Manco

Lorne Lanning on The Electronic Playground podcast

 Inhabitants, Lorne Lanning  No Responses »
Apr 022013
 
At the start of February, The Electronic Playground invited Lorne Lanning to be a guest on their podcast Vic’s Basement to talk about Oddworld (Lorne’s section begins around the 4:25 mark).

When asked how he has endured in the industry for so long compared to other developers, Lanning explains that he first became interested in the industry because of the possibilities it held; and those possibilities still interest him even now.
 
At several points Lanning talks about how “Oddworld 2.0” (as he calls the franchise’s current incarnation) is approaching the market:
  • Lanning believes that digital shelf space is infinite, and is positive about digital distribution; sel-publishing means they don’t have to work with big publishers and make huge returns.
  • When designing games, Oddworld takes less of a direct “you are in the story” approach common to other games, and instead allows the player to sit back and watch the story while still allowing their influence to be felt.
  • Lanning talks about wanting to engage with audience more directly, saying he wants to “make our audience feel heard” and that Oddworld listens to its fans
  • There has been no advertising for digital rereleases, instead relying on guerrilla marketing and pre-existing brand visibility
Lanning also rides motorcycles, apparently. Interesting.

An Oddworld t shirt is coming

 Oddworld  No Responses »
Mar 152013
 
Earlier today Oddworld Inhabitants posted a sneak peak at a new piece of merchandise on their blog – a brand new t shirt
The shirt, designed by Jonny Eveson (who you may remember as being behind a nifty New ‘n’ Tasty poster recently unveiled) boasts a rather classy interpretation of the SoulStorm Brew logo:
SoulStorm t shirt design

Ice cold.


No word yet on when you’ll be able to buy one, but the blogpost promises that more information will be coming “early next week”.

After some delay, Stranger Vita patch is now live

 Oddworld  No Responses »
Mar 042013
 
You may have heard that Stranger’s Wrath Vita had a patch incoming. You may also have heard that the patch was delayed so that some issues could be fixed.
Well worry not, as Oddworld Inhabitants have now confirmed that the issues have been worked out and the patch is now live in Europe and North America. The patch adds an online leaderboard which allows players to compare completion times on bounties; alternative controls for those who dislike the Vita’s rear touchpad; and some bug fixes.

JAW talk Vita tech with Eurogamer

 Just Add Water, Oddworld  No Responses »
Mar 032013
 
Just Add Water have been featured in a Eurogamer article focusing on the development of PSVita games.
In the article programmer Peter Memmott and CEO Stewart Gilray get deep into the technical side of developing for Sony’s handheld console, discussing some of the challenges and constraints involved in getting Stranger’s Wrath HD working on the platform.
Be warned, the article features some tech-talk that may be a bit bewildering if you’re not particularly interested in game development.

Stewart and Lorne talk to All About the Games

 Oddworld  No Responses »
Mar 032013
 
Lorne Lanning and Stewart Gilray spoke to website All About the Games last month. The Q&A style interview features questions on past and present developments for the studio, as well as some questions (mostly fielded by Lanning) on the state of the games industry.
One interesting thing we noticed was the following comment:

AATG: Oddbox is a wonderful package of your games all wrapped up neatly on the Steam digital platform. Now Steam Bigscreen has launched, do you have any plans to patch in more controller options, as Xpadder seems the only solution for some of the games.

SG: Xpadder? Not sure what you need that for… do you mean the original Abe titles? We’re looking at something that might help in that area, but we’re not talking about it yet.

We’re not sure what this means, but it may be a little hint towards some future updates for the PC ports of Abe’s Oddysee and Exoddus. Fingers crossed, anyway.

