Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee remake going 2.5D and smooth scrolling

[Shin-Ra]

These pre-production test screenshots are from Oddworld's facebook.





You had me at Hello – Just Add Water talks all things Odd

Updating a 2D side-scrolling platform game requires more effort than simply drenching everything in shiny HD paint. The gameplay also needs some minor tweaks to ensure consistency and to give the gameplay mechanics every chance to appeal to new players, as well as to those itching to dive back into Oddworld.

So, where Abe’s adventure was originally conceived as a series of discreet screens with flip transitioning, the HD update will feature a more seamless experience with scrolling replacing the individual screen structure.

“The paths through each level are going to be 2.5D with some push scrolling,” Gilray explained. “The biggest challenge we’ve had with this is in tweaking some of the puzzles to fit this structure, where previously they relied on the flip screen transition effect.

“So, near the beginning of the game there’s a puzzle where you run into the screen and there’s a sleeping Slig on the ground. If you accidentally wake him up you can go into the next screen and back again and he goes back to sleep straightaway.

“With the scrolling that we’re implementing, you can’t do that, so instead we’ve placed a barrel on a platform which you can hide behind, Metal Gear Solid-style, and if you wait there long enough the Slig gives up and goes back to sleep.

“It’s about making these little changes so that the puzzles, the game world and the AI are all consistent. Whereas before, some Sligs would chase you to the next screen and some wouldn’t so we’re making one of the Sligs’ behaviours that they’ll chase you until you’re able to lose them by hiding or whatnot and only then will they go back to their original position.”

“On top of this we’ve spoken to Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna [Oddworld Inhabitants co-founders] about finishing the Oddworld quintology. It’s worth just clarifying what that actually entails because some people think it’s just adding one more game to the four already released to make five. The quitology is actually five ‘Oddysee’ games, and so far we’ve only had two of those: Abe’s and Munch’s Oddysee. The third game is Squeek’s Oddysee, Lorne and I have had brief chats about that already but I can’t say exactly how far away that it.”

Time to take stock: in addition to Stranger’s Wrath and Munch’s Oddysee for PS3 and Vita, Just Add Water is also working on the HD update of Abe’s Oddysee, but that’s not all. Gilray told us that there’s also the possibility of an update of Abe’s Exoddus, along with plans for the previously-announced-but-never-developed Hand of Odd – which he described as being geared towards a more casual/social gaming scene and likely featuring “touch screen and or mouse control” for immediacy.

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. Plus, there’s a brief mention of The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot and of course the remaining three adventures in the original ‘quintology’ that the team are keen to tell the story of (though the correct name for five part series is actually a pentalogy, apparently).

Just Add Water will clearly be kept very busy and Gilray suggested that only 10% of the original Oddworld timeline has been covered by the four games so far released. It’s evident from speaking with Gilray that both he and his team are enthusiastic and respectful of the brand with which they’re set to be spending a lot of time with over the next few years.

Encouragingly, they are not the least bit daunted by the task ahead. This, in part, can be attributed to the wealth of available lore already created for the Oddworld universe, as well as the clarity of Lanning’s and McKenna’s original vision for the franchise. The rest can be chalked up to the depth of personality of both Oddworld and its inhabitants.

As Gilray succinctly sums up:

“It’s not just the characters that have character; the whole world has character.”