Oddity, an indie game inspired by Mother (Earthbound) that had been in development for more than ten years, is canceled

Oddity, a game that began as a Mother 4 fan game but evolved into something more ambitious, is said to have been abandoned by its creators.

Despite only having three installments on the NES, SNES, and Game Boy Advance, the Mother series, also known as Earthbound outside of Japan, is one of the most beloved by RPG aficionados. Despite the efforts of enthusiasts who even made an English translation, the latest Mother 3 was never released outside of Japan, not even on the virtual platform.

Even years later, his influence may be found in a number of indie games. Although Undertale is the most well-known (though he also contributed many original concepts), there have been several fan projects that serve as "spiritual sequels," such as Oddventure or even the most recent Eastward.

One of those games, on the other hand, has not been so fortunate. It's about Oddity, a game that began as a Mother 4 fan game over ten years ago before being transformed into something more ambitious... but that we eventually lost sight of.

Oddity had all the trademarks of Mother / Earthbound: child protagonists (including a blonde who looked a lot like Lucas), an urban setting inspired by a place in the United States, and a lot of weird humor, with opponents like a bull and mushrooms.

It was started in 2008, two years after the release of Mother 3, whose developer Shigesato Itoi declared that it would be the series' final installment. We first mentioned this game in 2010, when it was still known as Mother 4 and was set to release in 2014.

It's unclear whether Nintendo's attorneys intervened with Mother 4, but its developers announced in 2017 that it would no longer be a simple fan game, but rather a project with greater content, which was teased with a trailer in 2020 as Oddity, although no release date was given. : "When I'm ready, I'll come out."

But don't get your hopes up: the game's development has been abandoned, according to remarks on Discord from its devs (all volunteers).

Little is known about the game's designers or even the name of the firm (or fan club), but it appears that a certain Pastel stole the idea from a certain Dave (a developer who had been working on it since the beginning) and changed the game's engine. Two developers are said to have quit the company after the trailer was released in 2020, and not a single project has been completed since.

There is no means to learn more about this game, which many have been following since 2010, without even a social media presence to follow the project (the YouTube account where the video is hosted - with almost a million views - also appears to be abandoned).

It's best not to hold your breath for Oddity to come to fruition. Interestingly, a month ago, Nintendo Life reported on a fan project dubbed Mother 4 that aims to continue Shigesato Itoi's HAL Laboratory series, and maybe it will have greater results...