Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee is a platform video game developed by Oddworld Inhabitants and published by GT Interactive. It was released in 1997 for the PlayStation game console, and computers running DOS and Microsoft Windows in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. The Game Boy version of Abe's Oddysee, retitled as Oddworld Adventures, was developed by Saffire and published by GT Interactive in 1998. An Onlive version was released in 2011. Emulated versions for the PlayStation 3 via PlayStation Network were released in 2009, 2010, and 2013.
The game centers on the titular Abe, a meek Mudokon slave at the RuptureFarms meat processing factory. When he discovers that he and his fellow Mudokons are to be slaughtered, Abe decides to escape and liberate as many enslaved Mudokons as he can. The player assumes the role of Abe as he attempts a perilous quest to emancipate his downtrodden people.
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee was widely acclaimed for having innovative gameplay, good art direction and engaging cutscenes; however, its steep learning curve and system of only saving at checkpoints sometimes received criticism. It was the first game in the planned five-part Oddworld series, which includes the direct sequels Abe's Exoddus, Munch's Oddysee and Stranger's Wrath. A remake of the game, titled , was developed by Just Add Water and released via digital distribution in 2014.
Gameplay
Abe's Oddysee is a two-dimensional platform game in which players take control of the character Abe, to travel across separate screens: solving puzzles, navigating obstacles, and avoiding enemies. Abe will die if attacked by an enemy, touched by an obstacle, dropped from too great a height, or even holding a grenade for too long, respawning at the last checkpoint. As well as jumping to navigate areas and crouching to roll under obstacles, Abe can break into a run to jump over large gaps or escape enemies, or tiptoe to avoid disturbing enemies, adding a limited stealth element to the game. Abe can also use throwable objects such as meat, rocks or grenades to bypass enemies or destroy obstacles, though grenades have a timer and, as explained, will blow up Abe if he holds one for too long.Abe has the ability to telepathically control Sligs, but can only use this in safe areas. In many areas, flying orbs prevent Abe's telepathy by zapping him. Once Abe successfully possesses a Slig, Abe can control their movements to attack other enemies and activate mechanisms too dangerous for Abe, and can then destroy the Slig. Abe's body is immobile and vulnerable whilst possessing another character, whereas if his host is killed, control will return to Abe's body.
Along the way, the player encounters other Mudokons that he can rescue. By holding down the GameSpeak button and pressing various commands, Abe can command them to follow him, stay put, and activate mechanisms, as well as praise or scold them. Sometimes Abe will have to go through certain procedures to persuade a certain Mudokon, such as responding to whistles. Mudokons can be rescued by safely leading them past traps and enemies to bird portals, which can be activated by chanting. If the player rescues at least 50 Mudokons during the course of the game, the Mudokons rescue Abe in the good ending of the game.
Throughout the game, Abe is attacked by Sligs, Scrabs, and Paramites. Sligs will shoot on sight, but cannot see through dark areas; Scrabs will attack anyone in their territory; whilst Paramites will attack in packs and become shy alone. Elums are bipedal creatures that Abe can ride and communicate with by GameSpeak, although they will be distracted by dripping honey. Late in the game, Abe gains the ability to transform into a demigod 'Shrykull', which can eviscerate all on-screen enemies. Abe can gain a limited number of transformation uses after rescuing enough Mudokons at the same time.
Plot
Characters
Abe's Oddysee focuses on a variety of species that inhabit the game's setting of Oddworld: the Mudokons, a species with a rich history and culture, which have been slowly transformed into a slave race, leaving many who are born into captivity largely ignorant of their kind's past; the Glukkons, a species that covet power and money, lacking any moral or restraints on achieving their goals, and thus running Oddworld's most prominent companies; and the Sligs, a compliant race to the Glukkons, used as security. The game mostly focuses on Abe, a Mudokon slave worker, who acts as both the narrator and the story's protagonist. Abe is described as a "", and is portrayed with his mouth sewn shut, possibly to prevent his outcry. During his adventure, Abe is joined by the Elum : a stubborn, loyal assistant. Abe and Elum were originally envisioned as beginning Abe's Oddysee together, living off the land until thrust into an industrial factory; but the developers determined that the story was stronger should Abe come from a factory existence to self-sustenance.The primary antagonist of the game is Molluck the Glukkon, the ruthless chief executive officer of the meat-packing factory titled RuptureFarms. Molluck and his fellow Glukkons are often portrayed as wearing smart clothing or suits, and sometimes smoking cigars while commanding authority over their security detail.
