Video Game of the Day is a daily show available on Amazon Alexa devices and here on this website. Each day, we briefly discuss the history of a single game, randomly chosen. If you would like to listen on your daily flash briefing, you can enable Video Game of the Day here: https://amzn.to/2CNx2NJ.
Hello and welcome! My name is Katosepe and I’ll be your host for today’s Video Game of the Day!
When a game is delayed for a significant period of time, it’s often not a great sign. Duke Nukem Forever released after 14 years to middling reviews. Final Fantasy XV has some die-hard adherents but it was also a controversial entry and it’s hard to argue that the 10 years of development time did the game any favors. Today’s game though, is a game that went through 9 years of development by a small team and wound up unscathed on the other side. Today’s game is Owlboy, developed by D-Pad Studio and released on PC in 2016.
Owlboy is a metroidvania at its core, with a strong emphasis on verticality. Players play as Otus, a young Owl which, in this world, is actually a owl-like race of people with wings for arms. Owls have no natural ability to fly though, so they use a special cloak called an Owl Cloak to fly instead. Otus lives in the world of the Sky, a world made up of several floating islands.
When Otus’ village is attacked by pirates, he decides to hunt the pirates down and stop them. A big part of Owlboy’s gameplay is solving puzzles through the use of picking up objects and throwing them while in flight. Otus can pick up not only objects but also willing people as well, allowing for puzzles where Otus needs to move his companions to where they need to be.
Owlboy received a significant amount of pre-release hype but stayed in development for many years. Despite starting development in 2007, it wasn’t until 2016 that the game was finally released but it received significant praise when it finally did. The gameplay feels smooth and the art style uses a beautiful 16-bit style that one critic said is reminiscent of Wind Waker if it were released on the Sega Genesis. Owlboy has since received ports on Mac, Linux, Switch, Playstation 4, and Xbox One.
Thank you so much for listening! If you want to come hang out with me for a bit, I’m going to be streaming on Monday at 4 PM pacific time. I’ll be at twitch.tv/katosepe. That’s K A T O S E P E, Katosepe. You can also find links and reminders on Twitter and Instagram @vg_oftheday. Don’t forget to check back here tomorrow for another Video Game of the Day!
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