Hello Community

For the Steam Autumn Sale Event, I'm offering my extensive RPG Farm game with a whopping 50% discount for a short time!

100+ hours of story, numerous side quest series, crafting, magic, romance and lots of exciting battles in a 100% handcrafted and varied huge living world. And all that without grinding and without constantly repeating quests.

So if you loved StardewValley but wished for more story and depth, Behind the Horizon is absolutely right for you!

Jadawin

PS: By the way, the AddOn is also available with a small discount!

Steamshoppage: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1453430?beta=0

Homepage: https://www.jadawinindiegames.de

Hello Community,

time flies and not only when you play Behind the Horizon ;-) !

At the moment I am preparing the second AddOn, as the story will find its ending there.

In the first AddOn - The Desert, a new climate zone was introduced and overall the part of the AddOn that played in the desert was more difficult and towards survival.

In the next AddOn, the main world, as well as your own farm that you have built up, will again play a more central role, although there will of course also be new unknown areas. The story, of course, revolves around the "Master" and two people stranded in the world. More will not be revealed here ;-) !

Besides the development of the AddOn, I am continuing to expand my community, which is still difficult. Maybe one or the other has a tip for me?

Unfortunately, I have so far been denied access to the testers of the big games magazines, which may be due to the fact that my game is almost unknown. So the snake bites its own tail ;-) !

Many small Youtubers who love indie games, especially farm games, and take a closer look at my game are completely surprised that they haven't heard of Behind the Horizon before. In the meantime, there are also some Let's plays on Youtube that are already further advanced in the game.

However, when I see how much attention 7 year old titles like Stardew still get, I wonder what these developers are doing differently. I would even go so far as to say that at least a third of all Stardew players would love Behind the Horizon -- if they knew that it exists ;-) !

On that note, I'm grateful for any help :-)

Jadawin

I guess it just isn't cute enough. It's all about the graphics, they should be bigger, more colorful and more consistent. The current look is as if you pulled your assets from openart or something. The palette is drab, some stuff is hires (trees, houses, etc), other stuff is almost pixel-art.

However good your game is, people are going on looks first…

I was just watching your trailer on Steam, and you obviously put a lot of love into the game. Unfortunately, and just like m_waddams points out, most people are going to be turned away by the impression given off by the graphics, and it's such a shame since there seems to be a lot of good gameplay there.

Right now the graphics are all over the place, instead of a coherent design. That's what's holding you back, and you will not get anywhere until you handle it. You need polish, badly. There are many ways you could go; classic pixel art, or maybe those near-realistic trees could be the start of a unique look with large blocks of photorealistic assets - or maybe something else. You could consider recruiting a dedicated graphics artist.

On the plus side, since the game itself seems good, you should get a large return on time spent improving the graphics, when suddenly people are able to look past the graphics and see the whole game. Best of luck!

Another thing is the name. It is strange, and not catchy enough.
If anything, it should be ‘BEYOND the horizon’. Unless it's some sort of event horizon from where nothing can escape, like a black hole. Since that is sort of a wall, you could say ‘behind'…

My advice would be to use what you've got, and create a new game, and make sure to get some help, maybe try revshare. And since ‘Horizon’ seems to be taken (by Zero Dawn/Forbidden West), make sure to get a cuter, catchier name.

Thanks for all the tips. Yes, I admit I underestimated the importance of graphics. But I'm also a beginner in the field and of course, like other indie game developers, I've used openart.
I think there are two different graphic styles in my game: the world of nature and the world of people, which I actually quite liked given the story in the game. Apparently, however, many people find it annoying.
Probably another problem is that the graphics are always measured against other games and the bar is always higher. When I look at Riftworlds, for example, I think "ouch, it takes a lot of getting used to" and yet it's an incredibly innovative and successful game. I also don't find Stardew Valley very pretty, even though it uses the same style throughout.

Because of the name, "Behind" actually fits quite well, as you explained the difference to me :-) !

“even though it uses the same style throughout.”

That's the most important thing, especially the palette.

Saw this on my indie feed, it immediately wowed everyone, just 1 picture sells it:
Dark Tree

Ok I think I know what you are getting at. The colour palette really harmonises throughout, but I have to be honest and say that the game doesn't appeal to me. It seems very gloomy and cold. Apparently I really do place a lot more importance on completely different aspects than many others do.

We've talked a lot about graphic style here now and I'm grateful to learn more about it.

However, I think my main problem is that no one finds my game! Isn't it amazing that as soon as I find a Youtuber (even with only 100 subscribers) who makes a video for the game, I immediately sell some games.

I would love to see what would happen if, for example, my game appeared in the similar titles at Stardew or Harvest! Unfortunately, Steam's algorithm doesn't allow that.

If you're serious about this game, then the worst thing that could happen to you would be to prematurely be highlighted in front of your whole target audience on Steam or Youtube. You'd probably sell a few random copies, but most people would get a bad first impression and be unlikely to look at it again even if you improve it in the future. Those promotions are opportunities you need to be ready for in order to make the most of. The Steam algorithm isn't wrong in this case.

It's not about gloomy or cold or warm or vibrant. Either can work. It's about consistency. If graphics is consistent in some style and level of quality, some people will enjoy it and some will say “meh that's not my taste”. If it's inconsistent, most people will immediately disregard it as low quality and not be able to look past that to see your features. I apologize for being so direct about it, but I really want to get the point across. You don't want to be losing 90% or 99% of your audience after 10 seconds of trailer.

Have a look at this video for inspiration. It's a bunch of games that all vary wildly in artstyle and visual complexity, but what they have in common is that they have a consistent look. Many of them probably have less depth than your game, but people are excited about them because the graphics is appealing. Some of them I might like to play, some of them make me think “meh not my taste”, but all of them give a good impression.

I think I understand what you mean. All elements of the graphic should fit together!
Unfortunately, I have a huge problem here, because I want the representation of nature to be largely as it is, with a few improvements here and there.
This comic style (often with rpgmaker or openart elements), which can be admired in many 2D games in the video, is not my thing and doesn't fit my game.
So I would have to redesign all the objects from the "human world" and all the sprites including animations, which is definitely impossible for me. Since I don't have a budget for a graphic designer either, it looks bad from your point of view, doesn't it?

But I'm not that pessimistic and I don't believe that everyone only sees the outer packaging. I don't have to sell millions of games either. I'm satisfied with a small community that loves the game because it's just so much fun, because it's deep, complex and funny and has many new mechanics ans an interesting story. Everyone who has actually played it has given me rights so far.

It speaks for itself that as soon as the game is presented by someone (e.g. a Youtuber), it is enthusiastically received and bought!