Atomic Owl is a crowdfunded platformer with some roguelike elements where your avian protagonist must go on a quest to rescue his friends. The premise is relatively solid, buoyed by some genuinely excellent art design and music. However, it unfortunately finds its wings clipped by a not-insignificant number of technical and design issues preventing this particular quest from fully taking flight.

Set in Judanest, a world of anthropomorphic birds, the owls (called Bladewings) and crows are locked in a never-ending cycle of conflict. Prince Hidalgo of the Bladewings finds himself attacked by Omega Wing, the leader of the crows, who uses the Dark Feather to corrupt his friends. After being freed from prison with the help of a snarky talking sword named Mezameta, Hidalgo must embark on a quest to liberate his friends and defeat Omega Wing once and for all. It’s a simple enough narrative, enhanced somewhat by some nicely detailed art and decent voice acting.

Atomic Owl is billed by its developer as a platformer with roguelike elements, which is perhaps a more honest descriptor than simply calling it a roguelike platformer. Typical roguelikes, whether isometric like Hades or a platformer like Rogue Legacy 2, are primarily distinguished by two features: restarting from the beginning after each death (usually with some persistent upgrades), and a degree of randomisation that makes each run feel fresh. This randomness often excludes fixed elements like level themes or boss placement to preserve a consistent difficulty curve.

Atomic Owl adopts the first of these traits: when you die, you start over, and you can purchase upgrades that persist between runs. However, it doesn’t incorporate the second element of randomisation. As a result, every run plays out through the same levels, making each attempt feel more repetitive despite the roguelike structure.

That lack of randomness or procedural generation drains fun from the experience. The roguelike genre promises that the next run will ideally feel much different. Without randomised levels, you’re just playing the same levels over and over. Functionally, Atomic Owl is just a standard platformer without any checkpoints. Still, the game isn’t so long or challenging that getting through the whole thing in one go is too much.

Randomised upgrades that you get during each run aren’t too exciting, though. They are typically passive upgrades that increase your damage output with only a small number of abilities, like a triple jump or the ability to reflect enemy projectiles. Giving you access to all four weapon types from the start may have been a miscalculation. If developers Monster Theatre wanted to lean into Atomic Owl’s roguelike elements, having the weapon(s) that Hidalgo has access to be randomised or part of the permanent upgrade feature may have offered more variety between runs or given players something meaningful to work towards.

Unfortunately, Atomic Owl is also hindered by a myriad of technical issues when I played it on my Steam Deck. The experience for me was crash-tastic. The game would freeze and other times Hidalgo clipped through a wall or floor and couldn’t get out. The Second Wind ability that restores you to life when your health bar hits zero also makes Hidalgo unable to take damage for the rest of the level, which was probably unintended by the developer.

Furthermore, I was stuck halfway through the game for several days because reducing the boss to zero HP resulted in the defeated boss character endlessly disgorging tens of thousands of Meza Souls from his corpse instead of the cutscene triggering so I could progress. Due to this, I was able to purchase every single permanent upgrade Atomic Owl had for me after only a handful of attempts. These issues persisted until the very end, with the final boss bugging out and not attacking me. As a consequence, the final confrontation felt like an underwhelming cakewalk rather than the climactic final test of my skills that I am positive Monster Theatre intended.