Backyard Birding

Inspiration

Backyard Birding is a cozy game about attracting and caring for birds in your own backyard. We wanted to capture the calm satisfaction of watching life unfold in your outdoor space. Inspired by cozy favorites like Cast & Chill and Stardew Valley, the goal was to create a relaxing incremental experience in Horizon Worlds where players can unwind and nurture something beautiful over time. The game began as a simple idea — "What if attracting and collecting birds could feel as rewarding as an idle clicker game?" Rather than farming crops, players grow their collection of feathered visitors, one feeder upgrade at a time.

What it does

Backyard Birding is a relaxing, incremental management game. Players collect and place bird feed around the yard, attracting colorful visitors. As birds arrive, they earn “Bird Points,” which can be used to build new feeders, upgrade existing ones, and unlock rarer species. Each upgrade makes the yard livelier, turning small actions into a satisfying loop of growth and discovery.

How we built it

The world was built inside Horizon Worlds, focusing on smooth interactions, clean visuals, and a responsive gameplay loop. We developed the underlying system so each feeder could function independently and be upgraded dynamically — letting the world scale naturally without breaking existing logic.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was adapting to a fully networked engine when building a single-player experience. This required careful consideration of whether data should be local, static, or networked, and rethinking our architecture to ensure consistent performance. Additionally, the lack of shadow casting and material authoring in the Horizon editor meant significant upfront work in external 3D software.

Accomplishments that we’re proud of

We’re proud of how cohesive everything feels — the environmental design, the progression, rarity, and UI systems all blend seamlessly. We are very happy to have completed a game in a new game engine, one which we had no idea how to use until just a few weeks ago.

What we learned

Working as a 3D artist and developer duo, we streamlined the integration of art and systems design into a cohesive experience. We used the official scripting API to learn how to build systems in Horizon Worlds, prototyped sound effects using Horizon’s GenAI tools, and refined them in Cubase using our own sampled and manipulated audio. This process deepened our understanding of Horizon’s ecosystem — from sound and UI to architecture and multiplayer data flow.

What’s next for Backyard Birding

Next up: a bird collection system, refill station upgrades and new species — turning every player’s backyard into a living, evolving ecosystem.

Built With

• cinema4d
• cubase
• horizonworld
• typescript
• vscode