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[garytchao]

Download the demo!

Description
The Rabbit and the Owl is a single-player or two-player co-op puzzle-platformer which introduces a negative space landscape. The Rabbit and the Owl exist in opposite worlds of light and dark and are only able to progress by helping each other. The gameplay emphasizes solving puzzles which are composed of various mechanics that shift the environment and thus affects both characters in different ways.

The game is tentatively set to release in early 2017 on Steam for PC and Mac.

All images and videos are from in-progress development - subject to change and improvements!

We've been greenlit on Steam!

Setting and Story
The game is set in an ethereal world where light and darkness prevail. Remnants of an ancient civilization litter the landscape. Two kindred spirits, for reasons unknown, have manifested themselves as the Rabbit and the Owl. They are driven eastward to find what the world has lost.

As you progress, you will discover snippets of stories from its remnants such as myths, letters, and journal entries spanning over thousands of years. Piece them together to discover what happened to the people who once inhabited the land and why the Rabbit and the Owl are here now.

Announcement Trailer




Features

• Control two characters in a monochromatic landscape - the white Rabbit occupies dark areas, and the black Owl occupies light areas
  
• A combination of light platforming and deep puzzles
• Puzzles require the Rabbit and Owl to help each other - create blocks, activate levers, ride wind columns, traverse portals, and more
• Painterly artwork by artist Andrew Chen
• Calming, original soundtrack composed by David Huff and Patrick Neff to enjoy while solving fun (i.e. difficult) puzzles
• Each level is a unique combination of mechanics; hours of gameplay
• Thought-provoking, interpretive story
• Controller support
• Game can be fully completed solo, but local co-op (2 controllers or Keyboard/Mouse + 1 controller) will be available if you wish to solve puzzles with a friend

Images
Check out a collection of images from the game here!

Platforms
The game will be available on Steam for Windows and Mac (we've been greenlit on Steam). It will also be available DRM-free.

We also plan to reach out to other common distributors (Humble, GOG, and more).

Formal Sheep

Gary Chao - Founder, game developer, programmer
[email protected]
Gary Chao graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. He has loved video games ever since he played his first game, Commander Keen, as a child. Immediately out of college, he decided to follow his dream of creating video games. After over a year of trial and error going through many different ideas, Gary conceptualized The Rabbit and the Owl in April 2015 and decided to fully develop it. Gary founded Formal Sheep in March 2016 and is currently still working on the game.

Justin Olesen - Game developer
[email protected]
Justin Olesen graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2013 with a degree in Political Science. He is a lifelong gamer and loves games on PC and every console all the way back to his very first NES playing Super Mario Bros. and River City Ransom. The Rabbit and the Owl will be his first venture in the independent game development world. He likes it a lot.​

Connect online
Twitter: @formalsheep
Facebook: http://facebook.com/formalsheep
YouTube: http://youtube.com/formalsheep
IndieDB: http://indiedb.com/games/the-rabbit-and-the-owl
Website: http://formalsheep.com
Email: [email protected]

Collaborators
These are the few but amazing people who have been helping to bring the game to life:

Artist
Andrew Chen

Music Composers
David Huff
Patrick Neff

Sound Designer
Topher Pirkl

My utmost gratitude to these people as the game would not be possible without any of them.

Development Progress
Follow the progress of the game and related news on the blog!

Thank You
Thanks for reading - we’ve put a lot of love into the game and hope that others get to experience it as well. Please support us by following us online (Twitter | Facebook | YouTube) and spreading the word! We plan on having a Kickstarter soon, so stay tuned.

[garytchao]

Reserved!

[Caravaggio]

Reminds me of that old flash game, 'shift' or something like that.  Should be interesting.

It looks pretty much done but I'm not sure how I feel about the boxy edges of the ground.  I wonder if some kind of tile set couldn't be implemented to be drawn in the same place, something that matches the brushed look of the characters and background.

[garytchao]

Reminds me of that old flash game, 'shift' or something like that.  Should be interesting.

It looks pretty much done but I'm not sure how I feel about the boxy edges of the ground.  I wonder if some kind of tile set couldn't be implemented to be drawn in the same place, something that matches the brushed look of the characters and background.

Haha yeah I haven't played shift before but a friend of mine mentioned the same thing. It definitely used black and white negative space as well though.

I've gotten similar feedback about the ground. I plan on "breaking up" the smoothness of non-critical portions of the level layouts by adding in white and black boxes to vary the edges which will serve to improve visual interest. It's tough to describe in words but when I get to that I'll update the post and ask for your opinion!

[garytchao]

Update: We’ve been greenlit on Steam!

[Caravaggio]

Congrats, and it only took 13 days or so?  Did you do some promotion for it or was that just the user reaction?

[garytchao]

Congrats, and it only took 13 days or so?  Did you do some promotion for it or was that just the user reaction?

Just user reaction! I didn't use any marketing services - the majority of the traffic came from Steam users browsing Greenlight. I'm an unknown dev and this is my debut so I had no previous following. The only thing I did was let my friends on Facebook know and also asked close friends and family to let their friends know. I think that probably netted a couple hundred votes at most, so everything else must have come from Steam. I wrote up a small postmortem here on my blog: http://formalsheep.com/blog/the-rabbit-and-the-owl-has-been-greenlit

[growbotgame]

This looks lovely! Looking forward to following its development.

[Pixel Noise]

Definitely like the art and premise - very cool!

[garytchao]

Local co-op is in and the public mid-development demo to come later this month (hopefully)!

[jazzPunk]

I love it!!

[ashtonmorris]

Played this at GDC. Glad to see you on here.

Best of luck!

[lululuprimal]

Looks beautiful, can't wait to play it!

[garytchao]

I can't wait for people to try it out Demo is slated for early June!

[garytchao]

The demo is now available! Download it here. Can't wait to see what you all think, harsh criticisms are welcome

[garytchao]

Had some great showings recently. Check out my blog for more details!

In other news, it looks like it's official - we'll be showing the game at PAX West! Really excited to see what the masses think. Also will be launching a Kickstarter next month to line up with it so keep an eye out for that.

In terms of actual game developments, we've nearly completed all of the levels for the game. Only need to make a few more then I think we'll be satisfied Next on the list is to add more finalized UI/UX features and attempting to create some shaders to make the game look way better. By the way, is anyone good at Unity shaders or know anyone who is? Could seriously use tips or even direct help. Going into this head first!

[garytchao]

Huge update to the demo! This version reflects a more final vision of the game. Hopefully will be completing developing in a couple months. Check it out here and let me know what you all think!