Just Add Water

Just Add Water is a small independent game developer based in Otley, West Yorkshire. It was founded by Stewart Gilray in 2006 and has worked on a few different titles, notably the Oddworld series. I came across Just Add Water when I noticed that there was a new Oddworld game in production for the Wii U. I was very excited to hear about the 2.5D HD re-make of Abe’s Oddysee, Oddwolrd: New ‘n’ Tasty, and even more excited to hear that the halted Oddworld Quintology was now once again a possibility.

 Unfortunately the company Oddworld Inhabitants closed its internal development studio in 2005, but through its symbiotic bond with Just Add Water the games have been back in development the last few years, which is great news for people like me who grew up playing Oddworld. Along with the Oddworld series Just Add Water has also produced Gravity Crash, a classic video game shoot ‘em up combined with next generation visuals targeting both core and new players. 

I recently worked with the games art students as a concept artist, creating assets and environments for them to model. I really enjoyed this task and I imagine recreating and expanding upon the Oddworld universe could be just as fun for Oddworld Inhabitants and Just Add Water. 

I always found the games really immersive with a fantastic moral ideology of the underdog worker versus the profiteering capitalists. The whole look of Abe’s Oddesy was very different to everything on the market at the time of its release in 1997 and Abe became one of the unofficial mascots of the Playstation 1. Now in 2014 I don’t think there is anything quite like Oddworld, and the new stills look strikingly different, through design and colour pallet, to other games in the current market. I hope everyone is just as excited as me, and if you want to see how the games coming along please visit www.oddworld.com, or to check out the company that’s currently developing it visit Just Add Waters website at www.jawltd.com.