It also plays with a few familiar tropes from that franchise, mainly a seemingly normal, mute kid becoming the world’s great hero, and has a similar sense of progression. Its style is heavily Zelda-like, down to the character designs and technology on display. Owlboy is sort of a side-scrolling Zelda, with a few of its own twists. It’s a good thing the game that came with the beautiful sprite work is pretty good too. Owlboy‘s presentation alone makes it incredible art, the end result of craftsmen working their hearts out for something they truly believed in. Every background is layered and filled with unnecessary detail only there for the sake of atmosphere. Every action is a delight to see in motion. Every character explodes with life and color. Owlboy pretty much puts nearly every single other indie sprite art project to shame through sheer determination and effort. It’s nearly on the level of SNK’s heyday works like Metal Slug, but even more impressive by the virtue of being made on a shockingly low budget and with only a small handful of staff members. Everything else was completely hand done by the staff, painstakingly detailed and animated for years. Owlboy is an artistic marvel by just the sprite work alone, only having to take a single shortcut with the inclusion of rotations for models. Real, incredibly detailed, effects devoid sprite art. There’s a lot going on with Owlboy, but the goal the team was most vocal with was making a game that proved sprite games were still viable. They even forced themselves to save money by communicating over Skype in their own homes instead of having a proper building for the studio, sacrificing their personal lives for this vision. After a lot of behind the scenes legal problems, engine headaches, a main designer leaving in 2009, and breaking to make an entirely different game for one Summer (Savant – Ascent), the game eventually started to form and finally got a release. Director Simon Andersen was inspired by the release of the Nintendo Wii, creating a five man team from around the world and gathering awards with early build showings at various conventions. As a result of the developers’ efforts, they created the game with the goal of never having to cut corners. It started development in 2007 and finally got released in 2016. Although it’s possible the style won’t captivate players in the same way that Owlboy‘s did, Vikings on Trampolines still manages to impress thanks to the crisp, fluidly-animated sprites and overall high level of detail.Owlboy was a game that took nine years to make. It’s possible that the smaller scope could lead to the developers taking it easy on the visuals this time around, but this has not turned out to be the case. It may seem that D-Pad Studio chose to reduce the scope of its next project, but Vikings on Trampolines nonetheless looks like it will offer quite a bit to those open to the concept. As it turns out, the developer’s next game comes in the form of Vikings on Trampolines, a multiplayer-focused party brawler that features exactly what the title suggests. Since then, many have no doubt wondered how D-Pad Studio would follow up on this ambitious undertaking. Owlboy is known for its nearly decade-long development cycle, which definitely paid off when it came to the game’s detailed pixel-art style. If you know of developer D-Pad Studio, you likely know it for its 2016 sidescroller Owlboy.
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