Lorne Lanning is an American
game designer, director, writer and voice actor. He is also co-founder and president of the
video game developer
A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...
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''.
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
''Wired'' is a bi-monthly American magazine that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. It is published in both print and Online magazine, online editions by Condé Nast. The magazine has been in public ...
.
Lanning has said he has always had a fascination with video games, stating that his father was an engineer for
Coleco.
Career
Initially studying photo-realism and commercial illustration at the
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design.
History
This school was started by Silas ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, Lanning soon attended the
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...
in
Valencia, California, where he graduated with a BFA in Character Animation.
Working as a Technical Director at
TRW in
Redondo Beach, California
Redondo Beach (Spanish for ) is a coastal city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located in the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the Greater Los Angeles area. It is one of three adjacent Beach Cities, beach c ...
, 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''
In 1994, Lanning and McKenna co-founded
Oddworld Inhabitants together in
Los Osos, California, before later moving to
San Luis Obispo, California
; ; ; Chumashan languages, Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly halfway betwee ...
. 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.
Following several disputes with game developers, including companies such as
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...
, Lanning and McKenna shuttered Oddworld Inhabitants' game development studio in 2005 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". 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.
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.
Games
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
External links
Oddworld Executive ProfileAdventure Classic Gaminginterview with Lorne Lanning (April 2008)
interview with Lorne Lanning
Ars Technicainterview with Lorne Lanning
Video Interviewwith Lorne Lanning at Conceptart.org's Revelations
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lanning, Lorne
1964 births
American video game directors
California Institute of the Arts alumni
School of Visual Arts alumni
Living people
Oddworld
Visual effects supervisors
American art directors
Place of birth missing (living people)
People from Los Osos, California
People from San Luis Obispo, California
Academy of Art University faculty
American male voice actors
American male video game actors
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors