As a little girl growing up in the 2000s, the gaming industry still felt a bit inaccessible, and games were often uncharted and uncharted territory. All guns, sleuthing and – gasping for breath! – curse words were a bit too much for my single digit brain to handle. I still thought they were cool though, because, duh, games to be cool. And when I saw my siblings go to town in a video game, I longed for gaming experiences that appealed to me.
Luckily (or unluckily) for me, I had a real interest in pop culture’s most maligned animal: the horse. Yes, I was a ‘horse girl’. I loved those things more than life itself, and since horses were often too expensive to even daydream about, I would have drifted into the Wasteland of No-Horses-Having if the horse market hadn’t been designed to thrive. to play. exactly that fact.
Yes, there used to be a whole market of horse games, often with a champion rider’s name attached. Petz Horsez. Championship rider. Let’s drive. Secrets of the Barn. These were the most common titles, often re-used depending on who bought the game license, as they were passed around as cheap money grabs by studios like THQ and EA. In the eyes of a “hardcore” gamer, they would probably be considered shovelware by modern standards.
But for me? They were home – the ultimate wish fulfillment. In these games, you could own a ton of horses in your own barn, on your own property, and all you had to do was brush them, ride them, and live your damn life. The heaven. What world can you do that in unless you’re a nepotism baby or something?
Unfortunately, virtual pet care doesn’t get everyone’s wishes fulfilled, and I totally get it: a lot of these games were janky and poorly made, with no staying power beyond their core mechanics. Compared to other games back then, like Forgetfulness or Mass effectthere was no way this niche genre could survive.
Thus ended the era of the horse game.
… Until shortly.
A class of its own
A few years ago I discovered a blog called The Mane Quest, which is dedicated to the representation and survival of not just the horse game genre, but horses in games in general. Alice, the person who runs the blog, is a game developer herself, so her commentary is well informed and enlightening, especially for people like me who have noticed the same sort of thing in horse games and are happy to have a community to talk about them in.
The impetus for writing this article was when a representative from the studio Microids contacted me about their upcoming game, Horse Stories: Emerald Valley Ranch. I had already read about this game on TMQ, as Alice is the creative producer of the game, and the fact that I was hearing more and more about it made it clear to me that this wasn’t just a lukewarm move to shake off – it is a move in earnest, to bring back this genre not only for the cheap kids games market, but for everyone to enjoy with authenticity and quality.
Doesn’t this look absolutely delicious? To be Stardew Valley but with a heavier emphasis on horses. It just seems so relaxing and sweet, the kind of thing that, in my opinion, should have been taken seriously already while past.
Alice had this to say about the project in her blog post about it:
I’m incredibly excited for all of you to see what we’ve made, and to try it for yourself. I’m biased here of course – I’m directly involved and I definitely want this project to succeed so I can make more good horse games at Aesir in the future – but I really believe that Horse Stories – Emerald Valley Ranch has the chance to catapult the often neglected genre of equestrian games to a whole new level and show the market just how much untapped potential there is for peaceful open world games with prominent equestrian components.
TMQ
And for those who still doubt the ability of horse games to relax and engage the player, I must emphasize that a really good horse game is not that much different from a really good farming simulator. They both involve a level of relaxation and dedication that stimulates the human brain in a very peaceful, yet productive way. For the sloth, these are the game’s featured features:
Stable Expansion and Collection of Resources: Your dilapidated family estate is a blank canvas: as you progress through missions and explore the world, you’ll find blueprints for buildings that unlock horse care and customization features. To build the buildings on suitable building spaces, you need resources, such as different types of wood and stone, which you can discover in the open world.
Horse characteristics: Horses have personality traits that influence how they behave in the world: some horses prefer forests to fields or vice versa, others are afraid of heights. Some of these traits can be trained for improvement, others are immutable personality traits.
