Dead Horizon
IMPORTANT NOTE: The browser version of the demo is ONLY the final encounter. If you want to play the FULL demo you need to download the game (it's free) so you can actually play more than just the ending!
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-DEAD HORIZON-
A six shooter is all you have in a world of sand, dust, and blood...
On a barren desert world, Bonnie Star ekes out a living as a carnival sideshow act. She spends most of her days staring at the bottom of a bottle of booze as though it might have something to say. That is, until a man dies in her arms. A man from whom she hears a story about a way to bring free water to a desperate land.
An adventure game for the modern era...
With adventure gameplay focused more on choices than pixel hunting or moon logic puzzles. Enjoy talking with characters, figuring out what you want to do next, and dealing with problems without ever needing to be afraid of 'screwing up' your progress. Not that your choices don't have consequences...
Heartbeats count when lead starts to fly...
Dead Horizon is a story focused adventure game with rail shooter action elements. We have dubbed it a 'puzzle shooter' because we think we're clever. It combines classic point and click gameplay with rail shooter elements, strong characters, and a deep well thought out setting in which water is more valuable than blood.
A vibrant yet dying world for you to explore...
The world of Dead Horizon is not one of infinite frontiers. It is a setting of pain and bones bleached white by a world that wants nothing more than to consume what few people are left on its surface. Yet, those people still live their lives, have their own stories, dreams, and aspirations. A dying world doesn't mean that people don't live.
The Hard Sell...
Dead Horizon is a game with one foot firmly in the past: adventure games, the 90s, pixel art and some older design philosophies. However, it is also a game with one foot firmly in the future: interaction, immersion, cinematic storytelling, and reactive dialogues. By taking the style and lessons of the past and combining them with both modern game design elements and a love of storytelling, we've tried to create something beautiful.
Dead Horizon is a labor of love. A love of storytelling, of pixel art, of westerns, of so many things. A love of gamers and games. Of the people who have come before and everyone that will come after.
We hope you are willing to celebrate this love with us. Even when all we see around us are Dead Horizons, those barren sands are full of beauty.
Download
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Development log
- Dead Horizon Demo out and playable!Feb 12, 2023
Comments
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best game ever
Awesome game! I found myself completely immersed and had completely forgot that I had a review to write afterwards! Great story, lovely pixel art, and some intriguing characters. The only thing I could think of to critique was the lack of settings (like for SFX, a font for people who have trouble reading 8-bit fonts, windowed, etc.). But this game is definitely a 5/5 for me, I will await for the full release!
hi, i truly enjoyed playing through the demo of your game! am a slow learner coming to the mechanics, but it was truly fun! looking forward to the full release!!!
This game's so cool but I softlocked myself so many times by buying ammo from the general store and had to watch a Let's Play youtuber playthrough to find out that I wasn't supposed to do that. A save feature would be appreciated... The pixel art is nice though, looking forward to the full game!
Ahahaha, it's possible to beat the game even then! but there are some... odd ways of doing it. And it's probalby not perfect, and yeah, a more robust save system is needed.
hi! i absolutely loved this demo, and am excited to see whatever comes of it. despite it being rather short (because it's a demo, duh), i've found a lot of enjoyment playing through it and believe fully that in the short time spent, bonnie starr shows a lot of character through the lines you can choose to say, or the dialogue when you look at something.
im truly excited for what happens with this, bonnie starr absolutely rules as a name. ^-^
Hi, made simple cover for steam game (spent 5 minutes ngl) because original one isn't of proper size.
Awww, that's so sweet of you.
hi i like Dead Horizon Origin!
i'm trying to play Dead Horizon Demo, but i can't access the inventory. i'm playing on a 16:10 screen, and the game is forced fullscreen, and the inventory trigger seems to be to the left of my physical screen.
(i'm playing the Steam version of the demo.)
have a lovely day!
