15 years ago, there was still hope that the dream team behind Chrono Trigger would reunite to make another Chrono game. That hope was mostly fueled by a trademark for a game called Chrono Break, which was never officially announced. Square Enix never talked about it directly, but here and there over the years some of the developers mentioned being interested in making a sequel. It didn't happen. But if it did, maybe it would've looked something like this.

This mockup of Chrono Break is the work of pixel artist Simon Andersen, who created Owlboy and worked on this project as a way to wind down from its long development. "After finishing a massive game project spanning a decade of development, I was ready to tackle a new series. I had already known for years I wanted to explore a hypothetical sequel to Chrono Trigger, Cross and Radical Dreamers, but it took me a full year until I figured out how I wanted it to look," he wrote.

Andersen makes it as clear as possible that this is not an actual game project in development, and that's for the best—Square famously shut down a Chrono Trigger fangame, Chrono Resurrection, back in 2004. Andersen's video is just a mockup, which he's been working on for the past two months. "If the sequel that was planned years ago was revived, this is likely how I would do it."

Even so, it's nice to think about what could have been, in the alternate timeline where Chrono Trigger got another sequel. Especially one with such beautiful pixel art, which feels rooted in the original game's style but with far more detail than the Super Nintendo was capable of.

Release day for an indie developer sounds like it’d be a celebration. Years of work have finally reached a successful conclusion. They can sit back, relax, and wait for the adulation and money to roll in. But it's not really like that. “I heard a lot of people speculate what this would feel like and I was never really sure what would happen when we finally hit launch,” says Simon Stafsnes Andersen, head of Owlboy maker D-Pad Studio. “The reality was ... conflicting.”

The truth is that launch is not an end. It’s the start of something else, and with that fresh start come many struggles that are born in the intensity of game development. This is true for almost all modern game developers, but it's especially dramatic for indies who have spent half a decade or more quietly working on their dream project. After you've put all of yourself into a game, what comes next?

Life before launch

“The final push was probably some of the most emotionally draining and turbulent months of the entire nine-year development cycle,” Andersen says of the final few months working on Owlboy. He and his four-strong team worked practically every waking hour to make the deadlines for its physical release. “We were all really burned out by the time we were close to the finish line and it in many ways didn’t feel like it was going to be real. We didn’t have time to feel anything at that point. Our only concern was to deliver on what we had set out to do.”

Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone felt much the same. Stardew Valley’s four-and-a-half years development ended with him working 12-hour days, seven days a week, and he was fixing bugs and making last-minute changes right up to the end. “I remember staying up all night shortly before launch day in order to fix a major bug that would've ruined it.”

But not all crunch is specifically about work hours. Ben Porter is programmer, designer and art director of MoonQuest, a platformer with Terraria-style exploration and crafting in distinctly weird generated environments. He managed to work nine-to-five days before its July Early Access release, but after six years, he was exhausted—and also a new dad. “Luckily my daughter had started to sleep through the night so I started to get more rest and could concentrate for longer,” he says. But final rounds of testing threw up all kinds of unanticipated new issues that had to be fixed.

For team Villa Gorilla, the multiplatform release of its wonderful pinball-platformer Yoku’s Island Express was handed by its publisher, Team 17, who governed a carefully plotted series of submission deadlines. “It’s a super-intense period, but nice because we could tick off individual problems to tackle,” programmer Jens Andersson says. “But even at that point, you know there’s stuff you want to change but it takes a lot of work and it’s not worth it. The side effects might make the game worse.”

For Joakim ‘Konjak’ Sandberg, the final weeks of making the sprawling platformer adventure Iconoclasts, which he created entirely on his own for eight years, were quieter. He spent the time testing and trying to promote it, contacting streamers and press, but he was feeling extremely anxious.

Release day

“It’s not healthy to make a game on your own,” Sandberg says. “I built up resentments and worries on the way, that Iconclasts was weird, too specific to me. I didn’t know how people would react to it, which I think is normal, but I worried.” He spent much of launch day in and out of sleep, checking streams to see if it was being played yet, waiting for the hour his publisher would launch it. He was worried that he’d done too little promotion, thought streamers wouldn’t bother playing a story-driven game. Would it grab anyone?

