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3:29 AM 8/9/2024 - Thoughts on Owlboy by D-Pad Studio

I replayed Owlboy recently, and I got to thinking about the story & the themes. I think fundamentally Owlboy is a game about failure and mistakes, whether we can control/prevent them, and how we can move on from them. The story is really separated into two parts: the past and the present. Today I'll summarize part of the present-day plot; after I finish the summary I'll talk about owl lore & history, and finally, I'll explain what I think this all says about the themes and what ideas we can take away from the story.

In the present, we meet the protagonist and playable character, Otus, who is a humanoid owl living in a world of floating islands above an interminable ocean. He is introduced to us as a failure. He can't speak, which is partially part of the trope of the silent video game protagonist, but also means he can't advocate for himself. The tutorial of the game is a series of tasks that Otus's owl mentor, Asio, asks him (and by proxy the player) to perform; the player is made to fail each one while learning how to control Otus. Asio becomes frustrated with Otus and insults his inadequacy.

The first important task Otus is given, as the tutorial ends, is to patrol his hometown, Vellie, and watch for pirates. Owls in this world are tasked with protecting the skies and their inhabitants, presumably because they can fly. The villagers around town are kind to Otus, and they mention seeing a troublemaker around. Otus pursues this troublemaker with the help of his human friend Geddy, and they run across a few other owls from the big city of Advent: Fib, Bonacci, and Solus, all of whom are apprenticed to the an owl named Strix who looks down on Asio. Otus and Geddy follow the troublemaker into an old owl temple in the islands beneath Vellie. It's filled with ancient ruined statues and a couple functioning magical artifacts, plus a robotic boss monster called a Guardian.

When they emerge from the temple, Otus & Geddy find that in chasing the troublemaker they missed a pirate attack on Vellie. The pirates didn't do much damage; they only took something from an old monument and sailed upwards towards Advent. Strix blames Asio; Asio blames Otus.

Asio and the local human scientist tell Otus and Geddy to travel to the Owl Temple in Tropos (between Vellie and Advent). The Temple has huge fans that constantly blow to keep the islands apart. If they're turned off, the islands will close up and trap the pirate ships.

Otus & Geddy reach the temple and fight their way through it, but come across two pirates in a crashed ship named Dirk and Alphonse. The groups fight, and the ship is destroyed past the point of repair. Dirk blames Alphonse and runs off on his own. Alphonse is polite to the kids, and when Geddy explains to him how what the pirates are doing is wrong, Alphonse has a noble change of heart and decides to quit piratehood and join Otus's crew. They reach the fans, but they're broken and look like they've been off for decades. With time running short, Otus & crew fly up to Advent--but it's too late; the pirates have arrived. Advent is under attack.

Asio is massively disappointed, but not surprised, and has some harsh words for Otus; Geddy tries to explain the situation and advocate for himself and Otus but is ignored. Otus and Geddy (Alphonse is hiding) are told to stay put in a safehouse with Solus and another scientist, but they sneak out and go to sabotage the mothership, headed by Captain Molstrom. They rescue some soldiers from Advent on the way. The mothership's engines are destroyed, and Alphonse carries an unconscious Otus and Geddy onto the prow of the ship. Molstrom finds them, and is angry at Alphonse for his desertion. He tries to kill them, crushing Otus and throwing him off the ship, but all survive. Falling through the air, we see Molstrom take a powerful magical relic and leap down towards Advent; powered up, he cleaves the city into a thousand pieces with one blow.

I'll continue the summary another day.

4:06 PM 8/14/2024 - Thoughts on Owlboy Part 2

Otus wakes up in his neighbor's home in Vellie; the town is now full of refugees from Advent. Asio, standing alone on a bluff overlooking empty sky, is in the worst mood he's been in all game. His words to Otus are pretty nasty, but as he goes on it becomes clear that he is projecting his anger at and hatred for himself onto Otus. He feels like he is useless and has failed unforgivably. He doesn't want to talk to Otus anymore.

Geddy is also frustrated and mourning. He is standing in the graveyard, and when Otus goes to meet him, he expresses that he feels like all their hard work to save Advent was for nothing: "I was right there, and I couldn't help. None of the things we accomplished mattered at all...[w]e failed them all." He asks Otus, "Did we try hard enough?" "Does it make any difference what we do from now on?"

When they meet at Otus's house, Alphonse explains that the pirates are not humans, owls, or other living beings, but in fact robots built by the ancient owls as servants. Some, like Alphonse, Dirk, and Molstrom, have the ability to learn and grow, though they are still constrained by the purpose they were built for: Dirk and Molstrom, violence; Alphonse, servitude. Alphonse is able to change by choosing to serve Otus and Geddy to save innocents from the pirates. Dirk and Molstrom are not so fortunate, and other pirates are litte more than lifeless automata.

Having lived so long, Alphonse's memories are faded, and he doesn't remember much about the owls; he does, however, remember what Molstrom was searching for and where it might be. The weapon that Molstrom used to destroy Advent was one of three Relics of its kind; one was taken from Vellie and one from Advent. Alphonse knows the last one is in a place called the Floating Continent, a massive hollow sky island above Tropos.

The Floating Continent is half an overgrown jungle ruin and half an ancient laboratory built in an active volcanic area (there's lava everywhere). Dirk and the troublemaker previously met in Vellie are also here, trying to take the artifact for Molstrom and keep it from going to Otus's team. After the jungle, the team confronts Dirk and the troublemaker. The troublemaker is named Twig, and he's only working with Dirk because he's lonely and considers Dirk his only friend. Dirk reveals that he doesn't consider Twig a friend at all; he awakens a monstrous half-flesh, half-machine guardian and escapes, locking Twig and Otus & friends in the room to face it. Otus & friends defeat the guardian while Twig cowers. The doors open and Twig runs away.

Now Otus & friends explore the second half of the Floating Continent. Throughout the volcanic laboratory are records of the project undertaken by the ancient owls here: the creation and use of something called the Hex Machine. Otus & friends open the locks on the relic one by one, but the open locks cause the volcano to erupt, and Otus can't both take the relic and fly fast enough to escape. He escapes without the relic, and then he and Geddy and Alphonse fight a giant rock-burrowing worm & then hitch a ride on it out of the Floating Continent. It crashes and dies when they reach Mesos.

Mesos is the highest inhabited region of the world, presumably being up in the mesosphere. It's snowy even though conditions are summery elsewhere. Twig meets the team there. He lives in Mesos. He apologizes for his actions helping the pirates and asks to join the team. Geddy refuses him, being very angry at him for helping the pirates attack Vellie and consequently Advent, killing hundreds of people. However, Otus and Alphonse want him to join the team. Alphonse points out that he himself was also a pirate for a long time, and he's part of Otus and Geddy's team. Geddy says that it's different. When Otus and Alphonse insist, Geddy quits the team in disgust and despair and says he's going back to Vellie. Twig joins the team. I didn't mention before, but Twig is a humanoid stickbug wearing a spider-themed costume who can shoot webs.

To be continued! We're wrapping up the present-day plot now.