It's an odd, odd, odd, odd World.(Product Development)

DEVELOPERS TURN A 3D `ODDYSEE' INTO A CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE FOR THE UPCOMING XBOX

In stark contrast to the countless "run around, shoot 'em up" computer games, a title under development by Oddworld Inhabitants (San Luis Obispo, CA) for Microsoft's new Xbox platform will take advantage of realtime 3D graphics to simulate life -- no matter how "odd" it seems. In Munch's Oddysee, the second title of the company's planned Oddworld Quintology series, the designers are sticking to their game plan of creating an entertaining yet logical interactive experience within a cinematic context. But unlike the first title, Abe's Oddysee (for the PlayStation One and PC), Munch's adventure--to be released this fall with the Xbox--will no longer be confined to the 2D realm.

"For the player, the experience will be more like visiting the world of Oddworld," says Lorne Lanning, president and creative director. "Munch's Oddysee is focused on world simulation and the behaviors of the characters and ecosystems in a kind of twisted world. I expect that once people start playing the game, they'll find themselves becoming interested in the subplots and subgoals--going off and treating the game world like it's a habitat or terrarium that's full of Diving creatures."

Oddworld, formed in 1994 by Lanning and Sherry McKenna, former "inhabitants" of the film and television industries, had planned from the get-go to produce a five-game series that collectively formed a larger epic. Each game, says Lanning, introduces a new hero who, despite belonging to the lower spectrum of the food chain, struggles to succeed in a carnivorous industrial world. In Abe's Oddysee and its sequel, Abe's Exoddus (not part of the Quintology), that person is Abe, a slave laborer in a meat processing plant who discovers the true price one pays for a delectable 99-cent burger and, in the continuation, a highly addictive brew. For Munch's Oddysee, Abe meets Munch, the last of his species, who has just escaped from a scientific research lab where he had been languishing as a laboratory test animal.

"Truth is stranger than fiction," Lanning says of his plots. "We thought it would be ironic to show how things might look from the point of view of the tens of millions of laboratory test animals that we throw away every year."

The essence of the game play will revolve around Munch's quest to save his species, which requires him to invoke the aid of others whom he must first assist in their various dilemmas. As the story progresses, the environments become richer and the tasks more complicated. "We're simulating full ecosystems and life cycles, so if factories are running on a landscape, they're sucking up water, which is creating difficulty for the creatures that live in the water. As the water table gets lower, the ground, trees, and environment become more arid," explains Lanning. "So every choice you make affects your situation and environment."

Developing graphics for these situations required the artists to create multiple color schemes and the programmers to write the texture-map interpolation code needed to create the chemistries of various health conditions, which are all choices for the game engine to select from.