{"id":122739,"date":"2021-01-02T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-02T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2021\/01\/best_of_2020_horace_developers_on_die_hard_britishness_and_finding_the_right_genre_label"},"modified":"2021-01-02T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T16:00:00","slug":"best-of-2020-horace-developers-on-die-hard-britishness-and-finding-the-right-genre-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2021\/01\/02\/best-of-2020-horace-developers-on-die-hard-britishness-and-finding-the-right-genre-label\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Of 2020: Horace Developers On Die Hard, Britishness, And Finding The Right Genre Label"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Horace<\/a><\/figure>\n

Over the holiday season we’ll be republishing a series of Nintendo Life articles, interviews and other features from the previous twelve months that we consider to be our Best of 2020<\/a>. Hopefully, this will give you a chance to catch up on pieces you missed, or simply enjoy looking back on a year which did have some highlights \u2014 honest!<\/em><\/p>\n

This interview was originally published in October 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The term ‘hidden gem’ is one that, unfortunately, crops up all too frequently these days. With wave upon wave of quality titles hitting digital storefronts every week, more games than ever risk getting carried away by the tide before you’ve had the chance to pick them up. Horace<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 ostensibly a 16-bit-inspired platformer, although one that really goes places \u2014 launched on PC last year to acclaim, but arguably failed to make the splash it deserved.<\/p>\n

With so many elements and eccentricities, Horace is an exceptionally tough video game to pin down with a neat genre tag. It’s warm-hearted and accessible, yet also a real gamer’s<\/em> game filled with humour and challenges that feel laser-focused on anyone who played 8 and 16-bit consoles as a kid.<\/p>\n

Labels aside, those who’ve played it know it’s something a bit special. With the Switch version coming on 21st October, we recently spoke with developers Paul Helman and Sean Scaplehorn to find out some more about the inspirations, themes and ambitious ideas that went into Horace, as well as how the creators themselves describe it…<\/p>\n

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Nintendo Life: First up, can you tell us a little about your background and how you came to work together on Horace?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul Helman:<\/strong> I started in the video games industry at the ripe old age of 17 at the very end of 1994. Probe Entertainment took me on to create textures and various other art assets for Die Hard Trilogy<\/strong> on the PS1. This mainly involved me watching and recreating various scenes from the \u201cDie Hard\u201d films, which ironically meant breaking the law as the films were all rated 18+.<\/p>\n

I then stayed at Probe until 1998 when Simon Pick, the lead coder from Die Hard Trilogy, set up small development company called Picturehouse which is where I met Sean.<\/p>\n

Sean Scaplehorn:<\/strong> Paul sent me the demo he had been working on and I really enjoyed playing it. I don\u2019t think I had laughed so much playing a game since Monkey Island<\/strong> on the Amiga, so I immediately knew that I wanted to get involved and looked forward to working with an old mate again.<\/p>\n