Horizon Worlds Spotlight: Habitor

Welcome back to our weekly spotlight on the people building for Horizon Worlds and their amazing creations.

Last week, we packed our law books in our briefcase and spent some time in META COURT, where anyone can run a full-fledged trial, complete with a judge, lawyers, defendants, and plaintiffs. All for fun, of course, and not for actually resolving legal matters.

This week, we checked in with Habitor, the co-creator of the fun and lighthearted game, BeelinedSided, in which you (and, ideally, some friends) play the role of bees trying to pollinate as many flowers as possible while avoiding meddlesome birds.

What’s your background, and what got you interested in VR?

I work in the technology industry, but that’s a very recent career development. A lot of what I do is explaining technology and how to use it. My father was a programmer and loved gadgets, so I’ve always been interested in the latest tech.

To me, VR is a lot like science fiction turned reality. I was an early adopter, and had both an Oculus Rift DK1 and DK2.

What do you draw upon for inspiration when building in Horizon Worlds?

I try to build worlds that I’d want to spend time in. I love puzzles, so my first worlds were escape rooms. Most recently, I took my favorite puzzle from an escape room world and expanded it into a standalone minigame.

What do you want people to take away from their experience with your worlds?

I really try to keep my audience in mind when I’m building a world. And I hope that when people visit my worlds, they see features I’ve added that might inspire them to add more to the user experience in their own worlds.

I really struggled with doing more than the minimum amount of scripting in my first two or three worlds, so I wouldn’t describe them as “good.” Still, I leave them up so that others can see how I progressed in improving the user experience.

Are you a programmer/creator as your day job, or do you see this as a hobby?

I learned how to script in Horizon Worlds before I ever had to do any programming at work. Since then, I’ve done some report writing and taught myself a bit of Python. But I never would have been able to achieve that without first learning scripting in Horizon Worlds. There’s something about how everything is visualized that really made programming logic click for me.

But now, I’m leaving my tech industry job behind and will soon be working full time building for Horizon Worlds.

Do you collaborate with others, and if so, what’s that experience like for you?

Collaboration is something that initially scared me. Until I worked on BeelinedSided, I had never worked with another creator. But it went well enough that I’ve really warmed up to the idea, and I’m currently collaborating on projects with several creators. That’s exciting because I can accomplish far more with others than I’m capable of alone.

What’s your best advice for getting started on building worlds for Horizon Worlds?

Start building! There’s a ton of beginner resources out there that you can find with a Google search, but you can’t know what you don’t know until you hit a roadblock while building.

Also, get into your creative space and build to learn before you build to publish. As with anything, you have to practice to get good at building in Horizon Worlds.

What do you think the ultimate potential is for Horizon Worlds?

VR is the best medium for connecting with others and sharing learnings. There’s a weekly math class I love attending in Horizon Worlds, and I would never have had access to something like that outside of VR. It offers so much potential for people to access an amazing variety of resources.

How do you think VR fits into the future vision of the metaverse?

VR is one piece of the puzzle. It provides an environment that’s not limited by the physical world in the way that AR is. VR is an outlet for expressing our truest selves and to immerse ourselves in abstracted ideas and environments in an accessible and approachable way.

There’s plenty of room for all kinds of XR media in the future, and I can’t wait to see the impact it has on our society as an easily accessible and digestible tool for education and training.

What’s your favorite VR experience?

One of my earliest favorites was Windlands. I love anything that lets me swing around an environment like Spiderman.

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