Barone was in a state of nervous excitement, also not knowing how the game would be received. He knew there was hype around it. “Still, there was a big unknown, and that always causes some stress. I had poured my heart and soul into Stardew Valley for four-and-a-half years, in private. For that to suddenly be revealed to the world was both exciting and terrifying.”

Villa Gorilla's Andersson felt more confident. The rigours of testing, along with all his experience as a dev at Starbreeze made him feel somewhat confident that Yoku’s Island Express was a good game. “But you can never be certain. You don’t necessarily know what your game is.” It’s hard to see a project when you’re so close it for so long; he knew that he’d have to wait until the reviews before he’d get a coherent outsider's view. To take their minds off it, the team planned a tiki-themed release party. “That was an interesting experience, reading the first reviews at the party. A little risky!”

For Ben Porter, MoonQuest’s launch on a Saturday morning was all about going through a checklist: unlocking the website, making the trailer public, unlocking the game on itch.io and the Humble Store for his Kickstarter backers, and pressing the big ’Release Game’ button in Steam. He then started promoting the game on Twitter and Facebook, posted an update to backers, sent emails to gaming sites, contacted friends. “And on and on. It was a pretty intense few days.” He was worried that the game wouldn’t technically work, and knew that it couldn’t on some PCs, especially those without dedicated graphics cards.

The Owlboy team were at Anderson’s house, having scrambled to fix some final issues. “At some point, with great hesitation, we announced it was time to hit the launch button. We did, and you would think this would be the pivotal moment.” In fact, the moment fell flat, since they couldn’t check that it was live and functional, so they had to dig out an old laptop and install Steam on it. “We stood there for 20 minutes of absolute agony before we finally knew if the game we had spent a decade on was live and working. The second the intro screen booted up the entirety of the team broke down in tears at the same time.”

Life in the aftermath

“I got drunker than I’ve ever been in my life because I was so anxious,” says Sandberg of the hours after Iconoclasts released. He watched one streamer get a soft-lock—a crash—and quit. “That stuck with me for many days.” He fixed the bug instantly; it was to do with pressing certain buttons during a cutscene, an action so esoteric that it didn’t come up in testing. “But that’s what happens. And three months later I was in hospital.”

Sandberg’s anxiety had continued after launch. He worried about his financial security and felt like he’d wasted the last 10 years of his life. Every time he saw a bug he felt like he’d failed. Every time he read criticism of Iconoclasts he’d fall into a hole for an hour. These stresses combined with long-standing personal issues lead to a breakdown. Sandberg admitted himself to a psychiatric ward. He only stayed three nights, but came out having learned his breakdown was exacerbated by his social isolation during development. 

“The way I made the game, I sat by myself thinking it’s what I had to do and nothing else, and this is where I am now,” Sandberg says. It’s taken him a long time to get back to work, porting Iconoclasts to Switch, and he's still finding it tough. But the experience has taught him an important lesson: “Don’t squander your close friends. The most important thing is to be able to walk away, to take weekends. I didn’t do any of that.”

“Whenever you work very intensely with something and then suddenly you’re done, there’s an emptiness, a hole; there’s nothing driving you any more,” says Villa Gorilla’s Andersson. He says that during development he’d look forward to the end, playing more games, having a drink, sleeping in. “But more often than that you wake up feeling depressed. A lot of people just stay in bed for a couple of weeks.”  

Villa Gorilla also had to say goodbye to a couple of developers who were hired just for Yoku’s Island Express. “It feels so sad to break up something that was working so efficiently, but you can’t stay in that super-productive mode forever. You sort of wish you could because you could put out more games!” Andersson has experienced this lull several times. “Perhaps you have to go through this hump to become inspired and creative again,” he wonders. “I just know it’s no fun. It’s terrible.”

Simon Stafsnes Andersen felt many emotions at Owlboy’s release. “The most intense feeling of relief, pride and happiness I think I’ve ever felt in unison. But only for a brief while. It quickly gets replaced by feelings of doubt. What happens now that people are playing it? Are there negative reviews? How is our community doing? Did someone discover a bug? What do we do now in terms of promotion? It turns out the feelings you have before the launch never really go away.”

