I didn’t know what to make of Horace initially, a platformer with a 16 bit aesthetic and a very posh looking Robot. I was prepared for a super tough platformer in the style of Super Meat Boy, instead I found a narrative-driven super tough platformer filled with gaming and pop culture references. I also discovered it isn’t just a platformer either, Horace delves into all kinds of other genres paying homage to video game history.  

Horace is a tale about a robot, called Horace if you can believe it. From mysterious origins, Horace comes into the possession of an old man who happens to be a programmer of sorts. He not only teaches Horace how to do more than his programming, but embraces him as part of his sizeable family/estate. After a tragic event, Horace becomes inactive for a lengthy period of time. In that time the world has changed, war has befallen the country and the family Horace once knew is spread across the land. Horace will risk near constant death to bring his family together, and if possible save the world. 

The story is told through Horace, who is naive and kind to a fault. When scenes play out it is all narrated through Horace’s robotic voice, including when other characters talk. It is jarring at first, it takes some getting used when everyone talks in the same robot tone. I can see why they chose to tell the story this way, but it feels awkward whenever a scene is meant to matter and everything is just Horace’s voice. 

The story really goes places and is surprisingly impactful when you least expect it. There’s one incident in particular that continues to linger hours after, and it leaves an underlying tension throughout the story to see how it resolves. I honestly did not expect the story for a platformer to be as effective as it was, from the swift shifts from light hearted comedy to references of sudden acts of violence and horrible actions. It manages them well and had me looking forward to seeing the story through.

Horace is initially presented as a platformer, a tough as nails platformer at that. The entire game is in the 16 bit pixel visual style. For a game with such a narrative focus, the pixel art manages to do plenty with this more limited art style. Early on you’ll discover there is so much more to the game, with many different game styles woven in through the 12-15 hours narrative adventure. Horace wears its influences on its sleeve, whether it’s minigames inspired by Outrun, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Pilotwings and a variety of rhythm games. Over the course of the story I continued to be surprised at what genres/game style Horace would delve into next. The first big addition to the traditional platforming formula was the ability to walk on walls and ceilings with the help of some anti-grav boots. When the obstacles look insurmountable, sometimes all it takes is to pay a little more attention to your surroundings to find a nearby surface. It worked quite well too, jumping close enough to a viable surface would let you walk on it.  

If you go in wanting just a platformer you might wind up disappointed, but if you approach the game with an open mind it is much more fun. I did have an issue with one change in style in the last half of the game, navigating all these tough rooms filled with death traps gets that little bit more frustrating each time you have to backtrack through them. While it might be a reference to a Metroid game style, backtracking in Metroid never felt as rough! The homage minigames become mandatory to complete to progress. If you spend some time in the arcades, when you come across them in-game you'll have some familiarity with them. While they play fine, these moments dotted throughout the game do frustrate a little

Overall, with the blending of genres combined with a rapid fire of gaming and pop culture references there is lots to take in over the course of the game. Some references can be eye rolling, like a daggy dad joke, but it's hard not to smile. I was surprised how far the developers went to set up references later in the game. 

I did have a small handful of occasions where the game got stuck, but never enough that I couldn’t back out to the main titles. The controls on the dishwashing mini game are so unintuitive and fiddly that I had to check I hadn’t gotten a case of the dreaded Joy Con drift. Fortunately returning to the main titles and reloading the game takes little time to do, and I never lost any progress. Outside of these minor issues the game ran smoothly, except for me dying a lot, but I can’t really blame the game for that.

Horace is an indie game that might not stand out as much as some of the more distinct games out in 2020, but it would be a shame to overlook it. Horace is a challenging platformer and so much more. Developer Paul Helman and Programmer Sean Scaplehorn have managed to put a lot of heart into this story told through a naive kind Robot in a bowler hat. I didn’t expect to enjoy playing Horace as much as I did, let alone stay invested for the whole 12 hours. I recommend anyone looking for a game that messes with your expectations and the occasional pulling of the heart strings should check out Horace.