Lorne Lanning is an American

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

, director, writer and voice actor. He is also co-founder and president of the

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for 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 ...

Oddworld Inhabitants Oddworld Inhabitants Inc. is an American video game, film and television company founded in 1994 by special-effects and computer-animation veterans Sherry McKenna and Lorne Lanning. The company is primarily known for the ''Oddworld'', series of ...

. 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'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online magazine, online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquar ...

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

Coleco Coleco Industries, Inc. was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. It was a successful toy company in the 1980s, mass-producing versions of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game console ...

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 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, Lanning soon attended the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

Valencia, California Valencia is an unincorporated community in northwestern Los Angeles County, California. This area, with major commercial and industrial parks, straddles State Route 126 and the Santa Clara River. Development projects continue to be built in ...

, where he graduated with a BFA in Character Animation. Working as a Technical Director at TRW in

Redondo Beach, California Redondo Beach (Spanish for ''round'') is a coastal city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located in the South Bay region of the Greater Los Angeles area. It is one of three adjacent beach cities along the southern portion of Sa ...

, 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

together in

Los Osos, California Los Osos (Spanish language, Spanish for "the bears") is an unincorporated area, unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in San Luis Obispo County, California. Located on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California ...

, before later moving to

San Luis Obispo, California San Luis Obispo (; Spanish for " St. Louis the Bishop", ; Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, in the U.S. state of California. Located on the Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly halfwa ...

. 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 Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

, 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 A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

that the company will no longer be working on full-scale Oddworld projects. It was announced that in 2016 that

Frima Studio Frima Studio is a Canadian digital entertainment studio. Headquartered in Quebec City, Quebec and founded in 2003, the company develops video games across a variety of platforms. Frima also produces animation for television and film. In 2010, F ...

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 Gaming
interview with Lorne Lanning (April 2008)

interview with Lorne Lanning
Ars Technica
interview with Lorne Lanning
Video Interview
with 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