[Xavier]

I think so far, it's getting promoted fairly well so I have no worries it will.

It's getting some coverage in the specialised press but I think they should do a lot more noise then what they have been doing now.

They raised awareness for the game pretty well a couple of months ago with the competition allowing fans to give their voice to mudokons and more recently by naming the trophies. But now they really need to convince people this game is going to be worth buying. Lorne and Stew doing interviews and podcasts is nice but it's not enough.

On the other hand I have a feeling tomorrow's announcement is going to address exactly this.

[Crashpunk]

I'm also hoping they will announce a release date. That would spark a lot more hype.

[Manco]

I do think they should be putting themselves out there a bit more with trailers and screenshots and such, but I think CP is right – their marketing has been along the same sort of lines as a lot of indie games, and most of those end up doing pretty well. I don’t think you can expect a marketing blitz in magazines/newspapers/billboards or anything like how AAA games usually promote themselves.

250k is a really reasonable goal as well, especially when you consider their platform coverage. Selling on PS3, PS4, Vita, and Steam will get them in front of a LOT of eyeballs. 500k is probably a pretty safe bet as well, as long as reviews are positive.

also my body is ready for some fangus make it happen

[Nate]

I'm expecting/hoping that they make a pretty solid splash on Steam. As long as they're featured for a while, they should get a good deal of nostalgic recognition and curious newcomers.

My reaction to the rest of the news can be summed up as: "Nice."

[STM]

All excellent news, okay I'll admit I'm a little excited now. $30 is a really good price (especially because the £ is super strong against the $ right now ehuehuehue). Oh God Fangus is gonna be so cool as well, cannot fucking wait to hear more about that. I really hope they drift away from the dog-cat thing back the more Oddworldesque idea Lorne originally had (supposing he did have a more Oddworldy idea originally).

[V_O_T]

b-but i wanted Munches Oddysee 2 :<

lol jk. maybe later on... Bring on the Klot!

[Manco]

I thought the dog-cat thing was Lorne’s original concept. It was when all the character designs started becoming more humanesque that Lorne pulled the plug, if I remember rightly.

[STM]

Oh I see, I seemed to remember it being as if the chose the dog-cat similarities when it drifted away from Oddworld, I think you're right though, now that you mention it. Well as long as they make the designs more akin to AO than SW I'd be happy, no more chicken people, please. :P

[DarkHoodness]

A lot of ideas look stupid on paper, but it's how they're pulled off which counts.

Stranger was once described as "a strange creature which is based on a Horse and Gorillia and a talking boat" (paramiteabe, 06-18-2003, scroll down - Yay, old hype) before fans knew a lot about him. Seems the talking boat bit was dropped, maybe would have been a bit too weird even for Oddworld (or not? Maybe they could've made that boat into a character, gave it some sentience - It shoots by itself after all), but it worked for Zelda. And most of the rest of Stranger's design worked really well.

[Jordan]

Really nice price. Happy with that.

I remember being not so excited about Fangus but my tastes were different back then so who knows?

[Nepsotic]

£18? Now I'm definitely torrenting that shit.

[Slog Bait]

I was really holding out for no more than $25 urrgh

[Havoc]

$30 is a very decent price, though in the case of Europe that probably means €30. Not sure of Steam is the one making those prices or the publisher. If it's the latter I'm hoping for an actual fair conversion.

And 250k sales? Easy peasy. With some basic promotion, more trailers and news as we get close to release, YouTubers playing the game, I don't think it would be a hard goal to meet. 500k might even be doable.

Not sure about Fangus as a new game though. I just want to see more Oddworld and Abe/Munch.

[Gilrod]

£18? Now I'm definitely torrenting that shit.

Seriously, you expected me NOT to reply to this...

If you don't want any more Oddworld titles, torrent it, if you do, then seriously get a grip on reality.

Stewart

[Havoc]

£18? Now I'm definitely torrenting that shit.

Yeah, get the fuck out...

[STM]

Seriously, you expected me NOT to reply to this...

If you don't want any more Oddworld titles, torrent it, if you do, then seriously get a grip on reality.

Stewart

Hero.

[Crashpunk]

Fuck you Nep.

Torrenting Indie games...Fucking disgusting.

Do what normal people do and save up for it. £18 is nothing compared to a AAA release.

What really frustrates me if you can happily admit that your going to torret a Oddworld game. ON. A. ODDWORLD. FORUM.

Glad to see Stew addressing this.