Oddity (formerly Mother 4) - Winter 2014

[AsbestosFlaygon]

I'm totally okay with Mother 3 ending as it was, because I fucking bawled my eyes out and got over it. I'd rather not have a fan game masquerade as a numbered sequel which will lessen the impact of it, unless it really shines how fucking good Mother 3 was to people.

Glad they renamed it something else but hearing people refer to it as Mother 4 makes me kinda sick.

A big problem is even though it's not Mother 4 anymore it still very much feels like it. In particular the overworld still looks like it was ripped right out of Earthbound, even other elements like like the battle system or the character designs while they don't feel like they're straight from Earthbound per se they definitely still feel like they're trying to get that same vibe. Even if it's no longer a fan game in name it's still that in spirit, it doesn't really feel like its own thing separate from Mother as much as say Undertale which was its own thing from the start.

 

[Coolio55]

That shoe-in deer character is literally Alphys 2.0 and you can't tell me otherwise just replace "weeb" with "lonely rich kid" , I saw that preview on Toby's twitter with her replacing Ralsei and it can only get better from here (the funny thing is that undertale/deltarune fans actually predicted her and Susie's relationship from the get go, it was obvious with her dialogue)

Still, the gameplay is a better updated version of undertale's combat

Honestly if she actually becomes a party member and I have to lug that shit around I don't even know if I'll waste time playing the rest of the game or just skim the OST.
Toby fox on a bad day can make characters worse than Persona.

Also it's pretty obvious that they're gonna make

Spoiler

Ralsei the villain

so I wonder how that's gonna turn out.

 

[Sigma]

I don't really wanna be down on Oddity, but every fan game that ends up taking ages never turns out well. This actually sounds similar to some of the drama that happened behind the scenes with the Mother 3 translation - something about an unstable girl helping translate dialog... causing some flavor of shitstorm? I can't remember. But at least that turned out fine, eventually.


Because anime RPGs are degenerate and have no place in my Christian household

What about Black Mesa the HL1 remake? Well, if that counts.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

Bleh, I was kind of looking forward to this. Hard agree that this shouldn’t have been called Mother 4, although I understand why that was the title to begin with as Itoi got interviewed about M4 possibly happening back in the GBA era and responded that he didn’t have any plans for it but if someone else made it he’d want to play it. Still, there’s no way to really follow up M3.

Kind of an odd question and I know I’m probably not going to phrase it correctly, but does anyone have recommendations for games that do the sort of thing that M2 and M3 do narratively rather than just aping the silly/whimsical design? Most of the ‘earthbound inspired’ games I’ve played seem to omit most of the psychological/introspective weirdness and it’s the sharp contrast between that and the silliness of the filler that makes the games memorable. The only games I can think of that manage to pull something similar off are Nier Automata and (debatably) OFF.

 

[Ineedahero]

Bleh, I was kind of looking forward to this. Hard agree that this shouldn’t have been called Mother 4, although I understand why that was the title to begin with as Itoi got interviewed about M4 possibly happening back in the GBA era and responded that he didn’t have any plans for it but if someone else made it he’d want to play it. Still, there’s no way to really follow up M3.

Kind of an odd question and I know I’m probably not going to phrase it correctly, but does anyone have recommendations for games that do the sort of thing that M2 and M3 do narratively rather than just aping the silly/whimsical design? Most of the ‘earthbound inspired’ games I’ve played seem to omit most of the psychological/introspective weirdness and it’s the sharp contrast between that and the silliness of the filler that makes the games memorable. The only games I can think of that manage to pull something similar off are Nier Automata and (debatably) OFF.

A lot of the time devs focus on gameplay, so it's unusual for a game to have a narrative with meta elements. As a result, the games that do are often smaller indie titles. If you don't mind visual novels there's hatoful boyfriend and doki doki literature club, and there's also one shot, icey, anodyne, frog fractions and it's sequel, and maybe pathologic 2 counts? There's also those Stanley parable games, if you haven't played them, and the first nier if you haven't played that. There are also others but I am drawing a blank at the moment.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

Yeah, those are pretty good examples (and good games in general) although the fourth-wall-break interaction with the player isn't really what I had in mind as much as the weird semi-literary exploration of themes that Itoi does with M2 and M3.

Earthbound is almost entirely concerned with how the world is a terrifying place except most of the real sources of terror are things you don't realize are scary until you're an adult, so you bounce from local punks and scary dogs to acid trips to cult involvement to buying a house that turns out to be a lemon and the idea of having all your sensory functions taken away, then finally to body horror and the idea of fighting something completely incomprehensible that you'll never be able to handle by yourself.

