CLEARING ADVENT'S CALENDAR - Owlboy (Steam): Part 11
1As a kid, did you ever eat the chocolates in your Xmas advent calendar way before you were meant to? I have a friend who punishes his kids for doing this by eating the next available day's chocolate in front of them. Funnily enough, this method of punishment cuts that behavior out real quick.
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Owlboy is a platform-adventure video game created by independent developer D-Pad Studio. The game is notable for its long development cycle, which began in 2007, and was released in November 2016.
The player controls Otus, who is capable of flying and carrying objects during flight that he can use to throw at enemies. As the game progresses, Otus gains allies that accompany him during his journey, each having their own weapon with exclusive properties.
Owlboy is set in the land of the sky; the islands of the world below have been separated by a catastrophic event. The player controls a boy named Otus, who is a member of an owl–human hybrid race called the Owls. When Otus' village is attacked by a band of pirates, he sets out on a journey to save it from them.
The inspiration from Owlboy came from several sources, most involving Andersen's Penchant for Nintendo games. The basic mechanics were inspired by the Super Mario 3 Tanuki Suit, although with reverse mechanics. Similarly, Andersen also became interested in rumors of a new game in the Kid Icarus series wondering how the flying mechanics of those games would translate to 3D, made Andersen realize that he felt a 2D design for his game would work better. Finally Andersen was inspired by the then upcoming Wii and felt that it provided a great opportunity to create an old school game.
Beginning development in 2007, the game spent the better part of a decade in development. The team worried about the expectation of fans and thus started over several times. Andersen also had to deal with suffering from depression, which he had since childhood. Owlboy will be released primarily for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers, but D-Pad is also considering a release for home consoles. The game was shown off at PAX 2013. At PAX 2016, it was announced that the game would be released on November 1, 2016.
Owlboy received positive commentary from gaming publications. Kotaku's Luke Plunkett stated in 2013 that it would be "worth the wait" of its extensive development time. Regarding the art style, he mentioned, "..and the game's charming art style, which for want of something more descriptive reminds me of a Genesis version of Wind Waker.". Dave Cook from VG247 described the game as "a rather neat-looking 2D pixel art platformer". Nathan Grayson of Rock, Paper, Shotgun lamented the fact that by 2013 the game still did not yet have a release date as "the bad news – the news by which all upsetting and otherwise unfortunate events are judged". The website Kill Screen would go on to compare the game's long development cycle to that of Fez, another indie game with a similarly long gestation period, writing describing both games as "retro-sentimental platformers by independent studios that promised a lot, but seemed fated to never come out."
On release, Owlboy was met with widespread critical acclaim and an aggregate score of 90/100 on Metacritic as of November 3. 2016. IGN's Chloi Rad gave the game 9.3/10 and writes that the game "shines thanks to surprisingly varied, Metroidvania-style gameplay and a charming cast of unlikely heroes".
Wikipedia contributors. Owlboy. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. November 12, 2016, 20:26 UTC. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Owlboy&oldid=749161446.