Black Feather (A Side-Scroller Template)

Inspiration

Every morning, we wake up to the sound of an adorable family of crows cawing in our backyard—basically yelling for breakfast. Somehow, we’ve made friends with a bunch of crows and ravens, and honestly, they’re the best. We love them so much that we started wondering: what if you could actually talk to a crow and go on a wild adventure together? Black Feather is a cozy little adventure game where you do just that—befriend a crow and see where the journey takes you. We’ve published over 50 games in Horizon Worlds since joining the platform nearly four years ago. It’s been a wonderful (though sometimes challenging) journey. When designing this template, we thought about what we would have loved to use when we first started building. We’re thrilled to share this contribution with the Horizon creator community.

What it does

When we first built this game, we spent a lot of time figuring out how to make an effective side-scroller in Horizon Worlds. That experience inspired us to create something we wish we’d had when starting out—a simple, beginner-friendly template that anyone can use right away.

This free template isn’t just a copy of our game—it’s a carefully designed starting point built to make your first side-scroller easy, fun, and customizable. • No scripting required. Want to add more stone monsters? Just duplicate and drop them in. Want a ladder? It’s drag-and-drop. Even the bird that swoops in to carry you over obstacles works right out of the box. • Easy customization. Swap backdrops, change design elements, and style it however you like. • Beginner-friendly settings. Choose your camera style, adjust the distance, enable a mobile HUD, or add a health bar—all with simple toggles. • Simple progression tools. Define XP, levels, and rank names. Control upgrades like speed, armor, or power. • Retention features made simple. Reward players for playtime, daily streaks, or session milestones—with step-by-step JSON variable setup.

Every feature has been designed so that even if you’ve never written a line of TypeScript, you can still build a fully playable, customized game.

And if you do know TypeScript? The template comes with a “mysterious box” full of advanced systems—like player management, session tracking, and date/time logic—cleanly organized and ready to expand however you like. Whether you’re brand new to Horizon Worlds or looking to level up your skills, this template is designed to help you create faster, easier, and with way less frustration. We hope it inspires you to start—or continue—your journey as a Horizon Creator.

How we built it

The game was built using Blender, Adobe Substance Painter, Procreate, the Meta Horizon Desktop Editor, and 100% TypeScript code. Using TypeScript with the Camera API was a game-changer (pun intended). We were especially excited to use the Camera API to give the game a storybook vibe—the kind where each stage feels like flipping a page to reveal the next chapter of the adventure.  Our team consists of:  Metacrafters (art, 3d modeling, texturing, game concept, concept for level design) voytek.lorenc (Typescript, sound design, character rigging and animation, game concept, concept for level design) RandomGamesUniverse (game concept, concept for level design, testing)

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was crafting a 2D aesthetic using Horizon’s tools, which aren’t traditionally geared for that style. We also really wanted the game to have a cozy storybook feel—like flipping through the pages of a magical adventure—and figuring out how to pull that off was a creative puzzle.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re super proud of creating a 2D game with a genuine storybook vibe using the Camera API! After making 50+ VR games in Horizon, we never thought we’d be using the same tools to build a mobile-first experience where every level feels like a new page in a book. But here we are—and we love how it turned out.

What we learned

Diving into the TypeScript Camera API paid off big time. It was absolutely essential for bringing that 2D, story-driven look to life. We’re now even more excited to explore new ways to blend Mobile and VR gameplay in Horizon Worlds.

What's next for Black Feather (A Side-Scroller Template)

Now that the game is live, we’ll be actively watching how players interact with it and making tweaks to the difficulty to keep things balanced and fun. We’re also planning to expand the story to boost time spent and player retention. And since this game is subtitled Curse of The Undead, we’re already dreaming up future chapters where you’ll join Black Feather on new adventures in different environments. Friendly crow + epic missions = yes, please.