For me, the "owl" was all the polish and game feel. "The art of screenshake" by Jan Nijman of Vlambeer [0] was what helped fill in the steps to "making the owl".

I think most people with reasonable know-how can make a basic game, whether it's asteroids, flappy bird, breakout, etc. For me, I never understood how to get past the "finished the tutorial" to "looks like an actual game". Screenshake, aka game feel/polish/production effects, was what made it gel.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

The video that inspired that one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0aCDmgnxg