Owlboy
Review

Owlboy is a masterful tale of transcending disability

My girlfriend speaks softly. She’s a ghost on the phone. If you ever met her in person, you’d lean in a little when she introduced herself. You could say it’s her personality. But you’d only be half right. The other half has something to do with a very large truck that collided with her small body when she was seven, leaving her in such a state that the doctors who treated her became locally famous. While the miracle docs lined up for pictures in the newspaper, Erin was still unable to communicate; it was years, she tells me now, before…

Owlboy
News

After nearly a decade of waiting, Owlboy will leave the nest this November

After nearly 10 years of work, D-Pad Studio recently announced at PAX West that its action-platformer Owlboy is releasing on November 1. Owlboy began life back in 2007 as an attempt by pixel artist Simon Andersen to show that 2D could still be better than 3D, and it quickly gathered the attention of other artists, who ultimately joined Andersen’s team. Six years ago, it was nominated for an Excellence in Visual Art award at the Independent Games Festival and it won the Nordic Indie Sensation award at the Nordic Game Awards. After taking time off to work on the game Savant:…

Owlboy
News

Nearly 10 years in the making, there’s still plenty of reason to care about Owlboy

Owlboy, which has been in the making since 2007, was at one point a joke. It sat alongside Fez (2012) as retro-sentimental platformers by independent studios that promised a lot, but seemed fated to never come out. “Do you reckon Owlboy will come out next year?” someone might ask. “Haha, yeah right,” might be the reply. Fez did eventually come out after five years of waiting, but Owlboy didn’t—it’s been nearly a decade now. When Jo-Remi Madsen of the Norway-based D-Pad Studio tells me it’s “OWLBOY TIME,” I presume that it is a joke. The concept of Owlboy Time is more a unit…