M3 does the same sort of exploration about societal change and 'progress' that sounds good at first winding up horrendously damaging and irreversible after it happens.

It's almost like show-not-tell except applied to abstract concepts that can't be easily conveyed in text. I'm sure there's an actual literary critique term for it but I have no idea what it is, but I'm sure the 500-page navel-gazey book about Earthbound that invariably exists somewhere would mention it at some point.

eta : didn’t realize pulsating mass was out, that’s definitely going on my to-play list for the near future.

 

[Rotollo]

Yeah, those are pretty good examples (and good games in general) although the fourth-wall-break interaction with the player isn't really what I had in mind as much as the weird semi-literary exploration of themes that Itoi does with M2 and M3.

Earthbound is almost entirely concerned with how the world is a terrifying place except most of the real sources of terror are things you don't realize are scary until you're an adult, so you bounce from local punks and scary dogs to acid trips to cult involvement to buying a house that turns out to be a lemon and the idea of having all your sensory functions taken away, then finally to body horror and the idea of fighting something completely incomprehensible that you'll never be able to handle by yourself.

M3 does the same sort of exploration about societal change and 'progress' that sounds good at first winding up horrendously damaging and irreversible after it happens.

It's almost like show-not-tell except applied to abstract concepts that can't be easily conveyed in text. I'm sure there's an actual literary critique term for it but I have no idea what it is, but I'm sure the 500-page navel-gazey book about Earthbound that invariably exists somewhere would mention it at some point.

I know you said that EarthBound-likes had the problem of droping the harsher elements but from what I heard "Jimmy and the pulsating mass" does something where it's gets real sad and kinda messed up near the end, haven't played it myself but if your interested give it a try

I'd rather not have a fan game masquerade as a numbered sequel which will lessen the impact of it, unless it really shines how fucking good Mother 3 was to people.

I think the worst part would be the people who get into the series and don't realize Oddity would of been a fan work and just bring it up like it's a natural part of the series

Mother 3 translation - something about an unstable girl helping translate dialog... causing some flavor of shitstorm? I can't remember. But at least that turned out fine, eventually.

First time I heard of this, I'll see If I can find anything on it, sounds fun

Also it's pretty obvious that they're gonna make

Spoiler

Ralsei the villain

so I wonder how that's gonna turn out.

It's so obvious I don't think they will go into that route
then again considering undertale's twist

Spoiler: Meanwhile at toby's house

If chara transfers into Ralsei's body after leaving undertale after deltarune was installed

 

[Rotollo 2]

I know necro and double posting but courtesy of /v/ more shit has once again leaked of Mother 4, thread is still on going as of this post but if it's anything like the last time shit leaked some good drama might come out of this one

/v/ - You guys remember that mother 4 project (now known - Video Games - 4chan

You guys remember that mother 4 project (now known as oddity) revealed back in 2013? yeah well guess... - "/v/ - Video Games" is 4chan's imageboard dedicated to the discussion of PC and console video games.

boards.4channel.org

/v/ - Video Games » Thread #574280471

arch.b4k.co

Spoiler: post contents

Story:
>It starts with Travis, one of the four protagonists and Zack, travis' brother. Zack took Travis out to see a movie and took a shortcut through the woods once it started raining
>An explosion happens and Zack breaks his ribs while Travis gets into a coma and later recovered at the hospital
>You play as Leo, also one of the four protagonists, his chapter introduces the Modern Men, the villains of the game
>Travis wakes up as Leo calls him with his radio powers (also known as V.O.X.)
>Final boss is revealed to be Travis' mind, super original
>Leo dies somehow
>Game ends with Travis getting placed in stasis

Image info:
>some of the images are pre rebrand so keep that in mind
>The Starman (top right) was supposed to be a secret boss
> S.F.O. (top left) is the leader of the Modern Men, sprites still a wip
>The guy on the top of the oddity logo will be very important later in the game
>The green planet head guy is Zack in the process of being transformed into a Modern Mind
>The edgy lookin drawing is a Demon, tl;dr desc they're basically the starmen in oddity
>The Illuminati guy is one of the Demons youll encounter
>The Astronaut guy is also a Demon
>Theres a section where you go in space
>Everything else is either not important, unused or changed after the rebrand.

Game Info:
>Its literally a mother 1 rip off in some places, you rescue a lil girl who has gone missing, Leo is a leader of a gang like one of the protags from mother 1 etc
>Poorly optimized
>Some areas cause crashing, its mostly due to some broken code
>They're literally refusing to switch to GameMaker even tho the project's leader stated that they wouldve been far than where they are right now if they used it
>Overall this is another Duke Nukem Forever.

