The Game Icon
The Beginning Screen
NPCs
Fun Side story
Center of Town
Town Entrance
Skeleton Army
Graveyard

Ashridge: The Plague of Bone

Inspiration

The idea for Ashridge: The Plague of Bone was born from a fascination with dark medieval legends and the emotional weight of solitude in impossible circumstances. We wanted to capture the raw tension of standing alone against overwhelming odds, the kind of story where courage becomes both a weapon and a curse.

What it does

A single-player action-survival game where the player takes on the role of the last defender of a cursed medieval town. The gameplay focuses on intense melee combat, environmental storytelling, and psychological endurance.

How we built it

We developed Ashridge using Worlds Horizon Desktop Editor to achieve cinematic lighting, fluid combat, and richly detailed environments. Combat systems were designed with a physics-based approach to make every swing and block feel weighty and desperate. We used the GenerativeAI features to create most of our environments and NPCs. We also used blender to customize the town model. We used the inbuilt GenAI Beta version for model generation, the NPC for Enemies, Navmesh for ai pathfinding, combat system using triggers and the shop system for commerce in game. We utilized almost all exisiting features in the world desktop editor

Challenges we ran into

Balancing visual quality and performance proved to be a major hurdle. The game's particle effects demanded optimization to maintain frame rates. Another challenge was tuning combat mechanics to feel both brutal and fair—giving the player a sense of empowerment without losing the constant tension of survival. Finally, designing AI behavior for the skeletal enemies required fine-tuning; we wanted them to feel relentless yet beatable.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of creating an experience that feels emotionally grounded despite its supernatural premise. The atmospheric design successfully evokes dread, determination, and melancholy in equal measure.

We're also proud of the storytelling approach: subtle environmental cues, tragic remnants of townsfolk, and shifting weather patterns all help tell the story without words.

What we learned

Through development, we learned how crucial atmosphere is to emotional engagement. Every visual and auditory detail contributes to the player's state of mind. On the technical side, we deepened our understanding of the Horizon Worlds Desktop Editor and refined our approach to performance optimization in immersive environments.

What's next for Ashridge: The Plague of Bone

Next, we plan to expand the world of Ashridge beyond the town's borders, introducing new environments and evolving the narrative to explore the origins and consequences of the plague. We aim to release a playable demo that highlights the core combat and atmosphere, then iterate based on player feedback.