Hrm, let me ask my dev, I think there might be a way to force it to run windowed?
i drew fanart <3
This is the greatest thing i've ever seen. I'm going to post it in the discord!
what discord --
give now >:3
de los mejores indie que probé
Thank you so much!
it is a so nice game should play
im so sad T-T
this game is so good and i played through it all already i need more >~<
Thank you. Sadly trying to find another job, so dev has stalled for the moment while I try and not end up homeless. Sorry about that! I'll get back to it as soon as i can.
Hello , I downloaded your video game on steam , I love the scenario , the pixel art .
Just a question, what video game engine do you use and do you have any advice as I would like to start programming video gams ?
Thank you in advance for your reply.
Sorry for the spelling mistakes, I use google translation.
It's made in Unity.
I'd say to try and find some online courses on programming. There's a lot of good ones. Though I don't know how the Japanese resources are.
Whatever you choose as your first project make it SMALL. SIMPLE. Don't over extend.
Good luck!
Thanks you !
Incredible demo, looking forward to what is nex
Me too!
First of, Absolutely loved the demo and am looking forward to the full game.
Below are some bugs/issues I ran into, wasn't sure were else to report it as I couldn't find a bug report, and just some personal thoughts.
Also, note that I have the Steam demo installed, not the one from Itch, don't know if they are different.
Bugs/issues:
1. The guy who is shot by the train who tells you about the bible and the map tells you to go to room 201 to find the bible. However the ladder in the alleyway supposedly leads to room 203 according to the text, and you can find the bible right after taking the ladder. Seems to me the ladder should lead to room 201, not 203
2. I ran into an issue where restarting a scene multiple times sometimes lead to just a black screen, which forced me to start over from the beginning. because even when relaunching the game and selecting continue it would still just show the same black screen.
(I haven't been able to find a reliable way to reproduce this, but I recall it happening in the scene where you talk to the wanted guy who got shot. I know it happened somewhere else as well but don't recall the scene)
3. If you go to the final fight without enough bullets, e.g. only with the bullets from the shop, then you soft-lock the game and have to start over as there is no way to get out of the fight (at least that I could find) and even if you die, then continuing just puts you right back in the fight with the same number of bullets.
Feedback:
1. This might be slightly more personal preference, but having the entire bottom of the screen pull out your gun is a bit annoying and I have already triggered the lady in the shop multiple times because I on instinct click the text box at the bottom to skip to the full text, and then I accidentally pull out the gun. Also in the "tutorial" with Winston he does tell you that you have to click on the gun specifically. So would be nice if the area to pull out the gun is only to the left where the gun is.
2. In relation to the above, having the skip function also work when examining stuff would be nice, so you don't have to wait for the text to appear, but can just make it appear at once
3. I'm assuming this is gonna be a final feature, but a save system would be great, both to prevent soft-locks, but also just to mess around with different scenarios. I beat the game by going up the fire escape, but I also wanted to see what happened if I entered the saloon, a save would have been nice for that so I didn't have to repeat all the same choices again.
There isn't a super easy bug report place, so here is GREAT, and thank you so much.
3. Annoying, you're supposed to get more after you die. BAH!
Great feedback, you're amazing, thank you. Trying to get some serious bug fixing done to improve the demo while dev continues..... slowly.
I found this a random student group project on making a pencil holder from scrap plastic using the Dead Horizon trailer song.
You are correct and I will.
incredible game... <3
Art can only be experienced. It doesn't exist in many ways outside the person who enjoys it and uses it. The art is created inside your mind.
THEREFOR YOU ARE INCREDIBLE!
Great! Loved the original Dead Horizon and this even more so! It was the first game I played on itch actually, I remember spending more time than I was supposed to playing it during DAT class in high school lol.
Haha. Really? Wild! Thanks for having a good time with this one.
오오오오
I don't know what that means but I do appreciate it.
It said "Ohhhh" in Korea
not sure what that means too.
Hopefully a statement of like 'wow!' However, I know very little about Korean.
I loved everything about this game,its was really fun! Also the pixel art! İts was so great and lovely. 10/10.