Story
While working late at RuptureFarms - a large-scale meat-processing plant on Oddworld - Mudokon slave Abe inadvertently overhears the plant's owner Molluck the Glukkon in conversation with his fellow Glukkons. Because of his business failing, due to the decline in the animals that supply meat for the plant's products - one of which has now gone extinct - Molluck proposes making a new product out of Mudokons. Frightened at learning his species will be harvested for meat, Abe decides to escape from the plant, causing him to become a fugitive in the eyes of the Glukkons. Managing to overcome the Glukkons' security force of Sligs, Abe escapes and reaches the region known as the Free-Fire Zone.Upon looking to the sky, Abe sees a moon with its face in the shape of a Mudokon handprint, but becomes so focused on it that he suddenly falls down a cliff and smashes his head. A shaman of the Mudokons, whom Abe calls Big Face due to the mask he wears, helps him to recover while explaining that only he can save his enslaved brethren from RuptureFarms. In order to do this, Big Face states that Abe must undergo spiritual trials in the lands of the Paramites and the Scrabs, and traverse a set of labyrinthine, abandoned temples. Upon doing so, the shaman marks Abe's hands with a scar, each representing the two species, granting him the power of the Shrykull, an invincible demigod.
With this new ability, Abe returns to RuptureFarms, rescues his Mudokon brethren, and deactivates most of the factory's power. When Molluck discovers this and decides to flood the entire factory with poisonous gas, Abe races to the boardroom to try to deactivate this, using his powers to destroy the Glukkons summoned to the plant, under the pretense of an emergency board meeting. Before he can tackle the gas, Molluck manages to capture and prepares to send him to a meat grinder. If the player failed to rescue 50 Mudokons throughout the game, Abe succumbs to his fate; if the player manages to rescue at least 50 Mudokons, the freed slaves summons magical lightning to zap Molluck, with BigFace rescuing Abe and bringing him home to a hero's welcome.
Development
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee began production in January 1995 under the working title of Soul Storm. After GT Interactive acquired publishing rights on September 12, 1996, the title was changed, first to Oddworld Inhabitants: Epic 1 Starring Abe and eventually to Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. The game had a private showing at E3 '96, and journalists in attendance hailed it as one of the highlights of the show. A more large-scale unveiling took place at E3 '97. Though the original release date of May was pushed back to September, the version of the game shown at E3 '97 in June was remarkably similar to the release version, and Abe's Oddysee had a reportedly smooth development cycle with few late changes.The first footage creator Lorne Lanning saw of Abe's Oddysee involved a pack of meeches chasing Abe. He said he was happy with the animation at the time but when development was nearing completion, the studio discovered that there was not enough disk space to include all of the species featured in the game. The meeches were removed from the final game and identified in the story as extinct. Another sequence under time and budget constraints concerned the moon that Abe witnesses after his escape from the Stockyards. Lanning explained that the CG sequence that occurs between Abe escaping RuptureFarms and entering the Stockyards was originally accompanied by footage of a meteor shower creating the shape of Abe's handprint, in order to imply "greater forces that are really behind it, that are trying to send him symbols". The budget for the game was $4 million, and GT Interactive dedicated $10 million to its marketing budget, the publisher's largest to date.
According to Lanning, the "GameSpeak" mechanic was partially inspired by the audio puzzles of Loom.
Abe's Oddysee was the first major GT title that the UK development team, that had been taken in by GT following the acquisition of Warner Interactive, became involved with. The testing process of the game was unusual for GT Interactive as the British team did gameplay testing whilst normally American games were only tested in Europe for language and other compatibility issues. The soundtrack features mostly ambient music composed by Ellen Meijers. Because of the lack of testing, the final version of the game left behind a ledge clipping through the floor glitch, a glitch which allows Abe to jump backwards behind screens, and an invincibility glitch. All of these glitches can result in skipping of Paramonia and Scrabania, which was first discovered in June 2014 on the Microsoft Windows version of the game. Similar glitches are also found in, but the invincibility death delay glitch could only work using a hidden cheat in the game. There are several other glitches that can cause Abe's Mudokons not to follow Abe and some glitches related to levers and manual lifts. Another type of invincibility glitch is found in the remake '. The ledge glitch and the stop turn glitches were fixed. Also, the Windows version has some sound bugs where sound effects and music were played around a semitone lower than the PSX port. Abe's Exoddus also featured this bug.
When Abe's Oddysee was in production, the developers found that an executive at publisher GT Interactive tried to sabotage production because he didn't like the game being made. He took footage of the game to his boss, who loved the direction the game had, and chose to provide more funding at the expense of the executive that wanted to shut it down. Lanning later explained that in 1997 during ''Oddysees production, the video game industry was seen as making toys, and not taken seriously; they were "happy to make a living, but they weren't necessarily going out and bragging about it". Games began to be more about shooting and violence and blood, but Oddworld Inhabitants was "the antithesis to that" and said "we can make people feel better rather than just feel like they won."
A Sega Saturn version of the game was announced, but never released.