He and the studio failed to hold a party; Anderson instead found himself feeling dread, the team swept into dealing with bug reports and watching streams for issues. And rather than working on the dozens of projects he foresaw himself launching into once Owlboy was done, he instead found himself having to take time off. “The unexpected element was honestly the exhaustion. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to start something immediately. I tried a number of times and eventually had to admit I just needed to get away from the office for a while to recharge. It’s a strange moment when you realise that you’re not actually a machine and it’s possible to do human things again.”

For Porter, MoonQuest’s Early Access release was just the start of the road to full launch. Happily, it came with the relief that it generated enough sales for him to keep working. “I also think my emotions are spread over the lifetime of the project, so I might feel a little happiness and anxiety every day, but I don’t think there’ll ever be a day where I feel super happy to have finished the game. Right now I’m excited to get straight back into development. ” 

And that means browsing the Steam forums for news of major issues and feature requests. “I’ve avoided the Steam reviews for now, but I see the game has a positive rating, which I’m happy with,” he says. After all, with release comes paying customers. Porter had already grappled with the idea of people giving him money for his work during MoonQuest’s Kickstarter campaign. “I felt really strange about it,“ he says. “I felt really indebted to all the backers, and this led to the game being delayed as I felt they deserved something better.”

For Barone, releasing Stardew Valley was a time of relief and pride. “I had been telling friends and family about this game I was making for five years, and I think many people were wondering if I’d ever finish it. The feeling of pride was more a sense of accomplishment that I was able to complete this gargantuan task.”

But it was strange to know it was out there. “I imagine it would be like raising a child and then seeing them leave your house for good. You’re still the parent, but they have a distinct life of their own now.”

After the launch, his routine changed; he spent more time on social media, dealt with technical issues and did interviews, responding to the game’s surge in popularity. It was a good problem to have, but after a month he had to take time off. With its success came a sense of responsibility, and with that, stress.

“But after a while, you acclimate to whatever your new situation is," Barone says. "That’s where I’m at now. I feel about the same as I always have, maybe a little more confident in myself. I’m happy that so many people love Stardew Valley, and that I now have the ability to continue doing what I love.”

Welcome to our round-up of the best Metroidvania games. That slightly awkward portmanteau refers to a hybrid genre inspired by Metroid and Castlevania. They tend to be 2D platformers that have you exploring dungeons, defeating bosses, and picking up items that unlock new zones of the map. Within this simple format there is plenty of room for variation and, it turns out, lots of gorgeous art. 

A few of the games on the list have been lovingly crafted by small teams and even individuals over the course of a decade or so. Others, like Dead Cells, experiment with fusing the metroidvania with other genres to create a powerful hybrid. Whichever games you pick, expect lots of 2D platforming and some tough boss fights.

Ori and the Blind Forest

Ori's warmly animated world and slightly tearful opener barely hint at the incredibly tricky platforming challenges that follow. PC Gamer's Philippa Warr has compared this to a teddy bear that wants to punch you in the face—it's a cute and beautiful-looking game, but damn tricky. The pleasant soundtrack puts you at ease while the game rarely does.

 Axiom Verge

One of the very best modern examples of the form, Axiom Verge is set in a dark, Giger-esque alien world populated by mysterious giant mechanical beings and, of course, a slew of bullet hell boss monsters. New paths open up as you discover fresh alien gadgetry, like a trenchcoat that lets you phase through walls, and a device that lets you control a small alien bug to crawl into new cave systems. 

Combat is simple—blast the alien things flapping around each level—but there are loads of weapons to discover, and plenty of secrets if you’re determined enough to glitch or blast your way through secret walls. It’s a sinister and slightly unnerving game with some genuinely dark moments, but that makes it a fitting tribute to the lonely hostile corridors of the original Metroid games. 

Hollow Knight 

This one takes a while to get going, but once you have a few upgrades it’s a spectacular hand-drawn metroidvania with a snappy melee combat system. Hollow Knight borrows its melancholy apocalyptic atmosphere from Dark Souls, and also its currency recovering system—if you make it back to the place you died you can reclaim your last life’s earnings.

