Owlboy

The player controls Otus, who is capable of flying and carrying objects during flight. These objects vary in use, but are mainly used as ranged weapons, thrown weapons, and puzzle-solving tools. As the game progresses, Otus gains allies that accompany him during his journey, each having their own weapon with exclusive properties.

Owlboy is set in the land of the sky; the islands of the world below have been separated by a catastrophic event. The player controls a boy named Otus, who is a member of an owllike humanoid race called the Owls. When Otus' village is attacked by a band of pirates, he sets out on a journey to save it from them, and uncovers the lost truth of the Owls.

Owlboy takes place in the floating settlement of Vellie. The village is made up of many different islands, and is populated with humans and owl-humanoid creatures alike. Vellie is located near the floating city of Advent which is their capital. The owls do not naturally have the ability to fly like their wild counterparts, but with the help of an owl cloak, they are given the ability to fly. The areas surrounding Vellie and Advent contain old relics and temples in them from the time the ancient owls were larger in number and ruled the land.

The inspiration for Owlboy came from several sources, most involving Andersen's penchant for Nintendo games. The basic mechanics were inspired by the Super Mario Bros. 3 Tanooki Suit, although with reverse mechanics. Similarly, Andersen also became interested in rumors of a new game in the Kid Icarus series wondering how the flying mechanics of those games would translate to 3D, and this made Andersen realize that he felt a 2D design for his game would work better. Finally, Andersen was inspired by the then-upcoming Wii and felt that it provided a great opportunity to create an old-school game.

Beginning development in 2007, the game spent the better part of a decade in development. The team worried about the expectation of fans and thus started over several times. Andersen also had to deal with suffering from depression, which he had since childhood. Owlboy was released primarily for Windows-based personal computers, but D-Pad also considered a release for home consoles.

Owlboy received positive commentary from gaming publications. Kotaku's Luke Plunkett stated in 2013 that it would be "worth the wait" of its extensive development time. and the game's charming art style, which for want of something more descriptive reminds me of a Genesis version of Wind Waker." Dave Cook of VG247 described the game as "a rather neat-looking 2D pixel art platformer".

Nathan Grayson of Rock, Paper, Shotgun lamented the fact that by 2013 the game still did not yet have a release date as "the bad news – the news by which all upsetting and otherwise unfortunate events are judged". The website Kill Screen would go on to compare the game's long development cycle to that of Fez, another indie game with a similarly long development period, writing and describing both games as "retro-sentimental platformers by independent studios that promised a lot, but seemed fated to never come out."