
Swordbird Song: The Iron Owl Tower
[ATTENTION: If you played the demo before, make sure to start a new game!]
Follow the Bird Hero entering the lair of the Iron Owls in this short Action RPG game for Gameboy.
Bird Hero gets their journey interrupted when hit by a lightning bolt and falls on a remote island.
They learn the island is ruled by the Owl King, an evil ruler who enslaves the islanders, making them work in his tower.
Find your way into the Iron Owl Tower, defeat the Owl King and free the island from his evil!
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This game is the full release of my GB Studio project called Swordbird Song. If you have any feedback, questions, or bug and issue reports, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me. I really appreciate that!
D-PAD / ARROW KEYS: MOVE
A / Z: INTERACT
B / X: ATTACK
START / ENTER: ITEMS
SELECT / SHIFT: MAP
Please send me your feedback.
Add me on Discord: freinicke#9304
Instagram / Twitter / TikTok : @freinicke
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A Game By
Felipe Reinicke 'freinicke'
Programming and Pixel Art
Felipe Reinicke 'freinicke'
Character Design
Felipe Reinicke 'freinicke'
Andrea Carpentiere 'andrecarpe'
Music
Matias Panto 'vgm_freak'
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Other Credits
Jeremy Oduber
KizulEmeraldfire
for Fonts
Rekkimaru (rekkimaru.itch.io)
for the GB Studio Dungeon Tileset
Gumpy Function (gumpyfunction.itch.io)
for the RPG Fantasy Tileset
Pearacidic (pearacidic.itch.io)
for dialogue copy revision
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Made with GB Studio (gbstudio.dev)
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Special Thanks
All my friends that tested this game!
GB Studio community on Discord and YouTube for all the support, testing, and engagement! You are awesome!
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Please leave your comment or feedback! Thanks!
@freinicke
inventogames.com
Updated | 27 days ago |
Status | Released |
Platforms | HTML5 |
Rating | Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars (27 total ratings) |
Author | freinicke |
Genre | Adventure, Role Playing |
Made with | GB Studio |
Tags | 2D, Action RPG, Game Boy, gb-studio, gbstudio, Homebrew, Retro, Top Down Adventure, zelda |
Average session | A few minutes |
Languages | English |
Inputs | Keyboard, Gamepad (any), Smartphone |
Links | Twitter, Instagram, TikTok |
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Update: Swordbird Song version 3.1Nov 01, 2022
- Launch: Swordbird Song - Full Version is out!!Oct 07, 2022
- Demo Update 2.1Jun 09, 2022
- New Demo Released!Jun 07, 2022
- Update: Tech Demo v1.1Dec 31, 2021
Comments
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After fighting boss in frozen area you can go behind big chest by walking from right side at the height of (chest+1 tile up) left.
That is a softlock, please fix it
I like the game the brain confuses me and I'm stuck at freezing part...
Very good designs, good maps, dungeons, story and puzzles to solve.
Thank you! I am glad that you liked it!
pocet file pls i just got it for christmas and need soething to play :(
Oh! I don’t know how to create one but I will check. Should be easy. :) Thanks for asking! Unfortunately, I am on vacation with no access to my PC so I will have to wait until February to upload it. :(
If you made this with GB Studio, you can just go to the Build Terminal, click the Drop-down thing on the Export button, and click Export for Pocket (I think that's what it says)
What a well-crafted, cohesive game! This wonderful little Zelda clone is one of my favorite Game Boy games! It's perfectly paced with just the right amount of challenge. And, it has a cute design that uses the Game Boy's minimalistic, black-and-white aesthetic to great effect, with masterful use of negative space.
Swordbird Song takes me back to when I was a little kid in 2001 playing Zelda: Oracle of Ages on my Game Boy Color. It's inspired me to re-discover Game Boy games again after a 20-year absence. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for making this.
You’ve just made my Christmas with such a nice comment. Thank you! I’m beyond words to express how happy I feel when people comment that the game took them back in time and felt like playing Zelda for gb again. That’s one of my fav games of all time and I hope I have made it justice with this humble Links Awakening inspired game. :)
This was really fun! One of the best GB Studio games I've played, an absolute treat! Great art, great dungeon and puzzle design. You really nailed the Link's Awakening aesthetic, but made it your own! I can't wait for your next game, and I would 100% buy a physical release in future.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I am really happy to hear that you have fun! That’s the most important thing to me!
wheres my credits for npc names? jk, congrats man top 1 gb studio games as of today.
love the game so far but I don't understand how to break the cracked rocks
You have to look on the other areas of the tower. :)
This is SO NICE! Great puzzles, cute pixel art, and those amazing Link's Awakening vibes... I love this game.
Thank you so much! Glad that you liked it!
Nice short zelda-like game. It was short yet fun. The challenges are good although I wish movable blocks were using unique sprite, instead of showing drag marks on the floor.
The joke from Owl King is good, though I wish this boss would fight in better way than this.
There's a bug in which the room with second boss was already open when I entered large room for the first time. However, it was closed after I pushed a block toward room. I don't know if it's from the game or my emulator.
Thank you so much for playing my game! I was afraid that having unique sprites for movable blocks would make the puzzles too easy to figure out. haha. But I get it! Sometimes the moving blocks are kinda unfair.
Thanks for reporting the bug with the door. You are the second person who faced this bug, I believe there is something wrong with the code or maybe an engine bug.
Hey Felipe, thanks for this great short zelda-like game, it was a nice experience. I love these new games for old consoles.
The cutscenes are great, the humor was also nice.
I loved the graphics and how color was used only on the characters, it creates a nice contrast. It is incredible how charming the grayscale graphics of the GB can be.