Hollow Knight looks gorgeous, and it’s full of interesting bug characters that sell you new gear and give you extra quests. The bosses are challenging and the dodge-and-slash combat is a serious test of skill once you’ve unlocked a few moves and started running into the game’s more serious enemies. The world is beautifully put together, too, and you learn more about the fate of the city as you dash, skip, and double-jump into new zones.

Owlboy

You’ll notice that many of these games are set underground in endless cave systems. Owlboy is set in a floating cloud kingdom. As said Owlboy, Otus, you have to flap around the world in a slightly cumbersome manner befitting a character who is regarded as an idiot by his village. You can teleport friends into your claws as you fly around. Different pals come with different abilities; some will fend off nearby enemies with projectile attacks, others will help you to access new zones in true metroidvania fashion. It’s tricky to say much about Owlboy without spoiling the story, but suffice to say it’s an emotional ride depicted in lovingly detailed pixel art. 

Shadow Complex Remastered

Blast your way through a military compound with machine guns in this futuristic Metroidvania. It’s billed as a “2.5D” game, which means you run and jump on a 2D plane, but can shoot into the background as soldiers and battle robots. You play as an ordinary man called Jason Fleming who gets lost on a hike and stumbles across a high-tech group bent on starting a civil war in the US. The game escalates from there you strap on their armour, raid their armoury and start blasting their mechs. The game was originally released on XBOX Live Arcade, but lives on Steam now as Shadow Complex Remastered.

Cave Story+

Daisuke Amaya’s seminal indie metroidvania is available on PC as Cave Story+, which features the original 320x240 visuals and the updated version. You play an amnesiac boy who wakes up in a cave full of rabbit folk called Mimigas. They are being picked off by the malign creations of a mad scientist, who you need to chase across 15 levels. It’s a big game, especially considering it was made by one very dedicated creator with a clear love for the 16-bit era. An absolute classic and a must-play if you love metroidvanias.

Iconoclasts

From one solo creator to another. Joakim Sandberg spent many years painstakingly designing, animating and composing for Iconoclasts. The result is a cheery and colourful metroidvania starring a friendly mechanic called Robin. This is a relatively shooty one featuring more than 20 bosses, but the worlds are packed with chatty characters. It’s worth picking up to see what seven years of one guy’s life’s work looks like.

Steamworld Dig 2

Approachable, and not too difficult, the Steamworld Dig games deliver a gentle hit of Metroidvania action supplemented by lots of Terraria-style digging. You can pickaxe your way through the levels, but this isn’t a sandbox. You have to tunnel your way to new zones and grab new gadgets to upgrade your hero, a steam-powered cowboy robot in the first game and a blue woman in flying goggles in the second. The sequel has more varied environments and a bigger world to explore, so that’s the best place to start.

Dead Cells

Dead Cells straddles the line between Metroidvania and roguelike, which makes it a warped child of Super Metroid, Castlevania and Rogue. You battle through randomised dungeons, starting from the beginning each time you die. As you chop up enemies in beautifully animated exchanges of sword-blows and bow attacks they drop cells that you can pour into your character. 

This persistent element eventually gives your guy the sturdiness to reach new zones you haven’t seen before, fulfilling the typical metroidvania exploration pattern. Dead Cells is a game about blasting through dungeons as quickly and efficiently as possible. When you arrive in an area a timer starts on a hidden treasure door somewhere on the level, if you can find it before the timer expires, you get access to a room full of special items and sweet cash. Dead Cells is a high pressure game compared to others in this list (bar Ori and Hollow Knight), but if you like action and great pixel art Dead Cells is a good option, though it still has some time to mature in Early Access.

Whether you like the Mega Man games or not, most have a lingering fondness for their bright and vibrant pixel art. Simon Andersen, the creator and artist behind Owlboy, is no different. Lately he's been experimenting with Mega Man, and it's interesting to see how one of the industry's best pixel artists approaches the series (if you don't believe he's one of the industry's best – you haven't seen Owlboy).

His approach is orthodox but the art is beautiful. 

Later Andersen posted a short video showing a working, playable Mega Man prototype. It's just a pet project ("I am not making a promise to make anything. It's just something fun to mess with during my weekend," he wrote) but it's still cool to see in action. "Unless Capcom comes knocking on my door with a reasonable deal, I am not making a Megaman game," he later tweeted.

