Game Announcement: Fernhoof Grove - A Cute and Cozy Upcoming Horse Game to Keep your Eyes on

Fernhoof Grove is a recently announced upcoming single player horse game. It’s still early in development with lots of work ahead, but read on to find out why it’s worth keeping an eye on, and why I believe it will might have the best horse care minigame of any game ever. 

Fernhoof Grove has been in development since Summer 2022 and was initially announced in September 2023. The initial trailer shows stylized pastel vibes, weather variety, show jumping, dressage and some horse management UI. I recommend you give it a look right here:

Since then, solo developer Jessi has revealed some more info on the project on Fernhoof Grove’s Discord server: The game promises show jumping, cross country and dressage, three horse breeds/types, horse care and training exercises as well as side activities and interaction with the townsfolk of the titular Fernhoof Grove community.

Fernhoof Grove will come to Steam for PC and be a one-time-purchase without microtransactions. 

The planned features and design intentions are well within what we’re used to from the horse game niche, and yet I cannot help but look at this with more interest than quite a few examples of the indie horse game competition. Similar to The Ranch of Rivershine, Fernhoof Grove appears comfortable in its contained scope as a cozy town sim type of game, while still offering plenty of things to do.  

That the trailer already shows some concrete features and some UI may seem basic, but I find it an indicator that those important things are obviously being considered early. The horses themselves have cute stylization and decent animation. There’s some sliding awkwardness here and there where animation and translation don’t quite add up, but I personally find those flaws much easier to tolerate than the sort of anatomical inaccuracy we keep seeing with games using the faulty Horse Animset Pro. 

For me, an absolute highlight in following Fernhoof Grove has been its first look at a grooming mechanic. The general setup of moving a brush over the horse’s body to remove dirt is as old as the horse game genre itself, but Fernhoof makes a key addition: every horse has a favorite scratching spot on their body, and if you brush them there, they lean into it by extending their neck. 

Horse grooming in Fernhoof Grove

When you find the favorite spot irl

Now mind you, this isn’t a feature that will make the whole game good. But it is a detail I adore, one of those everyday pleasures of spending time with horses that fictional representations of them always miss out on. It’s rewarding, it’s cute, it’s an easy way to make every horse behave a little bit different from each other… It’s also something I’ve been seeing a lot of in real life recently, because my current lease horse Ollero has a very reliable favorite spot and makes the goofiest faces when he gets scratched there, so now I have to include a picture of that.  

Fernhoof is still early in development, and any solo project from a first time dev always comes with certain risks. I recommend keeping your expectations reasonable and hoping for “something cool” rather than “the horse game to dominate all others”. But with details like the grooming mechanics, cute visuals and a reasonable scope, I find Fernhoof Grove to be off to a very promising start and I’m looking forward to seeing it grow from here. 

Fernhoof Grove does not have a release date yet, but the first public playtesting is planned to take place in late 2024. To follow the game’s development, find social media links and an invite to the official Discord server right here.