JAW are making something for the PS4

 Just Add Water, Oddworld  No Responses »
Feb 212013
 
In case you hadn’t heard, Sony announced the PlayStation 4 at a live event yesterday.
While it may not be the most surprising thing you’ve ever heard, it looks as though Just Add Water will be developing a game for the brand new system – the studio’s logo was shown on a slide along with the logos of other developers working on titles for the console. This was quickly followed up with a post on the JAW site confirming the fact:

By now you’ll have eagerly lapped up all the information from the Sony PlayStation announcement. You’ll have seen our name in the list of confirmed developers. We’re delighted to finally be able to tell you that JAW are developing for the Sony PlayStation 4. We can’t talk about what we’re working on just yet. Just be assured it’ll be worth the wait.

It’s entirely possible that the mystery project has nothing to do with Oddworld — the studio has hinted that they have some non-Oddworld plans in the works in the past — but with the amount of Oddworld titles already announced, it’s a safe bet we’ll be seeing Abe and friends on the next generation of consoles.

Abe may or may not have been planned as PlayStation All-Stars DLC

 Oddworld  No Responses »
Feb 062013
 
Here’s an interesting story – according to a post on the forum NeoGAF, Abe may have been planned as an upcoming character for PlayStation 3 game PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.
The post’s source is a screenshot of a tweet from Stewart Gilray, which reads “we were to get Abe in DLC in April or May, but they cancelled us.”
The original tweet no longer appears in Gilray’s timeline, so we can’t verify if the screenshot was faked; however, the Just Add Water CEO has responded to a few inquiries about the post in a noncommittal manner, which suggests it is be genuine.

The screenshot of the (seemingly deleted) tweet.

New ‘n’ Tasty poster unveiled

 Oddworld  No Responses »
Jan 252013
 
Oddworld Inhabitants has finally given us another peek at the upcoming Abe’s Oddysee: New ‘n’ Tasty. This time the focus is on something a little different, though – it seems the classic RuptureFarms product posters are getting the HD treatment.
Johnny Eveson’s poster design for New ‘n’ Tasty.

Jonny Eveson’s poster design for New ‘n’ Tasty.

The updated poster for “New ‘n’ Tasty” (above)—redesigned by Jonny Eveson (who you may remember as the creator of these gorgeous art deco-inspired Oddworld posters)—will hopefully fit in to a HD world a lot better than the original version – and from what we can gather, we can expect to see more reimaginings from Eveson in the near future:

And as the cherry on top, the original teaser is introduced with “we’ve been working on some cool ideas for you guys to enjoy outside of the games”, suggesting that we may be seeing printed posters gracing our walls as well.

JAW wants to know what Oddworld game to make next

 Inhabitants, Just Add Water, Oddworld  No Responses »
Jan 172013
 
The team over at Just Add Water have asked Oddworld fans an interesting question: “what would you like to see next?”
Posted as a poll on official Oddworld Inhabitants blog, the question has a number of preset choices, including Abe’s Exoddus HD, The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klott, a Stranger’s Wrath sequel, Squeek’s Oddysee, and Munch’s Exoddus. Some of these titles will no doubt be recognized as previously shelved Oddworld projects, while others (like a Stranger follow-up) are new ideas, at least officially.
The team are quick to stress that the poll won’t be the only factor that decides their next project, but it’s still interesting to see a games developer asking exactly what people want to see.
As of this writing there are just over one and a half thousand votes, with Abe’s Exoddus HD leading with over 400 votes.

Two Oddworld releases coming next week

 Oddworld  No Responses »
Dec 132012
 
Oddworld Inhabitants have announced that they will be releasing two Oddworld titles on two platforms next week.
The first is Stranger’s Wrath HD, which will be coming to the PlayStation Vita, its third platform to date. The handheld port will be on sale starting 18 December (in North America; Europe on 19 December) for $14.99/€11.99/£9.99 on the PlayStation Network, and will feature some touch controls specifically designed for the Vita.
The second title is Munch’s Oddysee HD, which after a long time in development will finally be seeing a release on PlayStation 3. This will be soon after Stranger, releasing on 19 December (in Europe; “late December” for North America) on the PlayStation Network for $9.99/€8.99/£7.99.
Page 1 of 9 1 2 3 … 8 9