Oddworld Maniac

From Oddworld Library

Oddworld Maniac was a primarily French-language Oddworld fansite created by Psykobee with content provided by Goldy, Epeire and Xavier. For most of its life it was either replaced by, or incorporated as a subsite, Oddworld News.

Oddworld Maniac was originally hosted by AltJeux, but switched to Babeloueb.? ‘Oddworld Maniac version 8.0’ opened on 1 May 2001[1] after an appeal by Psykobee for assistance[2] that saw Xavier first join the Oddworld Maniac team. In August 2001 it opened a French-language fan forum,[3] and in October 2001 it was redesigned and hosted an anti-SoBe campaign.[4]

After Babeloueb went down,[5] Oddworld News was launched on 9 November 2001 as a French-language news site to stand in for Oddworld Maniac.[6] A new French-language forum was created in February 2002.[7] Psykobee created a new design for the relaunch of Oddworld Maniac,[8] originally intended for a March 2002 release but delayed because of personal problems Psykobee was experiencing.[5]

Oddworld Maniac relaunched in June 2002 as ‘Oddworld Maniac v.10’, briefly preceded by the launch of its new, searchable image gallery,[9] which opened with 1154 images[10]. With the relaunch, Oddworld News became an English-language subsite of Oddworld Maniac,[11] which published its first news story in English the following month.[12]

In September 2003, Psykobee decided that he no longer had the time to maintain the site, and Oddworld Maniac and Oddworld News ceased to exist.[13] Xavier was already working with Abe Babe and Alcar to recreate his image database as ‘The Art of Oddworld’[13] (later renamed The Oddworld Graphics Gallery), and soon after was made a reporter on Oddworld-Web[14] and OddBlog.[15]

Recently, an archived copy of Oddworld Maniac has appeared online.[16] Although it has been renamed ‘Oddworld Maniac v.11’, the page source identifies it as a copy of ‘v.10’ archived in March 2003 by the Wayback Machine and retrieved in December 2009.

References

  1. Psykobee (1 May 2001). ‘Oddworld Maniac : le retour’. Oddworld Maniac. Archived by the Wayback Machine (10 June 2001). Internet Archive.
  2. Psykobee (April 2001?). Oddworld Maniac homepage. Oddworld Maniac. Archived by the Wayback Machine (16 April 2001). Internet Archive.
  3. Xavier (22 August 2001). ‘FRENCH FORUM’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  4. Xavier (7 October 2001). ‘new Oddworld Maniac look’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  5. a b Xavier (25 March 2002). ‘Oddworld Maniac reported’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  6. Psykobee (9 November 2001). ‘Ouverture d'oddworld news !’. Oddworld News. Archived by the Wayback Machine (11 November 2001). Internet Archive.
  7. Xavier (19 February 2002). ‘French Oddforums’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  8. Xavier (22 December 2001). ‘New desing !’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  9. Xavier (27 June 2002). ‘Oddworld Maniac Pictures!’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  10. psykobee (27 June 2002). Post 9 in ‘Oddworld Maniac Pictures!’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  11. Xavier (29 June 2002). ‘Oddworld Maniac / Oddworld News’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  12. Xavier (3 July 2002). ‘Upload on the official site’. Oddworld News. Oddworld Maniac. Archived by the Wayback Machine (25 September 2002). Internet Archive.
  13. a b Oddworld Forums members (26 September – 4 October 2003). ‘Oddworld Maniac / Oddworld News => Now officially dead’. Oddworld Discussion. Oddworld Forums.
  14. Abe Babe (6 October 2003). ‘Welcome Aboard Xavier!’. Oddworld-Web. Archived by the Wayback Machine (18 February 2004). Internet Archive.
  15. Xavier (6 December 2003). ‘Xav joins OddBlog’. OddBlog. Oddworld Library.
  16. Oddworld Maniac. Accessed 20 February 2011.