Recently I was given the opportunity to visit Oddworld Inhabitants Studios in California, USA. This is the second in a series on inside the Oddworld Studios.

Once most introductions were aside, there were some surprises in store for me on my "tour" of Oddworld Inhabitants.

Munch's Oddysee
Unexpectedly I was given a chance to play a level of Munch's Oddysee. A couple of Oddworld's programmers, Mike and Dan demonstrated the game to me, and I was then given an opportunity to play myself, as both Munch and Abe. I cannot go into details, but I will say that everything the gaming press have said about the game is true. The graphics and game play are outstanding! The detail is greater than I expected, with the game running on the Xbox development kits, expect to see one awesome game when it is released next year.

Meeting Farzad
Oddworld's Senior Production Designer showed me some of his concept sketches and later on I was able to ask him some questions. I asked him about where the design team get their ideas for the looks of the Oddworld characters. "A lot is based on Lorne's ideas, as well as images we may see in books, etc" he said. I also was able to see some of the production statues that Oddworld use to model the computer graphics on.

Meeting Lorne Lanning
Considering that Lorne is a very busy man, he was happy to take the time to meet me when I was at the studios. Which from an Oddworld fan's point of view, it is certainly an honor to say the least. When the time came, Geri introduced me to Lorne, and from the moment I met him I could tell that he was a down to earth kind of guy, someone who was easy to talk to. I guess this was always the impression I had got of him, but one never knows unless they meet the person in question.

One of the first things that Lorne noticed was that I was a Metallica fan... as I was wearing a Metallica pendant (I am a huge Metallica fan). "You're into Metallica" he said. That was pretty cool, to have something in common with the game designer that I admire. I got some photos taken with Lorne and talked to him about the games and briefly about the concern of what is happening with our planet. I told him that I too was concerned about the environment and I told him that I liked how he used the games to cover such important issues. I was then showed the Oddworld library which contained shelves of books from which inspirations and ideas come from.

A Look at the Munch's Oddysee Movies
Lorne showed me some of the cinematics for Munch's Oddysee, and where as once again I cannot go into details, I can say that it is emotional, sad and funny, and the quality is just mind-blowing... but of course you will have to wait a little longer for that!!!