Horse breeding: Our horses have a genetic pattern that is very closely based on real horse genetics. Although it is not a 100% accurate simulation, Horse Stories – Emerald Valley Ranch will certainly satisfy players interested in strategic breeding for color, stats and traits. To breed horses (or tame wild horses!), you need adequate resources on your estate – that means building buildings for food, shelter and activity to care for your animals.
Make a name for yourself: By helping people, entering races and exploring new areas of the world, you gain Fame, which gives you access to more building space at your home base and farms in Cape Emerald. You can optimize this in a few ways: Gaining fame through horse racing, for example, is directly affected by your horse’s Charisma value and current fitness.
Customization: You can play as a male or female character. The dialogues have been kept as gender neutral as possible and all clothing and hairstyle options are available regardless of the character model you choose at the start, giving you plenty of room to role-play as the lead character of any gender and expression you like .
A lush and large open world: This part is perhaps the most obvious from the announcement teaser, but it still deserves to be said: our team at Aesir have created an absolutely beautiful, colorful open world with dozens of beautiful places and little secrets to discover.
TMQ
For those unfamiliar with horse games, these are pretty advanced qualities that we’ve wanted for a long time! Often horses in games are quite blank and uninteresting, the only real qualities of which are their speed and coat color. Games like Breath of the Wild and Red Dead Redemption 2 upped their game, to be sure, but they’re still not total “horse games”. Sometimes a bitch just wants to ride her dang horse without worrying about O’Driscolls or Guardians, yanno?
Little champions, new and old
Of course, this isn’t the only horse game coming out to get your head around. Many teams and/or individuals have worked hard on their own projects; Whether these projects bear fruit remains to be seen, but they are certainly indicative of the current wishes of the market.
Unbridled: that horse game has gotten a lot of fanfare and if you join their Patreon you can see how the game is developing in real time. For a project that has really been under the purview of one person, it looks very good.
Then there is The Ranch of Rivershinewhich I’m particularly excited about because it’s made by Cozy Bee Games – the makers of cozy games like Lemon Cake and Alchemy Story. The horses look a little stiff, sure, but the aesthetic is on point, and at the end of the day, isn’t that all we want, guys?
Of course, I couldn’t possibly finish this article without paying tribute to my personal favorite series of horse games. Star Stable is a Swedish horse game series that I first discovered as a young girl, and I was entranced by the funky graphics and weird sci-fi storylines. The original games, the Starshine Legacy series, are all configured to be browser-friendly (click this link to open them). They’re incredibly fun and silly, taking only a few hours each, so I highly recommend you at least try them.
But since then they have grown into a bigger franchise, Star Stable, which started as CD-ROM titles where you could buy horses and participate in the fictional world of Jorvik, and have now evolved into an MMORPG. I had no idea this MMO even existed until quarantine started, and, like many beleaguered college students who suddenly had no parties or offices to go to, I went looking for memories of my childhood. Full disclosure, I’ve been playing the shit out of this MMO which, by all means, is for kids. It’s the closest thing to fulfilling my desire to own multiple horses without paying rent or even having to care for them.
However, to close this article I would like to pay my respects to Horse Island, an old-time flash game that tried to teach kids about economics while doing very little to prevent chat crime. It was my first experience of being ignored by strangers, and I miss it so much. There were all sorts of funky quests to complete, and the wild horse mechanic – where you just have to have the chance to stand on a tile with a wild horse on it – sometimes still pops up in my dreams.
I mean it’s not gone forever but I refuse to download shady flash plugins so in my heart it’s gone. Rest in Palomino, Horse Island. Thank you for giving me my first lesson in the horrors of virtual capitalism. Cremello Server 4 Life.
In any case, I’m pretty excited about this turn in the market and I’m looking forward to seeing and supporting all the great new projects that come out. Horse Stories: Emerald Valley Ranch will be released in North America on November 15, for PC, Switch, PS4 and PS5. I hope to see all your beautiful virtual horses, in addition to mine!
(featured image: Microids/Aesir)
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