“This is only the beginning” – Equestrian The Game: Global Release Announcement and Developer Interview

It has been almost three years since I interviewed Molly Ericson, Co-Founder of Kavalri Games and visionary behind Equestrian The Game – a mobile horse game aimed at adults, made by horse lovers. Three years ago, work on ETG had only just fully begun with a full time team, and it’s been one of the most anticipated game projects in our niche ever since. In late March 2022, the game was released in Europe, after being previously available only in select countries. By May this year, the game will be out worldwide. 

I thought this was a fantastic opportunity to catch up with Molly and share some insights with you all about what the work on ETG has been like and what is next in store for the team at Kavalri Games. 

Team Spirits

Kavalri Games Team photo from the studio’s website.

Equestrian the Game has been in development for quite a while: While many games go for public announcements further along their dev cycle, ETG has had a lot of eyes and high expectations attached from almost the very start. Between the project’s origin as a hobby project in late 2017 and its first regional release in July 2021, I’ve seen and heard just about every opinion on ETG from “this is going to be the horse game ever” to “it’s actually completely overhyped” to “they’ve been talking about it for so long, it’ll never come out.”

I asked Molly what the past few years have been like for her and the team, especially with the Covid-19 situation turning workmodes upside down. 

“When the pandemic started, we had just signed the lease for our new offices,” says Molly. Up until then, the team had been part of a co-working space provided by their incubator. “We were so excited to finally have our own space!”

“But then covid hit, we sent everyone to work from home and our new offices were basically left untouched for two years. We were close to terminating the lease several times during the pandemic, but we never did. It was a beacon of hope that one day, everything would return to normal.” 

The struggle to stay motivated and engaged through physical isolation will sound familiar to most people by now. In a project as obviously fueled by passion as ETG, the need to keep that passion going is perhaps even more apparent.  

“The team has been struggling for various reasons during the pandemic,” Molly adds, citing isolation and trouble concentrating. Even milestone achievements hit a bit differently when you’re not sharing them in person: “I was really sad that we weren’t together as a team when we did our New Zealand soft launch back in July. We’d been working so hard for several years, and when the launch time came, it was just me all alone, pressing a button in my living room. That was quite anticlimactic!”

Despite these difficulties, Molly is confident about the present and future. “We’ve just started to move into a new office after outgrowing the other one,” she explains. “It feels surreal to finally meet people and work together again, after two years! Spring’s coming, ETG is launching and our morale has definitely improved!”

The home stable overview in the game.

Blessedly, ETG comes with a photo mode that lets you snap pics of your horses. This is my starter horse, a Welsh cob named Tiru.

Community Insights

Instagram remains ETG’s strongest platform, although with TikTok swiftly catching up.

With that first release in New Zealand came a bit of confusion from parts of Kavalri’s significant follower base. A soft launch is when a product is made available in only a specific region or to a specific subset of the intended audience, in order to gather feedback and make improvements before exposing it to the wider public. For ETG, the practice has proven invaluable. 

“Soft launching by region is the new standard for mobile games,” Molly explains. “It really wasn’t an option to do it any other way. Trying out the game on a smaller market of real players has been very important for us: we’ve been able to analyze player data and make informed changes before launching it world wide.”

I’ll admit that I’m personally still struggling with the controls, but I haven’t played enough yet to judge it properly.

The Kavalri team was in the fairly unusual position of launching a mobile game with an existing fan base however. “It has resulted in some sense of injustice from the players who couldn’t play yet,” Molly admits. “But our community has been fantastic: fans helped spread the information and explain the concept of the soft launch to the rest of the community. People have been immensely understanding and patient, that has been very uplifting to see.”

The sizeable community following has played a significant role in the development of ETG in other ways too, Molly tells me. “We’ve learned so much from the community!” she says. “They’re very vocal about their likes and dislikes, which helps us improve the UX of the game.”

One aspect that Kavarli is particularly proud of is that they get praise for the authenticity and complexity of the riding controls. “To me, that proves that mobile games don’t have to be simple,” Molly says. “There is an interest for a more complex riding simulation type of game.”

Passion Project Learnings

Not everything has been smooth sailing for game’s development. Since I always find it interesting to share mistakes and learnings, I explicitly asked Molly what has gone wrong along the way. 

“We’ve had our fair share of blowbacks,” she says. “The biggest struggle has been growing the company and finding the right team members while developing the game. In a startup with no revenue yet, you’re always stressed about running out of funds.”

