LudumData

Beyond the Horizon by Shess

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made by Shess for Ludum Dare 45 (JAM)

"This land looks like it has been torn apart and sloppily put back together. What insane force could've turned it into such a spectacular patchwork?"

horizon<em>scr</em>01.png

Story: after years of treasure hunting and adventuring you find yourself in a strange and hostile land shaken by mighty magical battles. And you know what? You've had enough, and you're going home.

Good luck on your journey. It will be a perilous one, for sure, but just press straight on, don't look back, and you'll definitely reach your faraway motherland. Because once you made up your mind, all roads lead home.

  • Travel through beautiful autumn-winter landscapes!
  • Scavenge and use everything you can find!
  • Engage in special events and make tough choices!
  • Reach your final destination in the snowy forests!
  • Play in browser!

Controls: mouse only. Scroll to zoom in and out. Left-click to travel to an adjacent tile, gather resources and trigger events. Right-click on yourself to set up a camp, collecting all resources and events from the tiles around you.

Your goal is to go as far as you can into the snowy forests to finally reach your hometown. Just choose a direction and march straight on! You literally start with nothing though, so your first objective is to plunder the village next to you and stock up on some resources. Keep a close eye on them, especially if you decide to travel in a group: - food and water sustain you and your companions on the journey, - clothes protect you from harsh environments like snow and Slith, - tools are used to camp and trade.

Check out additional hints by reading tooltips in-game.

horizon<em>scr</em>02.png

Code: Yanrishatum. Art: ZeusDex. Gamedesign, story: Shess. Music, SFX: Theodote.

Youtube https://yanrishatum.itch.io/beyond-the-horizon
Youtube http://wb.yanrishatum.ru/games/horizon/
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/faraway

Ratings

Overall 437th 3.569⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 737th 3.054⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 614th 3.107⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Theme 375th 3.571⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 31th 4.5⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Audio 242th 3.593⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Mood 308th 3.661⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 20🗨️

Feedback

CiaranW
12. Oct 2019 · 00:11 UTC
Awesome - you have a beautiful art style here! Visually the way the map appeared was cool too, and the story was simple but engaging. The gameplay was pretty fun, and there were some moments of despiration, I enjoyed my time playing it! The music was nice and suited, but glitched partway through for me, it started popping and I had to turn it off.
oddarock
12. Oct 2019 · 00:19 UTC
Very nice and beautiful game. I had some troubles to understand what is that makes you or your people die. Perhaps some hints to indicate when you are short on ressources could be useful.
Rodrigo Denúbila
12. Oct 2019 · 04:17 UTC
Interesting game. I liked a lot the art of the game. It's a little bit confusing at first, but overall it's a good game.
Flying Dog Fish
12. Oct 2019 · 11:11 UTC
This is a fun little exploration game. Unfortunately I encountered a bug: the map started to jump up and down between to positions rapidly which made me dizzy and prevented me from seeing what I was doing.
netmute
12. Oct 2019 · 17:47 UTC
The graphics were absolutely spectacular!

The UI is kinda broken on a Mac with Retina display, tho. Text is tiny, and the menu is floating in the middle of the screen :sweat_smile:

![Screenshot 2019-10-12 at 19.43.02.png](///raw/d54/z/29784.png)

Overall this was a really nice game!
kleinzach
12. Oct 2019 · 17:49 UTC
Very cool. I was just a few tiles away from the end before i died! The graphics are gorgeous and the music was very enjoyable. The game play might have been a bit complicated for its own good as constantly referring back to tool tips isn't the most engaging, but overall I really liked it!
MrsTari
12. Oct 2019 · 17:55 UTC
really amazing :slight_smile:
🎤 Shess
12. Oct 2019 · 17:58 UTC
@ciaranw @flying-dog-fish @netmute
Thank you for the feedback and bug reports, we'll do our best to fix these issues as soon as possible!

Sadly, the Mac version often gets left out because we're all Windows gang here. We'll try to look into it in the future!
TinySalad
12. Oct 2019 · 21:14 UTC
The game looks great, although I didn't much like the shaking effect. The game felt a bit lacking in goals, and there seemed little to no incentive to pick up additional party members. If it were to be fleshed out I still think it could be a fun experience.
nsadie
15. Oct 2019 · 18:22 UTC
Nice art style, but the UI is way too small, I could not read the tooltips on my screen so struggled to understand what to do!
asfdfdfd
15. Oct 2019 · 18:45 UTC
Cool art but i could not live longer than couple of tiles.
lilkrit
26. Oct 2019 · 22:38 UTC
Very cool game. As someone mentioned, the font is a bit small - it would work for a TV or big monitor, but for a web game it was hard to read.
Great graphics, music was simple but fitting. The map unraveling in front of your eyes is a very nice effect.

Is the map randomly generated?
Cedric Matheus
27. Oct 2019 · 00:12 UTC
Nice artwork.
FireSlash
27. Oct 2019 · 00:25 UTC
I have the same UI issue as netmute; 4k monitor at 1.5x UI scaling. The character is also massive in relation to the tile sizes, this could probably be toned down a lot.

Graphics are nice and cohesive overall. The tile appear is a nice touch and serves as a fantastic "fog of war". I do wish there was a better way to visually determine which tiles were passable; often I'd get trapped without realizing it.

Gameplay wise it works as expected. I do wish there was a bit more variety in both events and mechanics, but this is already pushing the limits of what one can expect to reasonably polish in a Jam.

Overall solid entry. Nice work!
Finlal
27. Oct 2019 · 01:40 UTC
Great 3d art, nice OST, awesome overall.
Idea of game pretty original and well made.

Best entry I've seen so far о/
godsboss
27. Oct 2019 · 06:02 UTC
Similar bug as @flying-dog-fish here: After a single step, screen begins to shake and never ends. And by shake I mean between 1/4 and 1/2 of the in-game screen size. In one frame the character is at the left of the screen, in the next frame on the right.
Roka Josh
27. Oct 2019 · 11:56 UTC
Really nice game, I would love to see this be worked on further adding more to it, kind of got tired of bartering with gremlins so more events would really freshen up the game and increase the replayability. If you do make a post-jam version I would love to see more tiles and perhaps multi-tile structures, and to also have more decisions in the game which lead to different routes. I really hope you decide to continue working on this as you have something great, amazing job!
zirconcode
28. Oct 2019 · 01:34 UTC
The first play in browser link gives a 404 error. Great atmosphere! Actually relaxing.
tinykidtoo
28. Oct 2019 · 02:06 UTC
Really nice music and art. It creates a nice relaxing atmosphere. I feel if you expanded it would be nice to see some combat added into the journey. Maybe you have to go from town to town, risking it every time on your journey.