Request: Pillarboxing for 21:9

[TuringTest]

On 21:9 monitors, there is no way to play the game in fullscreen without distorting the image. Adding black pillars on the sides while keeping the image centered at its native aspect ratio would solve this problem. Any chance this can be added in?

P.S. - The game is beautiful, otherwise I wouldn't care so much

[Adrian Bauer]

Henrik has been experimenting with ultrawide support but we don't have any hardware to test it on. I don't have a time frame on when this will come, but we will have the test patches in the public beta branch.
game properties > betas > public beta

[TuringTest]

Thanks for looking into it! I'll provide feedback once the new feature hits the beta branch.

[TuringTest]

Originally posted by mendou.sama:

As an ultrawide user this is a big deal for me too. If the game gets an ultrawide update, I'll be buying.

This has been fixed in the open beta! Thanks to the devs for the quick turnaround

[henrik]

This has just been moved out of public beta, and should be fixed in the current version of the game.

It'll have to be pillarboxing, as Owlboy's maps are designed specifically for 16:9 and won't look right in other resolutions. I can explain that more closely if that sounds strange!

[henrik]

I'm not quite sure what you mean, but I'll elaborate.

Owlboy does scroll horizontally sometimes, but not always. In some areas, it's specifically made in such a way that players aren't supposed to be able to see outside a room, either because there's something that should be out of view, or because the assets aren't big enough to stretch far outside the normal view.

Whenever something is designed in this way, in Owlboy it's designed for the screen to be 16:9, because the rooms are 16:9-sized. Changing this would mean that we'd have to make extra assets to have something for the player to look at outside the room, change all the levels to accommodate the change, change some scenes whose camera angles and compositions presuppose 16:9, and reimplement and test all code that assumes 16:9.

Pillarboxing, by contrast, is very simple, and would make the game look the same for everyone. Never say never, but we'll almost certainly stick to pillarboxing.

[Freffo]

Originally posted by mendou.sama:

Okay, fair enough. I guess you could open up the matte for the sections that do scroll horizontally, but as a stop gap pillarboxing is better than stretching.

21:9 is a niche audience for sure at present, but once you go wide, it's difficult to go back!

Wide is love, wide is life.

[dante_87]

I also have an Ultrawide, but I don't mind the pillarboxing as much. That being said, I think adding full 21:9 support would be wonderful!

But seeing as the assets are designed for 16:9, I also understand. I just hope in the future devs can consider 21:9 more as it has started to be more popular and affordable.