Molly adds that development always takes longer than anticipated: “If I had to start over, I’d add four years or so to our original production plan,” she laughs. 

They’ve also had bugs, some backlash over increasing the price of cosmetic items after the game was already live, and even an incident where Molly accidentally changed the price of a Season Pass from 100 E-Coins to 1. “It was just for a few minutes though, I don’t think anyone noticed.”

As a free-to-play game, ETG is monetized through in-app purchases for tack and clothing items.

Molly couldn’t share too much insight into the game’s financial performance just yet, but told me “We wouldn’t have launched this early if we didn’t think the game was doing well enough.”

When I ask what advice Molly would give to other horse enthusiasts who want to make their own games, she is optimistic: “It is possible. There’s a big player base for these types of games. We had no industry experience, and no experience running a game studio. It’s been several years of hard work and complete commitment to the studio, but now our game is live and made it to the #1 spot of free apps on the App Store here in Sweden. So even if it’s a long shot, that ultimate horse game of yours is not impossible!”

Launch Success

With the game live and thriving in Europe, the worldwide launch in May is the next big step. And Kavalri is far from done with their work on the game. “We have more onboarding updates planned,” Molly says. “Teaching players about all the mechanics – some of which are quite complex – while keeping the tutorial fun and engaging has been a challenging task.” 

Onboarding and tutorialization are big topics that many games struggle with.

The more complexity a game offers, the more crucial it is to introduce features carefully – without overwhelming the player or restricting them too much.

The game’s onboarding has been overhauled more than once and will be revisited again after the global release. In addition to those improvements, Kavalri also has a number of new features planned. 

“We’re aiming to have a first version of the breeding feature in before the global launch, so that’s where our efforts are focused right now,” says Molly. Dressage and additional social features are also on the to do list before the team will consider the game complete. 

Equestrian the Game led the Swedish App Store charts in its release week in March 2022.

What about additional platforms, I wonder: Can we still expect ETG to come to PC or consoles some day? 

“Our long term goal is still to make an ecosystem of great horse games across multiple platforms,” Mollay explains. “We don’t consider ourselves a mobile studio, but a studio passionate about making good horse games. It just happened that mobile is our first step on the way. As for a PC or console version of ETG, we can’t share any concrete plans just yet!”  

That there would be a market for a game like ETG on PC and Console is something I have no doubts of, but there are of course important considerations when porting a game in order to make the most out of both platforms. Controls, user experience and monetization all often work very differently on mobile than on consoles, and we see in an example like Rival Stars Horse Racing that this sort of porting can work well but also brings its problems. 

Equestrian the Game is somewhat unique as one of the first independent passion project to be released in our genre, but it does have its competitors already in games like Rival Stars, Wildshade, Equestriad and more. Those games were all not yet out when Kavalri Games started their project – a sign of times finally changing for horse games? 

“I think since Star Stable’s success, the industry has become very aware of the potential of horse games,” Molly muses. “I’ve met investors who were explicitly on the lookout to fund horse game projects. The reception we get from industry peers is often ‘ah, exciting! I have a wife/girlfriend/daughter who would love it’. Everyone seems to know a horse nerd they’d recommend ETG to.”

Let’s hope that ETG becomes another big and successful argument for other developers and publishers to follow suit. 

Outlook

I have not spent a lot of time with ETG myself yet, so a proper review might be a long time coming. But since the game will be free to try and out globally in a few weeks, I recommend you all give it a try regardless, and maybe even share your impressions in the comments!  

Molly and the Kavalri team are far from done with improving the game in the meantime. “We’ve got so much more to give, and we feel like this is only the beginning.” Molly adds. “I’m super excited to finally be able to share the game with the global audience in May, to share the much anticipated breeding feature, and to see the community grow even more!”

Equestrian the Game might not fulfil quite everybody’s needs just yet – I know that I personally always struggle to really connect with mobile games in general, for example. But there’s something immensely powerful in seeing this project successfully release and get an overall positive reception. 

 “Creating ETG has been a true dream of mine,” Molly adds to conclude our interview. “Seeing it finally become reality is surreal. I’d like to give a massive thank you to everyone who plays and supports the game!”

Equestrian the Game is available for free on Google Play and the Apple App Store. It’s currently out in select regions and will be available worldwide in May 2022.