Oddworld: Size Matters?

[Bester]

Hey all, this is probably old topic news and for Max's sake I did do a search and I couldn't find a similer post... so anyway!

I thought the Vykker Doc, Fuzzles and Slogs looked too small in Strangers Wrath, so I had a look at the height charts on the 'Official Oddworld' website and I was well shocked.

In general they weren't smaller its just Stranger is bigger, infact he is 9ft, Abe is 6ft and Munch 4ft!

Stranger makes them look tiny and his not even the biggest thing in SW lol!





It's the same for AO and AE too!

Considering that means Abe is same height as me (And the Grubbs), it makes Oddworld seem even more enormous and dangerous!

Anyway way if you have read this far 'well done' and this brings me to my point, I always thought Rupture Farms and Soul Storm Brewery, etc, were too massive in size and produced far too much and I remember those screen shots where the factory products disappeared into the game horizon and thinking; "Who buys all this stuff?". The Glukkons always seemed to be the biggest, baddest villains on the planet but now they don't even seem that big and I recon they are just as scared and manipulated as the smaller Oddworld creatures, perhaps desperate? I've seen people say that Oddworld is five times the size of earth, so maybe there are creatures five times bigger yet to be seen?

[Wil]

Yes, Stranger is huge! And Grubbs are not as tiny as they might first seem.

Glukkons are definitely not the largest race on Oddworld physically, and they’re certainly not the richest or most powerful industrial family, but I don’t think they’re really scared or desperate of anything more than ‘How’m I gonna pay the rent?’ or ‘Why am I not as rich as a Glockstar?’ Oddworld is ten times the size of Earth, but most Glukkons have egos to match.

[Xx_Abe_xX]

I always imagined Abe to be about 4 and a half feet tall because of how big Oddworld was compared to him... I now see that Abe is an inch or two taller than me, which shocked me quite a bit.

[Moosh da Outlaw]

Bigger is always better.
The whole 'grubs-are-the-same-size-as-me' thing freaked me out. When you look at their anatomy, they look like something that would be relatively small. But they're actually pretty big. The same thing goes for Munch.
Anyone have any idea how much their heads weigh? Munch's head is bigger than his body; how can he be that big and not fall over?

EDIT: I thought Sekto was way shorter than Stranger. =|

[Jordan]

Woah! Stranger is big! He's nearly as tall as an average house on Earth!

[Wil]

Woah! Stranger is big! He's nearly as tall as an average house on Earth!

Only if you live in a whole neighbourhood of midgets’ bungalows.

[Zerox]

Wasn't Stranger also something of a 'runty' Steef, as it was?

Also, this makes apt sense, given the number of creatures (Mudokons most notably) from Munch's Oddysee who are colony/hive species rather than more solitary/ordinary vertabrate breeding situations. Colony species have numbers, so such large size and strength is not as necessary.

[skillya_glowi]

So wait...I'm sure someone's brought this up before, but if Oddworld's ten times the size of Earth, wouldn't the force of gravity be waaay stronger? I doubt these creatures could survive and evolve under these conditions.

[Bullet Magnet]

The size charts were made as a visual line-up. Astonishingly, the last thing on anyone's mind was printing the characters to scale.

As for the planet's size, I long ago gave up trying to work out what the hell was going on. Scientifically, the world Lorne describes would be devoid of familiar life. I mean like, welcome to blobsville. High gravity, high temperature, high pressure, high winds, and astonishing tidal forces.

[scipionyx]

why is it so astonishing that Stranger is huge, he is still a Steef. I always imagined him big...

but I thought that Grubbs were somehow smaller than Mudokons, and now I see that they are the same size

well that's Oddworld ...

[GlacierDragon]

About the high gravity thing, maybe they all evolved with really strong muscular and skeletal structures? Then again, I probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I always imagined Grubbs being smaller than Mudokons. And I knew Stranger was big, but 9ft? That means he's about twice as tall as me!