TFW that Chris Chan RPG maker game will be a better Mother 4
Edit: eligidly the shit in op is fake but lead to former dev team members posting real shit including deveopment files itt, will update screenshots here accordingly





Some webms of gameplay

Pastel (one of Mother 4's/Oddity's current lead developers) noticed the leak on 4chan and responded on what I believe to be Starmen.net DMs

Bonus: ancient screen cap of autists using /v/ as a battle ground of the fate of a fangame

 

[documental]

archive of leaked gameplay
leakers say they will dump everything "winter 2021"

 

[Rotollo 2]

preview.webm1634084593472.webm

archive of leaked gameplay
leakers say they will dump everything "winter 2021"

So this shit isn't just a game dump according to some of the anons in there, its got full development history level shit like development word pads, possible concepts, ect.

Pussys should just dump everything now, but if there's alot of shit to go through then it's understandable that it might take a while to compile. I just love that the gifts of Winter 2014 are seemingly endless
edit: also were able to get into pastel's account on starmen.net and look into his dms somehow, holy shit if he somehow included his starmen.net or any passwords in with development files thats so fucking retarded


I have no idea what half this nerd shit means but using minecraft nbt for a jrpg sounds weird as fuck


more combat webm

add-on 2:
IT CONTINUES
yet another Mother 4 thread showed up on /v/ detailing more dev strife

/v/ - more recent news regarding the current state of mother 4/oddity - Video Games - 4chan

more recent news regarding the current state of mother 4/oddity - "/v/ - Video Games" is 4chan's imageboard dedicated to the discussion of PC and console video games.

boards.4channel.org

Spoiler: OP post kahntent

> in more recent news, the game engine has been totally scrapped by the Pastel (the director of the game) in favor of game maker 2 after the custom engine had been worked on for nearly a decade, if not longer, this change (and many other changes) were made by the director's decision alone without consulting the rest of the team

> this caused drama in the team and the lead programmer left about a month ago along with other team members

> the team goes months without communicating and making progress at times and Pastel won't talk to everyone as a team, only talks to individual members in dms, so nobody knows what's going on half the time, along with him ignoring any feedback or suggestions the team tries to give him to communicate better

> Pastel constantly gets jealous of other indie developers with an ounce of respect, even going as far as accusing other developers of stealing assets from oddity

> the oddity rebrand trailer was promised at the beginning of 2019 by the Pastel, saying that the trailer would be out by the end of the year, the director didn't relay this to the team, so when december rolled around, he decided to make the entire team crunch on the last day of the year until the 2nd of january (2 days late from the "planned" release date)

> most of the assets were made specifically for the trailer (the raccoon enemy for example was sprited and animated specifically for the trailer)

> Pastel changed floyd's first name to "Addleberry" (again without consulting the rest of the team) of all things, and that's why floyd's name in the teaser isn't his full name and is just labeled as "...Floyd"

> Pastel has told the team on multiple occasions to stay out of the public eye and not interact with fans, but joins the public discord for the game and was an overactive mod until recent when somebody called him out for using game maker

>TFW this many sprites for a fucking butterfly

 

[Gru]

I have no idea what half this nerd shit means but using minecraft nbt for a jrpg sounds weird as fuck

Hold on, what?

minecraft nbt

Ah.

That sounds like fucking massive spaghetti code. Minecraft's NBT data is used to store data values like item values. In the java version exclusively.
Not... Script related shit.

Here's an excerpt from the Minecraft Wiki page on NBT data:

The Named Binary Tag (NBT) format is used by Minecraft for the various files in which it saves data. The format is designed to store data in a tree structure made up of various tags. All tags have an ID and a name.

Another more user-friendly format of NBT is in plain string, as used in commands. This format is referred to as SNBT, short for stringified NBT.

Seems like Winter 2014 was less just the team overestimating and more a matter of "this code is shit no matter what we do we make no progress". Seeing those leaks that are coming will be fucking fascinating if they're true.

 

[Rotollo 2]

Seeing those leaks that are coming will be fucking fascinating if they're true.

12.3 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

96.5 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

269.28 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

I think chrismas might have came early for you then, might make a right up of this when I have the time just fucking around

 

[Gru]

12.3 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

96.5 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

269.28 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

I think chrismas might have came early for you then, might make a right up of this when I have the time just fucking around

Downloading now, I'll edit this post as I find shit.

---

PRE=ALPHA FINDINGS:

Somebody left an advertisement for their soundcloud in the Pre-Alpha's readme:

Sadly, it's empty.



