Characters and GDC!



In this update, we figured we’d let you know of some of the things that have changed with characterization in the game since the last time the world saw it in 2011.



The Owlboy 2011 Demo:

For those of you who played the demo from 2011, you’ll know that you can meet characters within the game that can eventually join your party. We call them ‘Gunners’. In the game, you pick up can carry gunners to fight for you, using their unique abilities both in combat and for puzzles.

The first gunner you meet is Geddy. He´s Otus´s best friend and their hometown’s mechanic. His weapon is a tiny, but percise blaster that you’re able to use when carrying him around.

The second character you meet in the demo, is Alphonse. A pirate in a red suit, carrying a really powerful fireball musket. Alphonse was an optional character - but after going through the steps to unlock him, he would be so much more powerful, he’d overshadow Geddy completely. We noticed players would stop using Geddy immediately as Alphonse could simply do everything better.

The simple Solution:

We started discussing what we could do to make the party dependent on each other. One solution would be to use obstacles that only Geddy´s blaster could penetrate, but that didn’t seem like a satisfying sollution. After a little planning, we introduced a new gameplay mechanic.

We ended up making Alphonse’s musket attack EVEN more powerful, while adding a cooldown to it! As the shotgun blast was charging, the player could then use Geddy to continue attacking. It was a simple solution, but it solved all our problems! Suddenly the players would use both characters in almost any situation, and Geddy and Alphonse would become essential members of the team. Each was focused a different aspect of combat.

In fact, he became so essential with this new system that we made him a non-optional character. This meant that we could create more interesting combat and puzzles that forced you to switch intelligently between the gunners and use their strengths to progress.

One of the boons of having worked on Owlboy for so many years, is that we’ve been able to find solutions for problems like this. If we had been rushed, or had not released the demo, we would have never spotted situations like these, and the gameplay and narrative of Owlboy would have suffered greatly.

With gunners no longer optional, it allowed for us to incorporate the characters more heavily into the story. Next update, we’ll go through our decisions more in depth.

GDC!

We also want to take this moment to announce that we’re going to be present at GDC in San Francisco this year, March 14-18.

We’re sending Simon and Julie out to mingle with people, do some secret meetings. And not to mention: TONS OF BUTTONS!

There won’t be a booth this year, so if you want to meet up (or get your hand on a truckload of buttons…) make sure to contact us in advance.

See you in the next update!