I also like that it is short, these days I find it hard to jump into games that will take 40h of my time.
The only part that was not top notch was the combat, generally it was very easy, but it does not detract from the experience overall.
I also love the "business-model", pay what you want. The only thing missing here in itch.io is the option to pay extra after you played the game.
Thank you so much for playing my game! I am happy that you enjoyed it! I always feel very happy when people mention the story and humour. haha!
I agree with you that combat was my weak point when designing this game. I will make sure to improve that on future versions or future games.
Hey, don't sweat about the combat, I can understand it was not the focus of this game. As a developer myself, I can perfectly understand when we need to compromise to be able to deliver.
needed a new game, friend recommends RDR2, it’s great and everything but this, THIS is what I wanted, vey good game thank you. One of the wizard owls by the very ended pushed me out of the map somehow, prob. My fault for running away like a coward. Very fun hope there is more soon!!! Best of lucks!
Wow! I never thought that I would compete with Rockstar but take that RDR2!! Haha! Thank you so much for your kind words!
About the bug. The same happened to me when I also tried to run away from that room. On a future patch, I will probably lock the player in the room with the mage owls!
im a bit stuck...how do i break the cracked rocks??
If you're stuck with the cracked block in the Icra area you have to explore the rest of the tower, the answer for this puzzle is not in Icra.
Okay thanks for the tip ^.^
That's the best GB Studio game I've ever played. Congratulations, inspired me to finish mine even being another genre.
So happy to hear that! Thank you so much!! Eu tb sou brasileiro! :) Espero ver o seu projeto saindo em breve!
The problem is that unfortunately I can't rate this game 2x five stars but i would if i could. :) 5/5 (2x)
That is so nice to hear! Thank you for your kind words!
parabéns continue
Obrigado!! :)
you are a pro! such a nice game
Thanks for your kind words! I feel veeeery far from a pro but I'll take it! haha!
Amazing!
Thank you so much!
This is an incredibly quality gameplay demo. 10x larger than any other GB Studio game demo I’ve seen! I love how vast the game world is, and yet it never felt confusing or assinine to navigate. It gave me the same feeling as LoZ:LttP, but with all the padding cut out. Nicely done! Love the characterization too!
Some feedback: I died a lot on the ice level’s narrow passageways. It looks safer than it really is. If there was one more tile of walkable space either side, or if the art for those tiles was narrower, that’d make it feel fairer.
Afaik there’s no indication as to which boulders are movable in the ice puzzle after defeating the first miniboss with a key door. The one with two floor switches.
Also, there’s a few grammar issues in the opening cutscenes and dialogue. Would recommend getting more people to review the text prior to launch. :>
Hi! Sorry for taking so long to reply! Thank you so much for your kind words, I feel very happy that my game gives you LoZ:LttP feelings, it is an honour to me!
Your comments are very helpful! For sure I will address them in future revisions!
Wow. Amazing!! I like the Zelda games, so I like it so much. Lots of great idea. Grat!!! The game design, ideas, humour are also great!!
Thanks for your kind words! You are the first person that mentioned something about humour and I feel very happy about it. haha! I wanted the game to not take itself seriously and have some silly lines!
amazing demo, tbh this was one of my inspiration on RIPIR, hope to see more. fonts bro, i find it a lil hard to read...just a lil bit tho, also screen transitions should be faster in the menu/map
Hey! Thanks for playing! I checked your RIPIR proof of concept and it looks awesome! I wish my character could roll too!
I was having some trouble with the fonts too, I will try to fix that on the next version.
well my script for the roll is pretty simple. speed increase when directional buttons are held , else [interact with npcs nd object] u can use it on ur game too.
Played this on my phone so maybe I was just fumbling with the controls, but I felt like maybe the sprites for enemies and projectiles don't fully align with their hitboxes? Or maybe the player's is larger than it seems? And there's definitely an issue in the bottomless pit room, I fell off the edge a few times but there was still edge visibly there, it was only an issue on the vertical paths. The boss was really hard for me, maybe there should be flashing when it is about to teleport or something? Any sort of telegraphing would make it seem more fair. Otherwise I enjoyed it! I like the design of the player and the boss. I'm a pretty big fan of link's awakening and you got the vibes down, and having the same(?) owl sprite as that game is fun, it's such a perfect design.
Hi! Thank you so much for your feedback! Yeah! Definitely this tech demo is a little bit rough on the edges when it comes to some mechanics and specially the boss. Haha! I totally understand! I’m trying to address these points on the real game, or at least have a little bit more polished mechanics on the next demo that is coming out soon. :)
Really enjoyed this. I like how each room has a unique puzzle / enemy and comes together to form a cohesive dungeon. The final boss was challenging, and it took me several tries to beat. Looking forward to seeing where this project goes!
Thanks for playing the game! I am very happy to hear that! Every feedback is ver welcome!
I will post a new demo in a couple of weeks! This new demo will be closer to the final game look and includes the first area of the game + story!
Thanks for playing! I spent 1 month working on this demo, first time making a game on gbstudio do it took a while to get familiar with the platform.
The golden bird is just a boss for the demo but the actual game will have a story and much more. :)
No plans to release the source project at this point, maybe after I release the actual game I will publish the source project for the demo. :)
Really awesome! Love the art style and Link's Awakening vibes. Only suggestion would be to add a tiny bit of telegraphing to the enemies' attacks as there were a few times that I got hit and it felt unfair (I didn't even see a frame of enemy attack animation). Great work though :)
Thanks for your feedback! It helps a lot! I will refine this for sure. :)
Loved the game!
Amazing art style, can't wait to see more!
Great work dude!!!
Thank you so much! Glad that you enjoyed!! :)