You're a 10/10!
Played the html version. Love the graphics. Smooth gameplay. Good game in general. Check. This. Out. (You won’t regret it)
[Also quick tip:Play on computer(Doesn’t work very well on mobile(Well at least on phones, with tablets you probably will just need a keyboard))]
I didn't know it worked on phones AT ALL. So that's actually pretty cool it works period.
Only the HTML version works on mobile
The windows version does not because it is a Windows executable
That makes sense. XD
I did an oopsie and accidentally deleted my post instead of editing Xd.
but anyways... it's me again discovering new things in your game and still obsessing over this demo.
I felt something... I remember The Wanted man said everyone from Prospect died and proclaims himself as "We"
the death screen on the roguelike Dead Horizon is "No one will ever know what happened to the Town of Prospect" and we play as the only survivor, and the dying man Bonnie talks to tell us about Everyone on Prospect and them finding the source of "The Winding Way"
Was the wanted man the protagonist from the Roguelike Dead Horizon? if I was right then that's really cool to know!
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Yes. Yes he was.
XD What a weird thing for you to notice? Thank you for taking the time to look way too hard into all this.
No problem! It's been more than 3 months since I played this demo.
Playing it all makes me appreciate Dead Horizon story even more, both previous prequel was indeed a game to a much larger game (Origin and 7DRL) and how it builts up to current Dead Horizon was fascinating.
Thank you for creating Dead Horizon! and I assume this is your dream passion project with how you revisits Dead Horizon
I don't know how to make things that aren't passion projects, so yes? But it isn't like Dead Horizon is some grand vision. I just like making things and I like the things I make to be good. I try to say things, and that's kind of pretentious of me, but I like things that try to say things. I try to say those things the best way I can and when making a game that means the language of the game. So, I try and make the game as best I can. However, sometimes that doesn't work out and I've made a lot of things I don't think are very good. I keep making things. I try to make the things I make better. But i don't even always know what better is. So, I just keep making stuff.
I lost my job two weeks ago. So, sorry for the small rant. Having a bit of a moment. You are very sweet, by the way. Thank you for taking the time to play all that stuff.
I don't think the rogue like came out all that well. The man who developed it, is amazing. I think if we revisited it and spent some time and effort on it we could make something really good. However he's mostly focused on his own thing. One of the most amazing games ever. So, if you have any love for that rogue like? Please, you should try: https://store.steampowered.com/app/551620/Approaching_Infinity/
It's really very good but for some reason it managed to survive the great rouge like boom with almost no attention. He just keeps making it better and better every few months as well. It's really amazing.
I also want to apologize the demo isn't a lot better since you last played it. My current contract ending and trying to find more work hasn't left me with a ton of time to address the stuff. I have a bunch of bug issues all lined up and things I need to do to make sure the project keeps moving forward. It's just been hard.
Anyone that actually reads this far into this, thank you. A lot of people have played and loved this thing I made and have given it a lot of attention even though I haven't really done the best job trying to sell it.
I think it's pretty cool, though. Rad even. Neato. I am glad I made it and I don't think I'd regret the time I spent on it. I don't regret the time I spend on anything. Really.
It's nice that you think it's good. Thank you again.
I'm going to stop writing now. Enjoy the rest of your life.
We all get into messy situations at some point, and I'm sorry if my words accidentally make you feel uncomfortable.
I'm sorry to hear that you lose your job, and I wish you the best and will find a new better job.
Honestly, I found the demo to be great. It leaves players enough room to try how the game could be while also enough to intrigue us to seek more and till the end
Also yeah! I've seen Approaching Infinity, and I would love to play it after I'm done with some time-consuming college stuff, thank you for recommending it!
I know I'm just some random stranger, but I do hope your best at getting through hard times in life.
The opposite! Your words are awesome. Thank you.
so supposedly pressing "Ctrl" would revert the time right?
I used it during the cutscene of Bonnie running for the train to return to talking with the redstar guy and now my mouse icon is gone.