"I might make a few changes to a few established tropes," he wrote. "Definitely weapon selection and assist item use. Though I'm very tempted to break NES limitations further and allow parallax scrolling and potentially widescreen."

And just so you're 100 per cent not under the impression Andersen is making a commercial Mega Man game, here's another confirmation: "Yes, I could do a MM8 style game, but I'm currently just messing with old sprites I have for fun, MM11 is already in production, an X project is a better fit, but most importantly: I'm not doing that amount of work for free. I'm not insane."

Videogame music has its classics, and they’re usually easy to pinpoint as they trickle out every few months, and previously, every few years—but now, we can hardly keep up. To help sift through all the (lovely) noise, we put together a collection of our favorite soundtracks of the year. If you don’t see your favorite here, share it with us in the comments and let us know why it stands out. If you like the music, be sure to let the artist know—maybe buy a few records on vinyl, invite some friends over, sip some fancy wine and let a track like “Yellow Furry Mushroom Tune” take you where it will.

Thumper

Brian GibsonListen hereThumper’s music isn’t comforting, it’s not easy to bob your head to, it doesn’t have delicious hooks that’ll pop up in your mind hours later for easy listening. It’s music designed to suffocate and overwhelm, composed around the violent, rhythmic game design, not as separate thematic entity. Completely intertwined with how Thumper plays and feels, it’s easily one of the best soundtracks this side of the fourth dimension. —James

No Man's Sky

65daysofstaticListen hereSay what you will about how No Man’s Sky plays, but from a purely aesthetic point of view, it’s a vast, gorgeous collection of sci-fi paperback book covers. 65daysofstatic’s soundtrack works as a musical stand-in for the wonder one feels ripping through the pages. It’s not a huge departure from their usual sound—distorted guitars, swinging dynamics, crisp percussion, and eerie electronics samples—but it’s all a perfect fit, like they were composing a soundtrack for space exploration this entire time. —James

Owlboy

Jonathan GreerListen hereAbove the jovial plucking of strings, another set sways in and out of a sad, mysterious melody. It feels like there’s a history to Strato, one that betrays the colorful pixel art and buoyant floating fantasy setting. Owlboy is spilling over with gorgeous, playful, and energetic musical motifs for every character and setting that would make classic Disney movies turn their head and stare. —James

Slayer Shock

Dave PittmanListen here‘Thirst’, appropriately enough, reminds of walking around after a few too many drinks. Like the rest of the soundtrack, it places a twangy bass front and center, and it walks around each sparse song, in and out of corners, scurrying across darkened dirt roads, all the while barely keeping itself together. It might be short, but Pittman’s score is a potent dose of whimsy and danger, one that can sustain as much supernatural sleuthing as you’re capable of. —James

Abzû

Austin WintoryListen hereAs lovely a venture as Abzû is, without Austin Wintory’s reverberating, mysterious, and invigorating score, its best moments would fall entirely flat. The psychedelic underwater visuals and music split the work of directing the player, emotionally and physically, through Abzû’s inspirational aquatic set pieces. You’ll never look at a shark without humming its motif again. Unless it’s about to eat you. Stay safe out there. —James

Okhlos

A Shell in the PitListen hereA good selection of the best game music of the last few years has all come from A Shell in the Pit, serving up lovely soundtracks for the likes of Duelyst, Rogue Legacy, Parkitect, and more. Okhlos’ tunes are another notch in the belt, an intense, fluid combination of modern chiptune headbangers and classic instrumentation. It’s the rare soundtrack that makes me want to sit around all day to play games and dance until I pass out. —James

Furi

Carpenter Brut, Danger, The Toxic Avenger, Lorn, Scattle, Waveshaper, Kn1ght Listen hereFeaturing host of talented electronic artists, Furi’s soundtrack sounds like John Carpenter reimagined for the dancefloor. It’s an energetic and indulgent synthesizer parade that stays glassy and mysterious through every Roxbury headbob. —James

