Grow Your Horizon Pet [GROWS OFFLINE]

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Inspiration

The main inspiration behind Grow A Pet was to expand my existing game Grow Your Horizon Garden beyond planting seeds, growing plants, and harvesting fruits. I had always wanted to introduce pets, but due to limited world capacity, I feared large performance issues from adding too much content.

Then it dawned on me, since persistent variables are shared, I could create a brand-new world in the same theme and style, but with completely different mechanics and functionality. Thus, Grow Your Horizon Pet was born, a completely pet-centric world focused on buying eggs, hatching pets, and leveling them up!

What it does

Grow Your Horizon Pet allows players to purchase pet eggs, hatch them, care for them, and level them over time. The world uses the same data and inventory system as Grow Your Horizon Garden, encouraging players to grow fruits in the garden world and feed them to their pets in the pet world.

Players can raise multiple pets in the new pet world and also transfer one pet to their original garden world, giving that pet unique abilities and benefits that enhance their garden experience.

How we built it

The game was built using Meta Horizon Worlds’ shared persistent variable system to sync inventory and pet data between worlds. By creating a dedicated pet world rather than merging everything into one, the project maintains performance while offering expanded gameplay possibilities.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenges were editor-related. Some recent bugs in the Horizon Worlds editor made development more difficult, and I often found myself fighting the editor more than the game logic. Despite these hurdles, I pushed through and completed the world in a relatively short time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Creating a seamless multi-world system that feels cohesive and expands the universe of Grow Your Horizon Garden was a major win. Players can now enjoy the best of both worlds — raising pets in one world and bringing them into the garden world to unlock perks and abilities.

What we learned

This project showed that shared persistent data can be incredibly powerful for world-to-world experiences. It also reinforced the value of modular system design, performance awareness, and creative problem-solving when faced with editor limitations.

What's next for Grow Your Horizon Pet [GROWS OFFLINE]

Expansion! More pets, more abilities, more customization options, gear items, and monthly dynamic events, similar to what currently exists in Grow Your Horizon Garden. The goal is to make transferring pets between worlds seamless and rewarding, giving players tons of depth and long-term progression.

Built With

• horizon
• typescript