Horace (video game)

Lore & Background

Horace was primarily developed by Paul Helman across seven years, with Helman handling art, design, music, gameplay, writing, and promotion. Three years into development, Sean Scaplehorn assisted in creating a game demo for a London conference, which attracted publisher representatives. 505 Games later offered a publishing deal, assigning Helman a producer while granting him creative freedom for four years. Major influences included Helman's past work on Die Hard Trilogy at Probe Entertainment, a canceled game called Boom TV due to the September 11 attacks, and the industrial town of Sittingbourne. The scope of Final Fantasy inspired Helman to create an 'arty platformer' that expands into a sprawling world. The plot, a satirical story about a robot elevated into a public figure seeking family, was inspired by the 1979 film Being There. Helman seeded numerous cultural references to classical music, cinema, and video games throughout the game.

Reader's Guide

Horace is a story-driven side-scrolling platformer with 2D pixel art, featuring guided non-linearity and utility-gated exploration typical of the Metroidvania subgenre. Its platform gameplay emphasizes fine control and careful timing, with hazards like trap-lined ceilings and spike-filled ravines. The game avoids a traditional game-over scenario, instead respawning the player at the last checkpoint upon death. Collectible orb-like shields allow survival of lethal hits, and the game dynamically adjusts difficulty by offering additional shields after repeated failures. Players encounter mini-games resembling arcade cabinets, with genres including fighting, shooting, racing, flying, and rhythm action; some are required for story progression. An optional objective involves collecting at least 1 million units of rubbish, serving as the game's collectible system. The Windows version launched on July 19, 2019, followed by a Nintendo Switch port on October 21, 2020, and PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions on February 28, 2023. A limited physical release of 4,000 copies was available through Super Rare's website, bundled with artwork, a sticker, trading cards, and a manual. According to Metacritic, both PC and Switch versions received generally favorable reviews. On November 28, 2022, Paul Helman received the Love Story Gaming Award for Excellence in Storytelling for his work on Horace.

Did You Know?

• Horace was primarily developed by Paul Helman over seven years, with Sean Scaplehorn assisting three years in.
• The game's plot was inspired by the 1979 film Being There.