Ahahaha, wait really? Woops! That's a dev tool. It's a bit buggy. ^^;;
thoroughly enjoy it, gonna play the full version soon. trying to see the fastest time i can get for completing the demo.
oh, and the sound design/music is amazing :)
Haha, I'm curious what the fastest time would be!
just got a record of 59s for it, starting of the final fight to ending cutscene
Nice!
this game is so underrated. you need to put this game at steam not itch.io
Thanks for the people who made this game
It is on steam! You can go over on steam and play it and show it off over there if you want.
THANKS SO MUCH
this is really fun to play with a controller and mouse at the same time
Oh? Explain how you play it that way. Sounds cool.
I put the controller around my hips pull the gun and reload, and aim and shoot with the mouse
I've always wanted to do something like that. I pitched stuff like that around when the wii was new. The idea of a one player game that used two controllers. Everyone turned me down claiming it was too annoying. ^^;;
Thank you for making it a reality XD!
A well developed demo. Lovely to look at and lovely to play. However, it needs one important change that is fairly critical to a game of this genre: it should adjust the mouse sensitivity based on the display resolution, or mouse movement becomes very sluggish at 4K. (sure, it's a pixel game, I know, but I shouldn't have to dive into my system display settings just to play it, right?)
Oh! I didn't even know. Thank you. I don't know if this has been mentioned. XD I don't think we realized.
Any other issues that you ran into?
I played all the previous Dead Horizon games, and all of them are interesting in their own way.
I also just finished watching the first episode of Trigun 90's anime, and I see that Redstar has a similar design to Vash as well Trigun's influence just from the Revolver Bonnie and he used
Dead Horizon
I think it's your first Dead Horizon game? but anyway, it was very far from the current Dead Horizon and Origin in terms of aesthetics, the OST and complaints from the guy give me the vibe I'm playing a horror game and a sense of hopelessness. unfortunately, I didn't reach the end due to me being not good at roguelike (and not that big of a fan of it) but it does serve much ground for future Dead Horizon.
Dead Horizon: Origin
This is when we play as our beloved gunslinger Bonnie Star! we see her humble beginning shooting cans as she is being taught by the old man and how she started to become a wreck in the next installment, the ost is amazing, and for a short game free game, it was an amazing experience to play, and I remember a bit struggling when dealing with Fred but it's not an issue, and it's nice to see some OST from this game get into newer Dead Horizon.
also, is it just me that Bonnie looks chubbier in Origin compared to her current look?
My conclusion.
Looking at those two games, I felt like this game will get darker as the story progress, everything that looks colorful and cheerful at the start will in the future become darker and tragic as Bonnie goes on her journey in the dying world as an outlaw carrying the bible. and well the Sci-fi aspect of the game that I can't wait to see as this game got finished!
on an unrelated question, I saw a trailer for Yolk Hero on your YT channel, and I'm curious about the game as the premise itself looked interesting, I cannot say much about it, but I would love to play and pay for it when it fully comes out!
Aww thank you! That's a small game i'm trying to release this year while the Dead Horizon team takes a small break after breaking their backs getting this demo done.
You have dead horizon as a roguelike game too? Please tell me where I can find it. I find the origin one in steam but I can't find any other than that?
It was a small game jam game. It's cute but not much of a full game. I'd love to expand it some day but the dev is busy doing his own awesome thing. Check out Approaching Infinity if you haven't for one of the best Rougelikes there is.
Hey, I've played through the demo quite a few times and I loved everything about it. I made a google doc with some bugs that I found and things that I'd like to see added, I'll probably add more to it later.
You are pretty amazing. Thank you for putting this together. I'm adding this to our own bugs document. Thaaaaankyoooou.
I haven't even gotten to the part where I tell Winston about Sundown (if that dialogue exists at all yet), and I haven't managed to win the Saloon shootout with the bullets Winston gives you. Haven't even figured out where Ronald and Carl are mentioned as mentioned by another commenter here.So I still. Haven't found all the options yet, and remain in awe of the game's complexity.
