Time Climb

It's a long road up from the bottom...
The best days start with a balanced breakfast
Another day at the office :)
Night coming in...
A break on the way.
The view from the top -- the final goal to turn out the light!

The game symbolizes overcoming adversity and personal growth. Our aim is to uplift and motivate players by visually and thematically rewarding their ascent, providing a metaphor for overcoming life's challenges through persistence and upward progress.

The player climbs through an "average workday" by dreaming, waking up, making food, commuting, and surviving the office. Of course, if there are other players in the map, there's a lot of room for healthy competition as to who will reach the top and turn the light out at the end!

Inspiration: We were inspired by the “frustration climber” genre—games like Only Up! and Getting Over It—but wanted to reimagine it through a whimsical, oversized world that feels surreal, playful, and challenging in VR and mobile. Everyday objects like mugs, spoons, lamps, and cookies become absurd, towering landmarks. Visually, we took cues from dreamlike platformers and animated films where scale distortion adds charm and mystery. Our goal was to make a climb that’s as emotionally charged as it is fun, where every fall stings just enough to keep you coming back.

How We Built It: We built "Time Climb" entirely in Horizon Worlds using its native building and scripting tools. We leaned heavily on creative object scaling, careful collision tuning, and lighting design to get the feel right. The timing and competitive elements used custom Typescript scripts to ensure the clock seemed fair for players. Long term we want to add more PvP mechanics like push-bats and power-ups that give extra time or jump power.

Challenges: Honestly the biggest issue we had was the inability to blend tri-mesh and SubD (primative) objects in the world. This ended up making us have to redo a good amount of work to get the project to successfully build, and limited what we could do with tri-mesh assets. We also playtested constantly, tweaking jump distances, adjusting slopes and platforms, and optimizing performance as the vertical space expanded to ensure the platforming is achievable and fun.

Accomplishments: We’re most proud of how cohesive and atmospheric the climb feels. The environmental storytelling, object placement, and lighting come together to create a weirdly beautiful space. Players constantly discover new perspectives—like seeing the moon framed by a coffee mug or standing atop a spoon, aiming for a narrow table ledge. Seeing people react emotionally (myself among them) as they ascend has been incredibly rewarding.

Next Steps: We plan add more PvP elements like bats that players can use to knock other climbers down a few levels. Likewise, I want to extend and vary the world, so that if a player enters on another day, they might get a different platforming puzzle. Lastly, we'd love to put in power-ups that let players save time, super jump, "blue-shell" the fastest players, and more. Also as I writer, I'd love to add more narrative fragments—like collectible voice lines or visual memories that hint at the passage of time and the meaning behind the climb. Eventually, we want to host speedrun events or multiplayer ghost races to build community around the world.