Salutations loyal subjects whom I shal not refer to as subject as it's demeaning. We were treated to another interview during our time at NGC, this time with Eurogamer. I have to say, it was an interesting interview. We spent a lot of time just discussing the industry in general, which was a lot more relaxing that just getting bullet points fired at us.

You can find the article about the Indie Game Night here. But if you want to skip directly to the Olwboy part, you can find that here.

Take note, this is the Danish Eurogamer, so most of you will not be able to read it. However, because I'm a person of insane kindness and all things grand, I've decided to translate the whole thing to english so more people can benefit from it. I appolegise in advance if the language is terrible.

Hit the jump for the full interview.

Other Owlboy interviews:

Interview with ZDF

Interview with Game Reactor

Interview with Pixel Socks

Interview with Gamer.no

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Owlboy

Norway's Lone representative for Indie night was the vertical 2D platform game: Owlboy. The gameplay itself is simple but works fairly well, but then, the game also utilises some phenomenal pixel graphics. I don't recall seeing anything like it since the Super Nintendo or the early arcade machines.

The gameplay is structured around an 'Owlboy', who's task is to fight his way through different stages. He can pick up various things with his talons, which can grant him new abillities. For example a little soldier, allowing him to shoot, a heavy rock allowing him to break things and so on. The demo appeared fairly finished, despite the developers caliming the code being just 25 percent complete.

When I spoke to the two Norwegians, Jo-Remi Madsen and Simon Andersen - the workforce behind the game - they revealed that all the graphics were made in MS-Paint! And for that matter, that they don't use shaders of any kind. The game uses only pure scaling of the their wonderful pixels.

In fact, it turns out they're both very passionate about their choice for using pixel graphics. Simon tells me that he feels 2D-grapics have been unfairly left in the ditch when the consoles, with their new 3D-graphics, started taking over the market. To him, 2D-pixel graphics were never allowed to reach their full potential.

That also means that Owlboy should not be regarded as a retro-game, which is interesting, as it mimicks something old and plays on nostalgia. Instead, the purpouse is for this project to be regarded as a game on it's own terms that uses 2D-graphics as a serious medium - and not simply as pretty retro-frosting. Like Simon says: "I don't have to do pixel art. I can do 3D if I want to."

The story in Owlboy is simple and pretty linnear, but that's actually the point, says the Olwboy-devs. "It should be like the good old Nintendo games", explains Simon. "It should be the gameplay that shapes the story." As such, they'er tried to let the gameplay be their first priority at all times, attaching a story on top that fits the gameplay. It's not quite "Our princess is in another Castle" though. There's a bit more meat on the story here. However, it non the less seems simple and uncomplicated.

The team behind Olwboy, D-Pad Studio, consists of the two Norwegians, but also an American and a Canadian, and even though they've been working together on several different projects, it was first at GDC 3 months ago that they met eachother in real life. Together, they hope they can get the game ready within a year. Owlboy is developed in XNA, so the goal is to get it out on Xbox Live and PC within the new year.

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That's about it. Hope you enjoyed the read and that it was at least moderately readable. Untill next time!