Doom

Mick GordonListen hereDoom’s music is beaming with the same charm and energy as its brutal combat, both a tongue-in-cheek yet tasteful overexertion. The guitar has enough feedback to keep a family full for months and the double bass drum pedals might register as an earthquake in certain regions. This is some greasy, chewy metal with industrial influences. The main title incorporates the 1993 theme from Doom’s E1M1, while “Flesh and Metal” pulls riffs from Chris Vrenna’s Doom 3 theme. Listen to “BFG Division.” Turn it up loud enough to get grounded. —James 

Samorost 3

Tomáš DvořákListen here The best of the year, for me. Captivating and unpredictable, one moment Tomáš Dvořák’s music fills the room like a dramatic film score, then pivots to being grounded, Bohemian, and playful. These songs match and elevate the spirit of Samorost 3, but they stand alone surprisingly well. “This is the first time that an album has inspired me to play a video game,” a Bandcamp review admits. Start with “Prenatal Hunters.” —Evan

Hyper Light Drifter

DisasterpeaceListen here Disasterpeace (Fez, It Follows) uses lo-fi digital audio to evoke history, mood, and place with surprising effect. Imagine unearthing a centuries old chiptune soundtrack, the analog decay turning otherwise clean digital frequencies into tired, weather worn instrumentation. Like the whole of Hyper Light Drifter, the music feels like an artifact from a distant future’s past. —James 

Oxenfree

SCNTFCListen here SCNTFC’s Oxenfree OST is a dense collection of electronic music with a dark edge, like it’s being played through an analog boombox that’s been dropped a few times too many. Smooth synthetic tones give way to warbled distortion that, no matter how bright the melody, feel aged and mysterious. Boards of Canada definitely come to mind. Start with “Cold Comfort.” —James  

Dark Souls 3

Motoi Sakuraba(OST included with game purchase)It takes 10 seconds to understand what kind of place Firelink Shrine is, all thanks to its theme. Before you talk to anyone or explore its space, the strings tell a sad story, wavering in and out of silence while the soft, somber vocals of a lone woman leave a quiet trace of hope. It’s an interpretive characterization of the world and its inhabitants rarely executed in games with such precision. —James  

The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human

Karl FlodinListen here Aquatic Adventure’s soundtrack layers chiptune minimalism with some atmospheric underwater distortion to give each song a clear identity with a strong melody or theme. I can hear a tune and immediately recall the location or boss fight it’s tied to. Start near the surface with “Seaweed Forest” before diving deep into “The Heart of the City.” —James  

The Banner Saga 2

Austin WintoryListen here With The Banner Saga 2, Austin Wintory (Journey, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate) scores his first sequel. His pieces swell and climax, but don’t give way to a massive orchestral crescendo. Instead, they stay sparse, even as bright brass instrumentation takes the lead, backing instruments fall out. The world is breaking apart, it’s cold, everyone is dying, and all the pride and hope in the world can hardly make a dent. —James  

Brigador

Makeup and Vanity SetListen here Synthesizers operated by ski mask-wearing cyberpunks. It’s terrific to see the talent of Makeup and Vanity Set lended to this independent game, and their sound is a perfect fit. The second track, “There Is No Law Here,” says it all. If you really enjoyed the movie Drive, get in here. —Evan 

Poly Bridge

Adrian TalensListen here Soothing and mellow acoustic guitar is the perfect match for building rickety, collapsing bridges. When you send busloads of tiny passengers plunging into a river amidst splintering wood and steel beams, you'll barely even care because the music is just so damn relaxing. You can buy the Poly Bridge soundtrack as DLC on Steam (it also comes with the Deluxe Edition of the game, which just left early access in July). The composer even invites you to learn to play songs from the soundtrack yourself. —Chris L  

It took almost ten years for D-Pad Studio to make Owlboy, "the retro-styled sidescroller you didn’t realize you needed." That's a hefty investment of time and effort by any measure. But D-Pad programmer Jo-Remi Madsen said in a recent AMA on Reddit that he doesn't mind too much if people pirate the game rather than pay for it, because sometimes that's the only way they can get their hands on it at all. 

"When it comes to piracy, we're certainly not cracking down on anything, we're very happy people get the chance to play the game. Through torrent, the game has a chance to become available to people who, say, live in countries where it isn't easy to even buy games (maybe Steam doesn't support their currency, or they just don't carry credit cards)," Madsen wrote. "I'd still wish for those to be able to experience Owlboy. Right now, pirating the game is the best alternative they have, as it's totally open to anyone with a sturdy internet connection. Since we're not a big company, it doesn't impact us in the way it would AAA." 

