Lorne Lanning

Lorne Lanning
Lorne Lanning at Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA.
Born (1964-02-20) February 20, 1964 (age 60)
Occupation(s)Game designer, writer, voice actor
Known forOddworld
Title

Lorne Lanning is an American game designer, director, writer and voice actor. He is also co-founder and president of the video game developer Oddworld Inhabitants. He is best known for creating the Oddworld series including the games Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty! and Oddworld: Soulstorm.[1]

His creative vision in game design and property development at Oddworld Inhabitants has gained him worldwide recognition, including several documentaries and his character creations featured on the cover of Wired Magazine.[2]

Lanning has said he has always had a fascination with video games, stating that his father was an engineer for Coleco.[3]

Career

Initially studying photo-realism and commercial illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Lanning soon attended the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, where he graduated with a BFA in Character Animation.

Working as a Technical Director at TRW in Redondo Beach, California, Lanning later moved to Rhythm & Hues Studios in Hollywood, where he would later meet producer Sherry McKenna through his work. After McKenna joined Rhythm & Hues through Lanning, he later convinced her to co-found a video game development company with him.

Oddworld Inhabitants

Main article: Oddworld Inhabitants

In 1994, Lanning and McKenna co-founded Oddworld Inhabitants together in Los Osos, California, before later moving to San Luis Obispo, California. While at Oddworld Inhabitants, Lanning designed, scripted and voice acted all four of the studio's games, which earned the company widespread success and acclaim.[4]

Following several disputes with game developers, including companies such as Electronic Arts,[5] Lanning and McKenna shuttered Oddworld Inhabitants' game development studio in 2005[6] and relocated to the San Francisco Bay area, with the goal of shaping Oddworld Inhabitants after a traditional Hollywood production company.

After leaving game development, Lanning and McKenna began work on animated movies, starting with a project named "Citizen Siege", and a tie-in videogame series named "Wage Wars".[7] Following difficulties in movie production, Lanning soon broke his hiatus from videogames when independent developer Just Add Water confirmed in 2010 it was working with Lanning and Oddworld Inhabitants to create a 2.5D remake of Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee which eventually was released under the name Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty.[8][9]

In 2015, it was confirmed by JAW's CEO that the company will no longer be working on full-scale Oddworld projects. It was announced that in 2016 that Frima Studio is now the new developer supporting Oddworld in making new games. Their next game was announced at GDC 2016 with the title Oddworld: Soulstorm. In 2019, it was confirmed that Soulstorm will be coming in 2020 and it will be developed by wider development studios like Fat Kraken Studios and Sabotage Studio.[10]

Games

Year Title Role Notes
1997 Abe's Oddysee Creator, director, writer, voice actor Published by GT Interactive
1998 Abe's Exoddus Creator, director, writer, voice actor Published by GT Interactive
2001 Munch's Oddysee Creator, director, writer, designer, voice actor Published by Microsoft Studios
2005 Stranger's Wrath Creative Director, writer, designer, voice actor Published by Electronic Arts
2011 Stranger's Wrath HD As in original Published by Oddworld Inhabitants
2012 Munch's Oddysee HD As in original Published by Oddworld Inhabitants
2014 Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty Original Creator, writer, voice actor for Abe, Sligs and Glukkons. Developed by Just Add Water, first indie Oddworld game released in Unity
2021 Oddworld: Soulstorm Creator, director, writer, voice actor Developed & published by Oddworld Inhabitants, second indie Oddworld game released in Unity

Publications

Featured in the following books:

  • "Reset: Changing the Way We Look at Video Games" by Rusel DeMaria / Berrett-Kohler
  • "Opening the Xbox" by Scott Steinberg / iUniverse, Inc.
  • "Gamers at Work" by Morgan Ramsey / Apress
  • "Opening the Xbox" by Dean Takahashi / Prima
  • "The Art of 3D Computer Animation" by Isaac V. Kerlow / Wiley
  • "CGI: The Art of the 3D Computer Generated Image" by Peter Weishar / Abrams Inc.
  • "High Score – Illustrated History of Video Games" by Rusel DeMaria, Johnny I. Wilson / Osborne
  • "1000 Game Heroes" by David Choquet / Taschen
  • "Inside Game Design" by Iain Simmons / Lawrence King Publishing
  • "Williams Almanac Video Games" by J. F. Williams / IQ Guides
  • "Game Design Workshop" by Tracy Fullerton, Christopher Swain, Steven Hoffman / CMPBooks
  • "Expose : World's Finest in Digital Art" Volumes 2,3,4,5,6,7" / Ballistic Publishing
  • "Video Game Art" by Nic Kelman / Assouline Publishing

Lanning has written the foreword to the following books:

  • "The Art of Massive Black" Ballistic Publishing
  • "The Art of Oddworld Inhabitants" Ballistic Publishing
  • "Quantumscapes: The Art of Stephan Martiniere" Design Studio Press
  • "Derelict Planet : The Art of Pascal Blanche" (releases 2012)
  • "Spectrum Fantastic Art Live (re: The Art of Andrew Jones)" Flesk Publications (releases 2012)

References

  1. ^ Purchese, Robert (May 13, 2019). "Oddworld: Soulstorm - the quintology is back on". Eurogamer. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  2. ^ "Cover of the March 2002 issue of Wired Magazine". Wired. March 2002. p. Front cover. Archived from the original on April 27, 2011. Retrieved March 12, 2013.
  3. ^ Lanning, Lorne (September 6, 2000). "An interview with Lorne Lanning". Happypuppy.com (Interview). Interviewed by Robb Guido. Archived from the original on October 31, 2000. Retrieved March 12, 2013.
  4. ^ "About". Oddworld Inhabitants website. Retrieved March 14, 2013.
  5. ^ "Oddworld: Spending $30m on games, not Ferraris and private jets". Games Industry International. October 1, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2013.
  6. ^ "Oddworld's Lanning Quits – Savages EA". Sprong. April 11, 2005. Retrieved February 5, 2013.
  7. ^ Boyes, Emma (October 30, 2006). "Q&A: Oddworld's Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna". GameSpot. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  8. ^ Willoughby, Shane (July 16, 2010). "It's Official. New Oddworld Games Are in Development". The Gaming Liberty. Archived from the original on February 3, 2014.
  9. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (September 30, 2012). "Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee New N' Tasty! revealed at Eurogamer Expo". Eurogamer.
  10. ^ Nunneley, Stephany (March 19, 2019). "Oddworld: Soulstorm cinematic gives us a quick look at the upcoming title". VG247. Retrieved April 18, 2019.