Pre-Alpha won't load on my computer, but I'm sure there isn't too much here since there's only five music files, probably just a test room.
Strangely though, it's from 2019 as per the readme:

ATTENTION: Do not move any contents from this folder, including the Mother 4 Executable program.
Mother 4 Pre-Alpha build
This build is in the works, and is highly subject to change. The maps and things are for test-purposes only and will not appear in-game.

Uploaded by ipatch on March 7th 2019.

Hey~! I told you not to expect too much, but since you're here, check out my music :>

skybox_au

Listen to skybox_au | SoundCloud is an audio platform that lets you listen to what you love and share the sounds you create.

soundcloud.com

Pre-Alpha, in 2019? Not much more I can scrounge up here since I can't get the game to run.

---

MOTHER4-TEASER1 FINDINGS:

No readme, so I jumped straight into the game... And it works!


The "Trains" option just shows the train sequence from one of the trailers, it loops the background idefinitely afterwards with no option to exit that I could find, so... Reset.


The "Setup" option brings you to a setup screen where you can select your characters, the map, to start, and to go back to the title screen.

"Select Map" brings up a bunch of maps, obviously.

I went with the one on top first, "233.m4md.gz"... You have to select the map and then it'll bring you back to the base map test menu and you have to hit start. Rather unintuitive but it is a test I suppose.
You start at some empty grass with a street nearby, going diagonally down brings you to some tiles that spell out "FIX"


Running doesn't seem to be finished becuase your other party members keep walking right when you run in any direction.


I then went and explored the map a bit and found some more stuff.


Overall this map isn't too interesting. I have to quit the game and go back in to get back to the menu since I can't seem to find a pause menu.
Here's some general highlights from the other maps:
"234234.m4md.gz":
This is just a similar map to the previous one. I found a church though I guess, might've been in the other map.

"asdfasfasdf.m4md.gz":
literally just a void.

"asdfasfsa.m4md.gz":
Same as last.
"Belring Hospital.m4md.gz":
Finally, something new!

No collision as per usual, can't go through the stairs or any doors.
"belring.m4md.gz":
an even less finished version of the FIX map.

"belring 2.m4md.gz":
Nearly the same as previous. Found some weird tiles though.

"Belring-2pink4u.m4md.gz":
Just a room, you start out of bounds but near it.

None of the doors work, same as hospital.


The next few are just more houses, let's skip a few and get to the more testy ones again.
"boolean.m4md.gz":

I'm beginning to think this was their placeholder map...
"debugΩroom.m4md.gz":
Debug room!

2 door doesn't work. This room has collision though, unlike the others.
Talking to the duplicate Travis gave me some dialogue.

Selecting either choice does nothing. Interacting with anything else in the room gives no dialogue.
"Grass, Trees.m4md.gz":
A more complete version of the FIX map with some collision.
Do you need pictures? You've seen that FIX sign three times now.
"test.m4md.gz":

Just buildings in a black void.
"union.m4md.gz":
Seems like some room plans.


"unionshitty.m4md.gz":

"uniontesting3.m4md.gz":
seems to be an early town, a lot of collision here so I assume this was a map being actively worked on.

and the final one on the list.......
"Waiting Room.m4md.gz":

The other rooms I didn't take pictures of are just various one room houses without any collision.

The "Mother 4" folder seems to contain various builds of the actual game, given there's a "New Game" option on the menu.
Therefore I'll make these into a seperate post since they'll take a bit of time to comb through.

That's all for now, see you next post!

 

[Rotollo 2]

Pre-Alpha won't load on my computer, but I'm sure there isn't too much here since there's only five music files, probably just a test room.
Strangely though, it's from 2019 as per the readme:

Lemmie help you out here then

This was the early game maker build
as for the 2019 reference brought up by gru

Pre-Alpha, in 2019? Not much more I can scrounge up here since I can't get the game to run.

I can only assume that it was used as a reference by the devs on the build later on, moving on to what this one actually contains:

test map seems like an early version of belring, music crackles like a mother fucker, not sure if it's due to new drives on new hardware or through the file itself
Edit: crackle is not in the ogg file itself, seems to be either a game maker problem or a driver problem then


Travis was still named chase at the time using a modified lucas sprite, along with a clone named "the dave" another early mother 4 developer
music combo system seems to be not implemented, though smash attacks and other mother combat staples are, its random if you get an enemy encounter advantage or disadvantage, they did seem to implement enemies clumping together if nearby, affecting the ones that show up in battle


will end it with songs that didn't make a cut, a track called by the fans "rockin it retro" mother 4's version of the retro hippie theme, remember hearing this track years ago on youtube probably one of my favorites from the Mother 4 ost but having the raw file now is an interesting experience to say the least

also belrings old theme which I never heard before

a track called ripple from a game titled "earthbound 2" Not a Mother 3 track so I have no idea what the hell this is, seems like a pollyanna remix, also pretty snazy

Also something nice I noticed in the games files for the build just named "mother 4":

Brickroad was the map editor they were using on the game for it's custom engine

I swear at some point they talked about trying to make the game's dev tools user friendly in case other people wanted to use it in the future but I think that is just me going fucking crazy because I can't find that anywhere on the site archives

 

[Gru]

The oldest real build in the folder is 0.6 5966 812, So I'll be going through that one first, the file entitled "Mother4OLD".