Have you considered making a discord? It would help you grow your fandom, and you have something genuinely inspiring.
Side note there has to be a reward for stocking up bottles of booze at some point in the late game like a collectible
Haha, maybe. Currently it's just a way to get a bit of extra cash. The general store will buy them off you.
ha. But seriously consider making a discord. You're starting to attract people to your work, and collecting them into a personal space is very critical at this stage. I come from the ashes of an old fandom ready to seed a new one, and I know an inspired work when I see it.
Awww thank you... I don't know if I have the energy/time to properly organize and keep a discord going and set up a real fandom community, but I'll try and take this to heart. Sadly, I work multiple full time jobs to pay for my indie game habit. ^^;;
that's alright I can volunteer my services as a mod and I've been scouring the wastes of itch and steam looking for a game exactly in this state to do exactly this for for a very long time.
That's amazing...I wish you all the best, my friend. Hope to support you whenever the game is released, or if you make a Patreon or other monthly service!
Idk if you have founded it now, but you can click on a small blue tent near Tumbleweed sign where you first meet with The Redstar and get a line from Bonnie they're probably busy doing authographs.
Haha... you're cool.
I shot them all.
It's very weird cause I like that I can shot everyone.
Being the villain sometimes allows for great immersion like me.
also I like art, animation, and story...
yeah I love all of the game.
I'm glad you enjoyed it so much!
just a dumb question will there be drawing tablet support?
I love that, I don't know If i have the resources to do it, but I'll try. Can't promise anything.
cannot wait for full adventure!. the story of this game is very exiciting! i hope the full version take a very long time to complete
...thank you. You are very sweet.
Really fun game! If you don't mind me askin', when do you think you will be coming out with the full version?
Probably a few years, sadly. It's slow going! My desire for quality is too high.
Maybe you could try releasing in chapters? Just a thought :).
I think about it.
I love this game, i played it like 8 times, it's amazing!
You're amazing! Thank you for playing it so much.
Can't wait to have that drink with the bounty hunter - if he survived getting shot in the heart that is...
Few people do.
i love that i let him get through all his dialougue, then fought him, then went through all that heartwarming stuff, and right as he said goodbye. i shot him in the head. best. game. ever.
Play the way you want to play!
I was thoroughly impressed. I've finished two playthroughs and still haven't found all the routes yet.
I absolutely love how all the sprites are animated to be both interactable and blend fluidly into the scene.
So. I am a scouter for a publisher called Pineapple Works who specializes in crowdfunding, marketing, and console porting. If these are things you would like I can put you in touch.
Haha. Thanks! Yeah, I've actually talked with you guys before. Waaay back. Yeaaaars. We'll talk, no worries if there's nothing that comes from it, but thank you for the interest.
I've been playing the demo for many times now. and I'm even more surprised with how much depth and things that could be easily missed from first playthrough.
Things like some dialogue option that reveal character depth only from certain action (The girl dialogue if we immediately decide to shoot Winston from start) and some hidden things like the superstitious house near the saloon when talking to "Sundown" for alcoholic drink.
I can see a lot of potential and replayability with many story possibilities with Bonnie's fate depending on our choice and action.
Also, will we get to see Ronald and Carl? they're probably still with Winston, and with how important he is for Bonnie, I think Bonnie might meet him again at some point. Perhaps even the late post guy too since he's a fan of Winston troupe.
You... are amazing. You even know who Ronald and Carl are. I...
I love you.
No, really. Thank you for engaging with the game so completely.
Who da hell is Carlos and Ronaldo ?
You would have to be obsessive to know. They're characters that are mentioned but never seen, mostly in passing.
It is fun and I really like the art style of the game. I'm interested in the story too. I like how a character can talk and interact with what I'm doing(like when I put the gun up and down repeatedly and he commented on it).
So I'm hooked on the game and will definitely buy it when it comes out.
Thank you so much!