In the initial PlayStation version of the game, upon "perfect" completion of the game — completion with all 99 Mudokon slaves rescued — an extra full motion video "Guardian Angel" can be viewed, which depicts a captured Abe harassed by "The Shrink": a mechanical creature with a sophisticated artificial intelligence. The FMV, which is absent from the PC version and later PlayStation releases of the game, introduced a new character to the Oddworld mythos. The character was reputedly part of an early advertising campaign, which included television commercials, but was eventually abandoned.
Release
The game saw its first release on the PlayStation, DOS and Windows first appearing on store shelves on September 18, 1997, before fully releasing the next day on a day dubbed as "Odd Friday" by the developer and publisher; over 500,000 units were originally released worldwide. The Japanese version followed in October.For the release in Japan, the title of Abe's Oddysee was changed to Abe a GoGo by the publisher SoftBank. Other changes included the art for the "Mudokon Pops!" packaging, which originally consisted of a severed Mudokon head speared on a stick. Due to undisclosed current events in Japan, the design was changed to a more ambiguous, "happier" image of a Mukudon popsicle. The design for the protagonist Abe and other Mudokons was also significantly altered. Certain Japanese pressure groups were offended by the Mudokons having four fingers and most of them working in a meat-packing factory, due to a historic Japanese subclass of meat packers who were looked down upon in society. Four fingers, or showing four fingers to another person, came to insinuate the other was a member of the subclass, because it suggested the meat packers who lost fingers at work. Oddworld Inhabitants had to alter the design of Mudokons to three fingers, or else face legal battles and large fines. Also in the Japanese version, the game won't let the player choose to play Scrabania or Paramonia. Instead, the player is forced to play through Paramonia first.
Oddworld Inhabitants made the altered designs a permanent feature; subsequent versions of Abe's Oddysee released outside Japan included both the changed packaging and changed Mudokon hand. Future games and media also recognise these changes as canon, although Abe's Exoddus features four-fingered Mudokon sprites, and scenes from Abe's Oddysee shown in the game were not altered.
The Game Boy port was released as Oddworld Adventures; it was developed by Saffire and published by GT Interactive in 1998. The game is a significantly cut-down version of Abe's Oddysee, with only a few similar levels and a condensed plot.
An emulated version of the PlayStation version was released for the PlayStation 3 via PlayStation Network on October 22, 2009 in North America, on April 15, 2010 in Europe, and on November 13, 2013 in Japan. An Onlive version was also released in 2011.
Reception
Upon its release in 1997, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee received mostly positive reviews. Edge described the game as "a tight 2D platformer that's packed with great innovative touches and some great character design". GameSpot called it "the ideal platformer, balancing its action and puzzle elements perfectly to make the game intelligent, engaging, and, best yet, fun". Animation World Magazine applauded multiple aspects of the game, saying it "features some of the best graphics and animation we've ever seen" and commenting on the "sophisticated gameplay". GamePro gave it a perfect 5.0 out of 5 for graphics and sound and a 4.5 out of 5 for control and funfactor, asserting that it "bursts onto the scene with the kind of unique gameplay and killer graphics that will rocket it straight into the PlayStation hall of fame." PC Gamer said that " charming and innovative Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee reminds us that any genre can be revived if you put enough care and creativity into it."The graphics struck many reviewers as being excellent. PC Zone remarked that "the developers have created an outstanding visual environment for Abe to leap around in." However, the imaginative AI and visual designs of the assorted creatures drew more extensive praise. GameSpot found the AI "goes a long way towards making you feel as if you're interacting with an actual world and its inhabitants."
The game's difficulty, agreed upon to be extremely high, was its most controversial aspect. Some reviewers lauded the intelligent nature of the challenge and said the frequent checkpoints and unlimited lives keep the game from becoming too frustrating. Next Generation, for example, commented that "Action gamers are likely to be disappointed by the occasionally slow pace, but speed is traded for a considerably more cerebral set of challenges that require a great amount of persistence, observation, and thought." However, others found that flaws such as sensitive controls, slowdown, and trial-and-error level designs make the difficulty frequently annoying. Though GameSpot reported that the PlayStation and PC versions of the game are "virtually identical", most reviews for the PC version directed criticism at the lack of an ability to save at any point, since this was a standard feature in PC games. Edge said that "Oddworld demands a certain level of commitment to progress", while Science Fiction Weekly claimed the game's "innovative game play makes for a steep learning curve. This initial difficulty in figuring out how to play is aggravated by a save feature that often forces players to redo difficult sections." PC Zone stated that "progress does seem to rely on trial and error, which involves much replaying of levels and gnashing of teeth. All this can be frustrating at times, especially when Abe is plonked right back at the start of a level when he dies".
Abe's Oddysee proved to be a commercial hit: Lorne Lanning reported global sell-through in excess of one million units by late January 1998. He noted that Europe was a top market for the game, unexpectedly surpassing the United States.