Edit: This build immediately crashes when I hit New Game.


Onto the next build in the files, the one titled "Mother4-b"
Crash.

Okay, uh. Surely "Mother4-a" will work?
Crash.

"Mother4=d"?
Crash. Again.

"Mother 4_"?
Crash.

"Mother 4"? (there's two more builds after this titled "Mother 4 - Copy" and "Mother 4- Copy (2)")
NO CRASH!
\

Edits to come when I see how far I can get in this build without a crash, @Rotollo 2 any chance you can fuck around with those earlier builds when you're free and see if you can get them to work?

---

Got past the naming screen and the intro cutscene, let's go.
I've heard no sounds besides the textbox so this is clearly a pretty early build.

Collision is definitely wonky.

Yeah.. This is definitely early, I talk to this guy here and I just get an unprompted choice. I can also still move around while the textbox is open.


So Zack and Gru (Travis) are sneaking out to see a movie or some shit, during the daytime. They probably didn't have a nighttime palette ready or something.


Yep, the sky is night.


I went south towards the theater and I stopped moving and the screen flashed, so I thought the game crashed or something, but no that was lightning or something according to Zack.


I still haven't heard any sounds other than the textboxes and footsteps when running, so this must be a really early build.

Then there was a cutscene where the "ticketmaster" at the theater says Travis is too young to see the movie and suggests going to a forest or something, I then tried talking to Zack afterwards and the game crashed.

 

[fineapple]

Fuck I remember being a teenager nearly 10 years ago being excited for this game. Now I'm an old angry boomer and I realize it would have been shit to begin with.

 

[Rotollo 2]

Edits to come when I see how far I can get in this build without a crash, @Rotollo 2 any chance you can fuck around with those earlier builds when you're free and see if you can get them to work?

Again I don't know shit about programing but all these crashes seem to have the "AnimationCompleteHandler" error in common

My guess is it got replaced by a newer version of the file/been replaced entirely, resulting in the game fucking up.

Then there was a cutscene where the "ticketmaster" at the theater says Travis is too young to see the movie and suggests going to a forest or something, I then tried talking to Zack afterwards and the game crashed.

Somehow using the debug room I was able to get around the crash at the ticketman, problem was the forrest had no collision

I think it was the transition loading zone to this based on the context though

also reloading previous events seems to reset the flags, IE the lighting caused zack to respawn and the ticketman to repeat, similar to how mother 3's debug room effects scripting

crashed when I talked to zack still though
looked through the error log, seems like this is the crash associated with it

Fuck I remember being a teenager nearly 10 years ago being excited for this game. Now I'm an old angry boomer and I realize it would have been shit to begin with.

The saddest part is, there's a lot of potential here, the art is still fantastic sprite work design guide wise, probably the best artstyle of any "mother-like" I have seen and as per the mother fandom's tradition had an amazing soundtrack even without mesa's contribution, sad it seemed to languish in development in the near decade and make mother 3's look smooth

 

[Gru]

Next build, "Mother 4 - Copy".
... It crashes?


Okay, last build in the list, let's try "Mother 4 - Copy (2)"

There's music on the menu, let me select New Game and...

Ah.

This seems like the most recent build considering there's music so I'll have to see if I can force my way past the naming screen via the Map Test option.

EDIT: There's actually a window before the naming screen crashes that I can input a letter and hit OK, I'll have to brute force the naming screen I guess.
EDIT 2: No matter how fast I go it crashes at Leo's part due to his having a delay before accepting. Back to trying to find a way in via the Map Test.
EDIT 3: No matter which map I try the Map Test crashes, looks like I'm at an impasse until somebody else who has the leak figures out a way past.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

So, what's the official status of this project? Ongoing, cancelled? I remember they didn't want to set a date.

 

[Gru]

So, what's the official status of this project? Ongoing, cancelled? I remember they didn't want to set a date.

They "rebranded" back in 2020 to "Oddity" obviously, and are supposedly still in development, but considering the apparent shitshow that is behind the scenes I'd say it's probably never coming out or it'll come out a rushed mess.