[Bester]

Hey all,

Looks like this topic has started some fresh debate, nice one! I can't believe how many people find this news!

Munch's head is bigger than his body; how can he be that big and not fall over?

Yeah he is top heavy he was a pain to manoeuvre in the game as I remember and always fell head first if you tried to jump lol.

Colony species have numbers, so such large size and strength is not as necessary.

That is a great observation I never noticed that before, being the smaller of the inhabitants with so many Queens there would have to be larger numbers especially with all the work related 'accidents' for Sligs and Glukkons probably.

Wouldn't the force of gravity be waaay stronger?

Haven't a clue, I have seen this topic crop up loads but we can only compare things to our world really. Are we even sure how things work out in space? Even the scientists are just theorising.

Astonishingly, the last thing on anyone's mind was printing the characters to scale.

Hmm I don't know it was on the 'Official' website I'd like to think they would take time to make things accurate, also size and scale are important parts of the design process.

Cheers all!

[SLIG_ODD]

Oddworld is a whole different planet. Everything in that world can be super huge. I mean, we only seen not even a fraction of what the world that is Oddworld.
Here's an example: On Earth, the average human height would be about six feet, give or take. And Oddworld, who knows, it could be ten fifteen, know what I mean?
Sure, gravity must be powerful there but the inhabitants have adapted to it as we did here on Earth. Oddworld isn’t that much different from Earth, it’s just a huge different scale. I mean it’s ten times the size of Earth.

[Xavier]

I think the gravity would be stronger if the density of the planet is the same as ours

[Bullet Magnet]

Hmm I don't know it was on the 'Official' website I'd like to think they would take time to make things accurate, also size and scale are important parts of the design process.

They didn't. This is a dramatis personae, lined up in front of a height chart for effect. The scales are all wrong.

Oddworld is a whole different planet. Everything in that world can be super huge. I mean, we only seen not even a fraction of what the world that is Oddworld.
Here's an example: On Earth, the average human height would be about six feet, give or take. And Oddworld, who knows, it could be ten fifteen, know what I mean?
Sure, gravity must be powerful there but the inhabitants have adapted to it as we did here on Earth. Oddworld isn’t that much different from Earth, it’s just a huge different scale. I mean it’s ten times the size of Earth.

An organism adapted to high gravity and pressure is a short, dense, stocky blob, probably with many paddle shaped legs to drag itself along. On a world with the gravity suggested by Oddworld's size (in which the in-game floar, fauna, climate and physics do not corroborate), falling over for any of the creatures we'e seen so far would be fatal. Think falling off a building at faster that maximum velocity. The only feasible species design so far are slurgs.

I think the gravity would be stronger if the density of the planet is the same as ours

A planet that size would be far denser than Earth, because of all the extra mass weighing down on the mass below, compressing the planet. And even with all that compression, we result in a world ten times the size of Earth. No plate tectonics, no continents, no oceans. A super Venus.

[Nate]

As a point regarding that picture; the characters are not all lined up correctly. Some are placed in front or behind the ruler, which warps the perceived height.

[SLIG_ODD]

Well, then again, we are talking about aliens. Their bodys are WAY different than that of a humans or animals here on our home planet. And, science only knows so much and can only go so far. There a millions of solar systems out there. There is no way we can compair gravity from Earth to that of Oddworld. I, personaly, can't agree with Bullet Magnet's responce to my quote.

[Bester]

Just want to throw this in about the "gravity" problems, I don't think it matters really.

Like I said before we can only compare things to our world, I think everyone's trying to compare Oddworld to Jupiter or something but scientists and astronomers are just theorising themselves.

What's important is people use there imagination above all else and presides we have all played the last four games and I wouldn't say the gravity is any stronger, the Wells spring to mind.

As a point regarding that picture; the characters are not all lined up correctly. Some are placed in front or behind the ruler, which warps the perceived height.