Steam is the undisputed king of digital platforms, he said in a separate post, but GOG's DRM-free approach has some upsides too. "I don't have any numbers when it comes to piracy, but I do know that some people who did pirate it, went on to become die-hard fans, spreading the word on the game, which leads to more sales," he wrote. "I've never pirated myself, but situations sure can vary from country to country during hard economic times. My only wish is for people to continue playing and enjoying the game, through whatever means necessary." 

D-Pad isn't an especially well-heeled studio: Madsen said that half of the team stayed as his parents' house, rent-free, for more than half of the game's lengthy development period. "We've had VERY few expenses, most businesses would not be able to run at a normal pace with the assets that we've maintained," he explained. "Most of our trips have been covered because we've held presentations, or we've simply applied for funding (my country, Norway, is awesome like that)." 

But now, with Owlboy successfully released—and quite good—the studio has "enough funding now to continue making games, and we owe it to no-one but ourselves, my folks and our fans." Piracy or not, you really can't ask for a better outcome than that.

Owlboy is currently on sale for $20/£15/€18 on Steam and GOG. 

After more than nine years in development, the retro-inspired 16-bit-styled platformer Owlboy will launch on November 1, developer D-Pad Studio has revealed.

Revered. Exalted. Wise. These are the traits of your fellow owls, says the release teaser below as it depicts a handful of the game s locations. Over the centuries, we have worked hard to build the respect that people have for us. It s time to begin our journey.

Against the multitude of similarly styled games that have flooded the market since Owlboy was first conceived, this may not seem like a game that s particularly worth celebrating. Having spent a couple of hours flying around in its beta last week, I can confirm that it is. Everything about it is polished from its limitless flying mechanics, to its whimsical characters; from its intuitive puzzling, to its vibrant backdrops.

Owlboy is due November 1, when it ll be available from GOG, the Humble Store and Steam. A boxed edition will cost 24.99/$29.99 from Indiebox, which includes full colour manual, the game s soundtrack, an art mini-print, and a Steam code.

D-Pad Studio has been working on Owlboy for nine years. Which means the Norwegian outfit began developing its flagship game in the same year the world was introduced to the likes of Portal, BioShock, and The Witcher. It pre-dates both Barack Obama s presidential premiership and, for want of less banal term, the subsequent indie renaissance which has swept PC gaming in the interim.

That last part is important because the surplus of retro-styled, pixel-paraders that have since flooded the landscape of independent videogames has left the market feeling a tad saturated. Nowadays, you d be forgiven for overlooking a game like Owlboy a familiar-looking platformer that has been on the cusp of release for the past five years but you shouldn t. Why? Because it s fantastic.

That is, the 90 minute-long beta which is being exhibited at this weekend s PAX West is fantastic a preliminary chapter of sorts that explores the game s first dungeon while introducing its mechanics and characters along the way. From start to finish, its vibrant palette is bursting with life, as are its whimsical townsfolk and its inspiring soundtrack. Zipping around Vellie the half boy/half owl protagonist Otus hometown is also an absolute joy.

Flying is Owlboy s central mechanic, you see, and tapping A sends Otus skyward, where you re then free to soar around each level without limits. Not being shackled by timers or stamina bars or the likes is incredibly refreshing and, without sounding overly profound, liberating. We ve become so accustomed to restrictions on flight via videogames that taking to the skies in Owlboy was something I never tired of during my playthrough.

So long as there s room above your head, you re free to go soaring, which is in itself an interesting take on the genre you re ultimately left doing little platforming as whizzing to and from your destinations is not only more fun, but also more direct. The only time you re required to land is to engage certain characters in cordial conversation or to progress the plot, while health and powerups can be unearthed by grabbing them from the landscape.

Where Otus is skilled in the skies, he isn t very confident in confrontation. Instead, he relies on companions known as gunners and helpers who provide different services a role assumed by best mate Geddy in the opening level. A la Sonic and Tails, Otus elevates his chum from the deck and the pair set off into a nearby cave to track down a shady pirate adversary. Once inside, they re met with a series of pressure point contraptions and lever switch obstacles which are straightforward enough, but, again, stand to introduce you to the workings of the game. Otus himself is also a mute not simply a silent protagonist which prompts Geddy and those around him to do all of the talking.

