Dead Horizon

[JamesDominion]

[Demo Release – Feedback Needed] Dead Horizon (Chapter 1 – 8,000 Words)

Hey everyone!

I’ve just released the first chapter of my interactive fiction game, Dead Horizon, and I’m looking for feedback and beta testers.

About the Game:

Dead Horizon is a post-apocalyptic survival thriller set in a silent, broken United States. You wake up alone in an abandoned world, no people, no answers, and no clear memory of how everything fell apart. As you explore ruined cities, empty roads, and forgotten places, you begin to piece together what happened… and who you were before it all began.

Somewhere along the way, fragments of your past start to surface, memories of a family you may have lost. Finding them, and uncovering the truth behind the catastrophe, becomes your driving goal.

Chapter 1 Length: ~8,000 words

Planned Chapters: 10

Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Survival / Investigation Thriller

Setting: United States (fully explorable over time)

Features:

Survival systems (food, water, health, morale, time management)

Inventory & weight system

Looting and exploration across multiple locations

Turn-based combat (melee and firearms)

High-risk choices (wrong decisions can lead to death)

A mystery-driven narrative with gradual world-building

Notes:

Character customization (gender, etc.) will be added in later chapters

No companions or romance in Chapter 1 (planned for future chapters)

Choices are more about survival and moment-to-moment decisions than branching endings (currently one main ending planned)

Play the demo here:

https://cogdemos.ink/play/james-dominion/dead-horizon/mygame

I’d really appreciate feedback on:

Story pacing

Writing and grammar

Bugs or technical issues

Balance (combat, survival systems, inventory, etc.)

Thanks for taking the time to check it out. Any feedback be it big or small actually helps improve the game.

Welcome to Dead Horizon.

[heartbeet]

I gave your game a quick playthrough. As of right now it is very short, but I really liked the way you described the environment and world around me. The way we searched rooms and found items reminded me of Zombie Exodus too. Besides the Stat Screen being a little messy/buggy, I am curious if the rest of the game will be hardcoded search scenes? I felt like every couple of pages was just me searching a building, then a couple pages later, searching another building, and so on. The story seems interesting and I look forward to more updates!

[will]

Ran pretty quickly into an error quicktest should have picked up. You should do quicktest and randomtest (500 instead of 10000) before you post to catch these errors!

[JamesDominion]

Thanks for the feedback, I Just fixed it. Your feedback is appreciated.

I use mobile to code so I don’t really have access to quick and random test so I just manually test and fix problems.

[JamesDominion]

Thanks for the feedback, it’s really encouraging! The game is heavily inspired by Zombie Exodus in terms of style and depth. A lot of things are still being polished — the stat screen in particular will get a full redesign, I just wanted to see how Chapter 1 felt first.

Chapter 2 will have a lot more world building and detail. And to answer your question — no, the game isn’t just search-based throughout. Story-wise, we’ve barely scratched the surface. There’s a lot more ahead: caring for a pet, searching for your family, helping survivors, exploringromantic interests and just trying to stay alive. The searching in Chapter 1 is mainly to give you the basic gear you’ll need for the journey ahead.

[aethernano]

Please excuse me if my feedback is super critical. I just written some notes during the playthrough and wrote anything that came to mind.

You could put an introduction as the first page, like the synopsis.Content warnings if needed (like violence, abusive behavior etc.), maybe put a link to your socials (patreon, itch etc.) in the first page as well.

When the mc searches the canteen and clinic, he finds some stuff but the layout of the text is like a grocery list. In my opinion kinda breaks immersion. Why not specify where he finds what? For example where did he find the dried bread? or the water? Did he need to put effort into it because of his height? If for example mc is average height then he has difficulty reaching the top shelves etc.

Phrasing also feels rushed, curt and it’s not narrative at all, which breaks immersion for me and it also doesn’t feel like i’m reading a story but a status report;
(example)
“Your stomach growls.
You search carefully.
You find: so and so
someone tried hiding…
you gather…
you glance…”

Why not describe the rooms, mc comes in; what is the atmosphere of the room? does it have windows? if so, how much light is going through etc. Does it have furniture? in what state is the furniture? Is there anything in the room that attracts the attention of the mc? What does the mc hear? What does it smell like?

When you finish, mc is going to stash his loot in his backpack? When you click on take food or take water, every click is one item. Why not make a box where you can input the amount you want to take? I mean I found 7 food 6 water 4 medicine and 5 bandages, if I have to click for every little thing, that’s going to be very tedious especially if there are more loot events.

Also if you put everything of one item in the backpack, the option doesn’t go away. In most IF’s that I’ve read, the dev would grey out those options which makes it easier to see what’s left.

After putting everything in the inventory;

“You glance at your watch. It’s around 19:00, Day 1.”

I would phrase it like this:

“You glance at your watch. It’s around 19:00, the first day.”

Sounds less status report-ish. I would only use numbers after the third day, since then it will really become a list of days.

Then when I could choose between:

“keep the torch lit”

or

“extinquish and save for later” ← I chose this and then the IF crashed. I don’t know what happened though…

[Romaan]

The story felt absolutely awesome! I will keep an eye on this one. The survival mechanics were interesting. Especially the weights but all I hope for is an engaging story. Will there be any survivors? ROs?

[myeraland]

I love the imagery! My only concern is: it’s nice to have some options grey out because I forget if I’ve searched a location already.