In reply to Nate and Bullet Magnet, yeah I did notice that some are on the line and others in the foreground, etc but it's tiny margin I think you can still use your imagination to fill in the gaps and see them at their right heights.

I can't see any character in there that I would say is the wrong scale, looking back at the actual game and pictures it does seem pretty accurate, not perfect but an accurate depiction.

[Zerox]

It would not be hard to make sure numbers and images are right, we can tell scale is correct from playing the games already, and there's no reason for the numbers to be innacurate at all. Partly for scale with each other, and so that they can be comparable to ourselves.

They may not be lined up correctly, but there's not enough difference there to say whether Stranger is 8 or 9ft, it's still certain he's at 9, pretty much.

The gravity thing probably wasn't something planned, Oddworldian species are based on Earth vertabrates, i.e. skeletal and muscular structures, etc. etc. The planet obviously has similar gravity to Earth because of the similar physics we see in the games affecting creatures of similar size to ourselves. Thus, regardless of how it works, Oddworld in the fictional universe has the same/similar gravity to here, approx. 1G. Whether or not something such as this is possiblee in reality is uncertain, not because of inability of creatures to adapt to such gravity, but because their similarity to species from Earth means that they're going to function in pretty much the same way, so we know whether this is going to be plausible or not. Bear in mind that Oddworld itself is also very similar to Earth, with elements such as water present, and plants. The only thing that might be different is what's inside the planet's core, anything under the surface. Would it make a difference if Oddworld's crust was 25% the planet's tthickness, rather than the less than 5% our own crust makes up? (given that the core is denser than the surface).

[Wil]

It’s lucky that the laws of physics in the Oddworld Universe are different from ours, so we don’t have to find some kind of plausible (and therefore unlikely) explanation.

The size charts are accurate. The characters aren’t to scale because they’re all copied from other sources and placed on the height chart background in front of each other, but the tops of their heads are at the right height.

p.s. Within reason, anyway. In the past, Abe has been described as 5 foot 8. It’s possible Abe has grown, but likely the designers just saw fit to make him 6 foot, as they are free to do.

[Moosh da Outlaw]

And its lucky that Oddworld doesn't exist, or i'd feel really bad for all those poor people having to live with ten times the gravity slowly crushing down on their heads.

[Wings of Fire]

And its lucky that Oddworld doesn't exist, or i'd feel really bad for all those poor people having to live with ten times the gravity slowly crushing down on their heads.

Not to mention all the slavery and trophy hunting and sentient animal testing and crap...

[Bullet Magnet]

The size charts are accurate. The characters aren’t to scale because they’re all copied from other sources and placed on the height chart background in front of each other, but the tops of their heads are at the right height.

There's no way, I'm looking at this and seeing character proportions completely different from the games. There's no way the interns are so huge, the scrabs are one half again as big as they were in AO and AE, and there's no way Freely is as tall as the Raisin.

[Bester]

There's no way, I'm looking at this and seeing character proportions completely different from the games. There's no way the interns are so huge, the scrabs are one half again as big as they were in AO and AE, and there's no way Freely is as tall as the Raisin.

Wow you sound really angry there lol, have a look at these screens then go look at the size chart.

Munch is roughly half size of an Intern:
http://oddworldlibrary.net/archives/...=SSMO0041.jpg2

The hardest one to see is the Scrabs because the camera is always basicly a top down view in MO so everything does look same height but you can see the Scrabs are slightly taller then the Muokons.
http://oddworldlibrary.net/archives/...=SSMO0037.jpg2
http://oddworldlibrary.net/archives/...=SSAO0256.jpg9

Elboze makes Stranger look tiny (Strange picture I know it's hard to find any of Freely), now consider Stranger is 9ft roughly:
http://oddworldlibrary.net/archives/...=SSSW0200.jpg7
http://oddworldlibrary.net/archives/...SSMO0315.jpg11