Alphonse

**Alphonse** is a supporting character in *Owlboy*, and the second gunner unlocked. He is a pirate who crosses paths with Otus.

## Story

Alphonse was created by the Ancient Owls, specifically Aegolius. He was originally intended to be a servant to the owls, but was made to serve in "whatever manner [he] thought best," and he felt that was acting.

During his time among the pirate, Alphonse was teamed up with Dirk. He was with him suring the Vellie attack, and they crashed their ship in the Owl Temple. They attacked Otus to steal him his Owl Cloak and get out of the temple. After their ship gets definitely destroyed, Alphonse wants to admit defeat, while Dirk wants to keep on fighting. They end up arguing about their Captain and as Twig appears to help them get out, Dirk ditches Alphonse there.

From then on, Alphonse joins Otus and follow him around. He helps him sabotage the pirate Dreadnaught and get into the pirate base. There, he fights alongside Otus against Dirk.

## Personality

Alphonse is a noble robot, cool-headed and not afraid of danger. Despite him being one of the oldest characters of the game, he always keeps a subservient role relative to Otus and Geddy, referring to them by the title "Master". Like Dirk and Molstrom, and unlike most of the other pirates, Alphonse is independent and can act by his own accord. He seems to lead the group when Otus can't. However, he doesn't seem to be able to react outright negatively, or interrupt others.

## Relationships

### Otus

Even though he attacked Otus to steal his cloak, Alphonse's first reaction to seeing Otus was to kindly say hello. He argues against keeping on fighting him after his turret is destroyed, effectively saving Otus' life, since he couldn't have dodged Dirk's attacks or even inflict him any damage at this point of the game. He teams up with Otus very quickly after Dirk ditches him, and become loyal to him very quickly. He saves Otus' life again by carrying him in the burning Dreadnaught, and sneaks into Vellie to check up on him after Advent. He thinks Otus is a better master, who acts for good.

### Geddy

Geddy was afraid of Alphonse at first, him being a rather large (former) pirate. He warmed up to him a bit, however, after realizing that Alphonse is a bit more polite and personable than the other pirates. Geddy is also grateful about Alphonse defending them against Dirk earlier.

When sabotaging the Dreadnaught, Alphonse saves Geddy's life by carrying him out of the flames.

Alphonse praises Otus and Geddy often, mentionning they make a great team.

### Twig

After Twig joins the party, Alphonse sympathizes with Twig quickly. When Twig gets into a fight with his family and Otus summons Alphonse, the latter improvises and poses as the pirate leader to convince Twig's family to let him accompany Otus (ultimately, the bluff doesn't work, but Twig's family lets him go nonetheless)

### Dirk

Before Alphonse's betrayal, the two seemed to have a decent working relationship. Afterwards, Dirk takes the betrayal as a personal slight and aggressively antagonizes Alphonse, even though the latter doesn't want to fight him. Dirk only admits he considered Alphonse a friend right before he dies.

After Dirk's death, Alphonse teleports away head down, without a word, which lead to believe that having to kill Dirk affected him greatly.

## Abilities

* Has a powerful, short-range, wide-spread musket shot that has a several second cooldown time.
* Can burn vines and bush obstacles with the shot, or use his musket as a lighter during the cooldown period.

## Development History

Alphonse began as an optional character - but after going through the steps to unlock him, he would be so much more powerful, he’d overshadow Geddy completely. The devs noticed that players would stop using Geddy immediately once Alphonse was unlocked as Alphonse could simply do everything better.

The devs started discussing what they could do to make the party dependent on each other. One solution would be to use obstacles that only Geddy´s blaster could penetrate, but that didn’t seem like a satisfying solution. After a little planning, they introduced a new gameplay mechanic in which they ended up making Alphonse’s musket attack even more powerful, while adding a cooldown to it. As the musket blast was charging, the player could then use Geddy to continue attacking. The players would use both characters in almost any situation, and Geddy and Alphonse would become essential members of the team. Each was focused a different aspect of combat. In fact, he became so essential with this new system that he was made into a non-optional character. This meant that there could be more interesting combat and puzzles that forced the player to switch intelligently between the gunners and use their strengths to progress.

## Trivia

* He is over 900 years old. He remembers visiting the Floating Continent around that time, but doesn't remember older memories.
* Alphonse loves theatre and poetry. He always wanted to be a dramatic actor and "awe the world's finest from a stage!"
* He also enjoys cooking.
* A picture from Alphonse's tale about the pirates features a red robot with a child in the background. It looks like Alphonse, and could be Alphonse himself or a similar robot unit..
* During the campfire scenes, Alphonse has a sleeping bag, which would mean that he either sleeps or pretends to.
* According to game's files, Alphonse's Gawk is named Juane.

## References

1. ↑ http://owlboy.wikia.com/wiki/Bonfire
2. ↑ http://dpadstudio.tumblr.com/post/140584715508/february-update-2

## Gallery

One of Alphonse's sprite sheets.Alphonse gets surprised.Sprite from a cutscene of a robot that seems to be the same model as Alphonse, along with an owl child.