Echoes of the Novanthe

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Nyra

Inspiration

I was mainly inspired by the competition to make an incremental game over a tycoon, as I already had a tycoon game in Horizon Worlds. I wanted to make something that would be somewhat different than a standard simulation game.

What It Does

Echoes of the Novanthe is a narrative-driven sci-fi experience aboard the deep-space vessel "The Novanthe."

Players explore the ship’s internal social feed, scrolling through posts and reflections from the crew. Every scroll adds to a global total shared by all players, advancing the story together. When the world’s cumulative scrolls reach new thresholds, missions unlock for everyone, revealing the next phase of the voyage.

Players can also speak with Nyra, the ship’s adaptive AI—an integral part of the Novanthe, insightful and knowledgeable about the stars. She responds dynamically through Meta’s AI system, creating a conversational link between the player and the ship.

How I Built It

I built the world in the Horizon Worlds desktop editor and scripted it with Visual Studio Code using TypeScript. Most audio SFX were generated with Meta's in-editor generation tool. I also used GIMP for quick image work and some other AI tools during development.

Challenges I Ran Into

In the beginning, I had a bit of trouble coming up with an idea that wouldn't be the standard tycoon or incremental game. I also ran into an interesting problem as I was preparing the game where some of the textures on the feed posts were turning black and could not be changed to any color after that happened. After a lot of trial and error, I was able to solve the problem by adding a point light into the scene.