Most games like this, especially Nintendo ones, have characters that doesn t speak, or they want you to feel like you re the character and that s why they don t speak, D-Pad s Jo-Remi Madsen tells me. In Owlboy, he s an actual mute. He can t really defend himself, you re supposed to be this kind of vulnerable character, that s why you get these gunners or helpers, that you kind of depend on to play through the game - you must work together to get by.

From what I ve played, the friend-in-need premise works well and ensures a degree of fluency in joining each slice of narrative to the next, however how the game keeps things fresh without simply reverting to generic Metroidvania mechanics remains to be seen. Geddy s co-operative pistol shooting is tight and responsive, and works well in concert with Otus flight ability, and Spelunky-style teleportation is introduced towards the end of the demo segment. This is in turn makes for some interesting puzzle solving fingers crossed similar levels of ingenuity await different set pieces in the final game.

Again, it d be easy to disregard Owlboy against the number of similar-looking indie games that ve come before it, but there s something that feels truly exciting and special about this one in particular. Instead of portraying a throwback to the games of yesteryear, Owlboy feels like a reimagining of one which already exists and I m genuinely excited to see what it serves up in the coming months. It's beautiful and great fun and I m left wondering how it might ve fared had D-Pad managed to get it out the door in a more timely manner.

So what has taken it so long? D-Pad plans to finalise a launch date over the next few days, however has Owlboy really needed the best part of a decade s worth of development time? When we first released the demo for Owlboy, which was way back in 2011, we got so much feedback that we decided to redesign the whole thing, says Madsen. We ve done so many redesigns of the game and we did think in 2011 we were soon done. In that first trailer it actually says that it s coming out in 2011. That obviously hasn t been that case.

But we ll never ever create DLC. If the game comes out and it s not finished why did we spend so much time on it? We discussed a lot whether we should early access Owlboy or if we should make it into an episodic thing. Every time we ve discussed it we ve just agreed that: no, we really want to make a complete game because it would be cheating our fans if we section it up like that.

D-Pad plans to reveal Owlboy s final release date at this weekend s PAX West. It s also playable there if you re able to make it along I hope you do if you are.

Work on D-Pad Studio s retro-styled indie sidescrolling platformer Owlboy began in 2007 long before the indie renaissance , for want of a less-hackneyed term, of recent years, and long before Steam and other distribution platforms were filled with games that aesthetically mirror yesteryear. It ll finally release this Fall , its developers have announced, and will nail down an exact date at PAX West next week.

Within a pixel art-infused two dimensional open-world, you assume the role of the half owl/half boy Otus in a journey which sees you battling sky pirates and traversing monster-infested ruins, among other treacherous encounters, relying on help from your non-flying gunner friends.

Besides its lovely-looking although now slightly well-worn appearance, one thing which stands out is how Owlboy approaches flight mechanics. Otus can take to the skies without tiring, without timers, without restriction so long as there s room above to allow it.

Explore a vibrantly crafted pixel world in this flying adventure platformer, explains the game s Steam page description. Being a mute, Otus struggles living up to the expectations of owl-hood. Things spiral from bad to worse with the sudden appearance of sky pirates.

The first Owlboy demo launched way back in 2011, and a release was planned later that year. When I spoke briefly to D-Pad s Jo-Remi Madsen towards the end of 2014 he told me they d since redesigned the entire game from the ground up, but reckoned it d still release before the end of that year. It s taken an extra couple of years, but it seems Owlboy is finally ready to fly the coop.

During that same conversation, Madsen explained why protagonist Otus cannot speak. Most games, especially the Nintendo ones, always have character that doesn t speak, or they want you to feel like you re the character that s why they don t speak.

"In Owlboy, Otus is an actual mute. He can t really defend himself, you re supposed to be this kind of vulnerable character, that s why you get these gunners or helpers, that you kind of depend on to play through the game you must work together to get by.

A concrete launch date for Owlboy is expected to be made at PAX West next week.