Hello, community,

Today I would like to tell you something about the graphic in Behind the Horizon. Since I am mainly a game designer and programmer I had to start from scratch in the graphical area and often had to rely on other generous artists who provide their textures and sprites as OpenArt. Therefore there are inevitably different graphic styles in my game, which is perceived as disturbing by some. But I have found that after a short time it doesn't matter anymore and in some "magical" way ;-) everything fits together again. It's the athmosphere that carries the game and the many possibilities and stories that Behind the Horizon is focused on.

It was especially difficult to find animated sprites, which had to be available in many ariations (NPCs) for my game. The NPCs should be easily distinguishable and in the end I decided to use an OpenArt Online Sprite Generator and then manually enhance them and add animations if needed. This serves its purpose well. I would have liked to add more animals of the wilderness, like squirrels, foxes, wild cats etc... but unfortunately there was little choice and creating my own

animations proved to be so time-consuming that it would have doubled the already giganitic time needed for the game. In the caves I decided to use the technique of ambient occlusion, because it's simply more exciting if you don't see everything immediately and turn around a corner and discover a surprise (good or bad) there. The corresponding part of the program was quite complicated, because it should be fast enough to handle many light sources and it is calculated on the CPU. With the third attempt it worked and I think it does its purpose and contributed a lot to the atmosphere in the dark caves.

The graphical interface is almost completely designed by myself and it is colored in earth tones matching the theme of the game. I tried to make it clear and not overload it with too much information. It was also important to me that the handling is fluent and comfortable and one does not spend too much time in the inventory or other elements of the interface.

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Here you can find all links to my RPG, Farming and Nature Simulation Game:

The old trailer of the game can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2plFjXjQKU

Because a lot has changed already (the trailer is about 1 year old) I have recorded some more gameplay videos:

Fighting in the Caves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hheDmkw0i4

Take a walk in the wilderness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1UqIAkAIlQ

Visiting Woodhome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9C1hD0wEac

The Farm: https://youtu.be/pJ9xXtgniO4

..and here the most actual Gameplay Video: A new day: https://youtu.be/bipJLAzlw7I


My link to my page on itch.io with all articles, sceenshots and devlogs and currently the only place to test and buy the game:

https://jadawin1.itch.io/behind-the-horizon


Link to the Wishlist:

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/behind_the_horizon

Cool game. I have the same problem. I would like to publish my game here too. Unfortunately GOG rejects many games :(

Thanks :-) ! Ja es ist anscheinend ziemlich schwierig hier auf GOG etwas zu veröffentlichen. Da ist der Weg über Steam auch wenn es etwas kostet eventuell leichter!? Hast Du Erfahrungen damit? Was für Spiele hast Du geschrieben?

Concept of the game looks quite interesting. GOG definitely needs more survival games (I still can't understand how they could reject Unreal World).
I'd love to buy it on GOG

Ja, schon. Mein Spiel ist schon seit einem Jahr auf Steam und itch.io (The Secrets of Jesus) Bei Steam kostet es 100 Dollar, also, ca 80 Euro aber wenn deine Einnahmen 1000 Dollar erreichen, bekommst du die Gebühren, die 100 Dollar zurück. Bei Steam lohnt es sich immer ein Spiel zu veröffentlichen. Fast alle Menschen auf der Welt sind bei Steam, es sind über 1 Milliarde Konten da.

I watched your game on Steam. Looks like an interesting story :-) ! Was it profitable for you to publish on Steam? Do you do extra advertising? Is it also possible to publish a game there as a private person without a registered company? I have not yet given up hope that they will publish my game here on GOG. Maybe they're just waiting to see how many entries my wishlist will get little by little. The only other thing I have left is to invest in Steam, because itch.io is more for minigames which are for free.

German or English? :D

Thank you. Yes of course. It was much more profitable than itchio. My earnings are 10% from itchio and 90% from Steam.

Yes, you always have to do extra advertising. This is the hardest part for us indie developers.

No, you dont have to be a company. Like me, I published as a private person (Amir Matouk)

Here u can find everything and all answers.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted

So far I´ve posted in serveral german and english indie forums for serveral month now and published articles, screenshots,videos and changelogs there, but I found out it´s hard work to build up a community. Perhaps you have some more tips what I can do?

Thanks for the link :-) !

Yes, very hard work without a publisher. Exactly, in all forums and especially in social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, make pages for ur game and let your friends and relatives share them. You can also send ther gaming websites and Youtubers an itchio-code so that the websites report on it and the Youtubers play it if they are interested. You should usually send Steam keys, but you have no choice but to use itchio code. Most importantly, the RPG gaming websites and Youtubers who are playing RPG games.

I have found 10 different forums so far, where I post frequently. With Facebook and Co I have little to do so far and therefore also few possibilities. Of course I could create a page, but it won't spread by itself ;-) !
Which gaming websites are you talking about exactly and where can I find the Youtubers that focus on RPGs?