Magic Workshop: Halloween Battle

Logo
Paint them all
Wardrobe
Shooting Ghosts
Shooting Zombies
At the Top of the world
World repainted
World repainted

Inspiration

We are big fans of miniature painting and snow globes, and we believe that kids should have more creative options in Horizon Worlds. Since it’s Halloween season, everything around us whispered to make it our main theme. We also tried to understand what makes worlds like Action Lands – Farm so fun to play. We continue to expand our Magic Workshop series — this time we wanted to add more action to the world.

What it does

Player gets scores for anything painted: Houses, Pumpkins, Fences, Zombies, Ghosts, ...Friends.

There are three main modes for players: Creative Mode: Paint houses, roads, and fences any color you like. You earn score for every paint shot. Work together with your friends to color the entire world — including the hard-to-reach pumpkin at the top — and watch it flourish! Find all the objects to paint, and change the spooky dark world to the rainbow one. PvE (Trick or Treat): Ring the bell next to a house door and see what happens — you might get a healing candy, or you might disturb an aggressive zombie! Shoot it with paint before it gets you. PvP: Paint your friends and enjoy some pure, colorful chaos.

We’ve also prepared special clothing sets to match the world’s spooky vibe.

How we built it

We reused our base brush behavior from previous worlds (also published as an open asset), and spiced it up with the Zombies, Ghosts and PVP. We wanted first to split two worlds - when the player is outside of the globe, the world is a bit more "friendly". When inside the globe, the world is replaced with the more glommy version. The ambient music also is different for the both worlds. We used GenAI for the sky maps to swap, environment generation.

Challenges we ran into

We couldn’t animate the NPC boy and the girl. Proper using of spawning assets and sublevels is something we still need to master as well. Finally we've understood the Events system, and were using it to the maximum.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We wanted to paint everything, following the brush paint colour. We've managed to paint the projectiles, particle systems, vfx on impact. Cannot wait when the trail color will be available to control. We are proud that we use single HUD with the proper Custom UI binding per player. Also the visibility control helped us to implement the main feature of two worlds inside and outside of the Globe. We've generated the Skybox using the GenAI, downloaded it and after some tweaks we've managed to map it on a spherical object.

What we learned

We explored NavMesh and advanced gameplay scripting for this project. Since the last hackathon, we’ve improved our TypeScript skills to the level where we’re confident using Network Events, managing per-player visibility, creating quests, NPC logic, leaderboards, and especially Custom UI with player-specific bindings. We also deepened our knowledge of clothing customization and Blender workflows.

What's next for Magic Workshop: Halloween Battle

Next, we plan to expand the playable area with more surprises, polish the visual style, and add brush upgrades. We want players to be able to paint more worlds and even save their own. Expect new magic paint effects — freeze, shrink, explode, stink — and even more chaos! We’ll definitely continue the Magic Workshop series. With Christmas coming soon, the next chapter will probably be pure chill and paint.