Owlboy developers D-Pad Studio are swooping back in time to revisit their very first game, Savant - Ascent, originally released ten years ago. Savant - Ascent Anniversary Edition is remastering the shoot-em-up platformer in which you control Savant - avatar of Norwegian music producer Aleksander Vinter - with new stages, bosses, powerups, and a revamped soundtrack by Vinter himself. The remaster will launch on PC and other platforms later this summer.
]]>Vikings aren’t really known for their acrobatic prowess but Owlboy developers D-Pad Studio are limbering up for their next indie game, Vikings On Trampolines. It’s based on an award-winning experimental game the team produced back in 2011. Witness the sheer Nordic bounciness in the trailer below.
]]>There's no shortage of great Metroidvanias out there these days, so to help narrow your search for what to play next, we've put together this list of the very best Metroidvania games to play on PC right now. Metroidvanias can be a little tricky to define at times. Most have big, knotty worlds to explore that often require the use of specific abilities to access its farthest corners, but while some put a greater emphasis on slow and methodical combat, others stuff every pixel with rock hard platforming challenges to test their players' mettle. We like to keep an open mind when it comes to these things, but that does mean our list of the best Metroidvanias may include the odd controversial choice or two. What's important, though, is that all of these games are brilliant, and come with our seal of approval.
]]>Given that the wait for Owlboy [official site] was almost a decade, you might have missed that it actually came out last November. But it did! Our John declared it "a treat" and we named it our favourite platformer of 2016. Now the owlish boy/boyish owl has landed in the branches of Mac and Linux computrees, treating more twitchers to a show. The game has coughed up pellets containing a small discount this weekend too.
]]>The treat behind the next door on our calendar gives you wings and lets you soar. Day sixteen of The RPS Advent Calendar, which highlights our favourite games of the year, brings...
The year's best platformer, Owlboy [official site]!
]]>As December approaches like a runaway sled and we prepare to say our goodbyes to 2016, it's natural to reflect on the year as a whole. Those reflections could easily take the form of laments but we're keeping our focus firmly on the world of PC games, where we've identified ten trends that may not have defined 2016, but have certainly helped to shape it. We delve into Sorcery and synthwave, DOOM and Danganronpa, and much more besides.
]]>Oh gosh, it is a splendid thing when a game like Owlboy [official site] comes around. Big, smart, involved, silly, gorgeous, aurally stunning, and with a compelling story. It’s got flaws, a couple of big ones, but it also has the wit of a Mario & Luigi game, and the professional delivery of a classic 90s big-studio platforming production, despite coming from a five-man indie team. This is something very lovely. Here's wot I think:
]]>The elusive Owlboy [official site]! For the past decade, tales of his hooting and platforming have delighted all. Believers insist that he's real, that he loves us and he'll be with us soon. (I can't help but note most of their "evidence" is blurry photographs obscured by clumsy thumbs.) Our Alec even swears blind he's met Owlboy and stroked his feathers. Yeah, while off your tits on Lucozade tablets down one of those Brighton all-night silent discos, I bet. Well, all shall be known come November 1st. That's Owlboy's release date, developers D-Pad Studio have announced with a new trailer:
]]>To borrow a line from Graham, there's a parallel reality where Owlboy [official site] came out before Braid, earned mega-bucks and now Norwegian devs D-Pad are making elaborate and beautiful 3D follow-ups. But now, eight years later, there's a seething, pixellated mass of neo-retro-platformers and Owlboy is no longer the slam dunk it might have been.
Whatever its fortunes now might be, it's almost unbelievable that I now actually get to play Owlboy, a game I can remember posting about on RPS back in our earliest months. It is not a disappointment.
]]>Savant Ascent is a simple game, but it feels so good. Controlling Savant - avatar of Norwegian music producer Aleksander Vinter - you ride higher and higher into a tower, pushing your right analog stick to fire and aim and your left analog stick to dodge and jump between prescribed positions. It was a fun diversion when it was released on Steam last year, and now there's a free expansion called the Void Update.
]]>Owlboy is not out yet and doesn't have a release date. That is the bad news. And by that, I mean that it's the bad news - the news by which all upsetting and otherwise unfortunate events are judged. Developer D-Pad Studio's been bending over backward and probably turning its head upside-down to get the gorgeous side-scroller out the door, but it's only (composed of) human(s). Everyone needs a vacation and nope actually D-Pad is just insane so it's spent its "holiday" making a different game. This one's called Savant, and it's a lushly gothic bite of, er, elevator action. If dictionaries were organized by distance between meanings of words, those two would be at opposite ends (and also dictionaries would be useless), but the game actually looks kinda great! Watch the trailer below and see for yourself.
]]>The guys over at IndieGames noticed that the previously available demo of side-scroller Owlboy has been pulled from their site, due to being "out of date". The reason for this seems to be that the game has been radically overhauled, and is now looking fabulous. (The old demo is still here.)
It's been a couple of years since we first reported on this, but it now looks as if developers D-Pad are closing in on something really special. We can't wait. Take a look at the OST video below, it's really something.
]]>These are difficult times, and difficult times can only be helped by a short, sharp burst of Owlboy. While we won't get to sample this apparently rather beautiful tale of a quasi-avian lad and his platforming adventures until August 20th, when a demo is due to land, this does mark the first decent footage we've seen of the game since early last year.
I might be prone to grumbling about the apparently endless tide of retro-esque platformers in indie gaming (and especially commercial indie gaming), but the music and art in this one is pure delight. See below, and feel heroic.
]]>RPS are big fans of Owls - they're wise! Athena digs them! That freaky neck thing! We're not so fond of boys - they're made of slugs and snails and similar material. So we have mixed feeling about the approaching lusciously-retro-formed platformer. Let's over-come them, because it looks beautiful as hell in a gotta-a-visual-arts-nomination-in-the-IGF way. You'll find our interview with Adrian Bauer of D-pad studio about the artist-probably-being-called-Owlboy below, along with footage - or maybe talon-age, if we're being appropriately owl-like. Love those owl guys.
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.png?width=1200&height=630&fit=crop&enable=upscale&auto=webp "שחרורו של Assassin's Creed Shadows נדחה למרץ כאשר מועצת המנהלים של Ubisoft שוקל מכירת חברה")
