Owlboy: the indie platformer that took 10 years to build

It has come out of nowhere to become one of 2016's most critically acclaimed games. But this overnight success has been a long time coming

Many video games with famously protracted development times have one thing in common: they turned out to be huge disappointments.

Spore was Will Wright's attempt to simulate the evolution of a life form from the microbiological stage to space-age civilisation. It took eight years to build and never quite lived up to the epic premise. The much anticipated Too Human was juggled for nine years from the original PlayStation to a Nintendo GameCube exclusive, finally surfacing as a mediocre Xbox 360 title. Then there's the notorious Duke Nukem Forever with its lawsuits and financial troubles, taking 15 years from first public announcement to final release - and it was awful.