Man, that must have been soul crushing to have all that painstakingly crafted art, code and other hard work just cut and thrown in the bin. Still, I am happy that they managed to complete the game.
Bless you guys. Such a long process. Staying financially viable and relevant must have been a real headache. I hope your final version and the fact you are now giving talks at GDC helps you to remain positive through the low times. Maybe all the material you cut could end up in the sequel... 20 years from now? lol. Keep on keeping on. :)
As much as I would have enjoyed a Molstrom boss fight, I gotta say I 100% respect their artistic reasons for removing it. When I finished the game I knew instinctively why we never got to fight him but it was cool to actually hear them confirm my suspicions out loud.
Instead of having breakthrough over breakthrough of how the game evolves or improve, this Owl Boy in-the-making process sounded so much slower, uneventful, yet the payoff is as great as any other successful titles. All these years must've been slow for them. They proved that when you pour in your hearts bit by bit (no pun intended), the tree that you've been growing for so long bear fruits that are sweet. Although the process is slow, the end game is worth it.
I just completed the game. Watching this video, the existence of Owlboy seems like a miracle. I really appreciate their efforts and hope they have bright future ahead :)
I recently did a stream of this game and you can really tell how much work was put into this. Absolutely gorgeous in every way and its character designs and locals really stick with ya. It's absolutely heartbreaking seeing how much had to be cut out. However, these two and everyone else who worked on the game should absolutely be proud of what they have accomplished. Ya'll did it! Owlboy was a success.
They were one of the first to use XNA? Crazy. I had to use it for a team project in university 4 years ago and it's so outdated. Really puts the length of this project into perspective.
I really appreciate you guys going into how hard it was to stay on track and how much you had to cut and change the game because it really shows other devs that it's okay to make mistakes and cut things out; sometimes that's what you have to do to get the game out and keep the lights on so you can move on to the next game.
Great talk! this talk is a great lesson in learning on how to keep your scope right, both because of what you ended up adding, and the ton of things you ended up scrapping .
Necro reply here... but this is too true. I'm about a year and a half (from idea conception) into development on my own game, and boy feature/scope creep is such an easy pitfall to stumble into... But at the same time, how is anyone supposed to know that something doesn't work until after you make (something like) it and give it an honest try? :P It seemed like such a good idea at the time, after all! Haha.
It's interesting watching this after watching Jake Birkett's talk. I'm sure Owlboy was an amazing success but after 10 years of development I can't imagine they made a lot of money per hour of work. Would love to see that data.
It's interesting to learn about the city of Advent, as it was originally conceived. I can also see the themes resonating in the story based on the developers' experiences.
Great game, I'm playing it now and I have the third friend now. Beautiful pixel art and music My favorite pixel art game of all time is Alundra for ps1
I can see why they cut the Molstrom fight. His imposing presence in the narrative was told though the story and the cutscenes with what happened in Advent. Beating him in a moderately challenging fight would have complicated the story by a great deal. It was interesting to see, though.
Love how this video starts. I thought that long haired dude was in the wrong place. Stood on the stage looking at his phone. Turns out he is giving the talk. lool.
They point out that most of the stuff that they cut out was scrapped because the story shifted, and that content no longer fit with the rest of the game. Most of the cut content was completed, or nearly so.
Oh, you maniacs! At the end I expected to hear smth like: "So, after 25 hours of working on last bits, I went to hang out with my friends, and I noticed that somth was off. They didn't quite fit my mood. So I gotta CUT THEM."
Nice game and presentation, even if I would have liked a bit more techy explanations that dive deeper into the mechanics :) Whats up with the thumbnail though? :D
