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If you’re looking for any specific article, I generally recommend typing “the mane quest” plus your keyword(s) into Google. The Squarespace site search is not always helpful. A full list of all my articles can also be found over here on the Horse Game Database, which is very useful if you want to quickly search all my content!
How To Market A Game is the website and blog of game marketing consultant and strategist Chris Zukowski. This week, Chris’ latest blog post is all about horse games, summarizing some insights into our niche from yours truly. Find and read the full blog post here.
Read MoreEarlier this week I saw someone on Facebook claim that Red Dead Redemption 2 was the first video game to use motion capture for horses. While I was instantly sure that was not in fact true, the question of “What WAS the first video game to use motion capture for horses?” isn’t actually all that easy to answer.
Let’s take a look at what I’ve found:
Read MoreI hope you’ll forgive me for what’s essentially just a “hey look, I’m doing my job!” post, but as it turns out I think my job (i.e. horse game consultation) is really fucking cool and I get to brag about it a little bit sometimes, as a treat.
Read MoreEquinox: Homecoming combines dark mystery with horse-focused gameplay into one of the most promising new game announcements our genre has ever seen. Let’s have a look at the announcement trailer and dive into some juicy behind-the-scenes insight for how this game is getting made and why it took so long for someone to realize this potential.
Read MoreFrustrated once again by indie game developers’ over-reliance on the massively flawed Horse Animset Pro, I have taken to Reddit like a proper “angry person online” and wrote a deep dive aimed at gamedevs on the gamedev subreddit showcasing why I can’t really recommend people use the most popular animated horse asset.
Read MoreHorse World Online is a free to play browser game about training and breeding horses. This month, the game celebrates its 20th anniversary, giving us an excellent opportunity to dive into a bit of living horse game history with its developers, and take a look at what running a profitable browser game can look like in 2024.
Read MoreEquestrian the Game is a mobile game about owning, training and breeding horses. Kavalri Games’ co-founder and CEO Molly Ericson sat down for a call with me to discuss some critical learnings about making free-to-play games and how to handle players and their feedback, about what’s left in store for ETG and what we can expect from Kavalri games in the future.
Read MoreHorse Animation is really hard, I know. The purpose of this article is to summarize some common issues and provide helpful resources for how to do better. While I’m coming from a game dev perspective, I hope these tips and guides can also be useful to anyone animating horses for other media such as film or TV.
Read MoreThis article is aimed at game developers who want to include horses in their games without making the same couple of basic mistakes that make equestrians cry – to give game creators a starting point for further research and some ideas for how to add a bit of depth, variety and authenticity to their portrayal of horses.
Read MoreThere’s a brand new animated horse model available for Unreal Engine, and it looks like the best game-ready horse model I’ve seen to date. Let’s take a brief look.
Read MoreRival Stars Horse Racing is something of a rarity in our niche: it’s a polished game aimed at adult players, that’s generally well received and getting regular content updates. For the game’s five year anniversary, I sat down for a call with PikPok CEO Mario Wynands in order to talk about the game’s history, its position in the horse game market and why it takes different approaches to different platforms.
Read More“By the 1990s, games were predominately designed with young male players in mind, featuring macho-adrenaline themes like violence, guns, and military simulations. Having never made a video game before, childhood friends Craig Laughton and Andrew Niere decided to do something different from other Australian studios by developing a horse riding game for girls.”
Read MoreFoxie Ventures’ Founder and Director Dineth Abeynayake and Product Manager Steven Ready took some time before the release to show me a preview of what their newest game would offer, and to answer a few questions about Star Equestrian’s development and its future.
Read MoreGamescom 2022 in Cologne was an exciting event and meeting the team of Korion Interactive was one of my highlights: I turned to find about five people in matching Moorhuhn T-shirts standing behind me basically going “Hi, we’re so excited that we found you, we love The Mane Quest and we’re making horse games now.”
Read MoreI’ve been eagerly following the development of The Ranch of Rivershine ever since solo game creator and TMQ community member Éloïse Laroche first announced she’d be tackling the horse game genre. Today, Éloïse releases a playable Demo for The Ranch of Rivershine on Steam. Let’s dive deeper into how she’s been building the Cozy Bee Games brand and business, and what new challenges she’s facing with her newest project.
Read MorePopular Animated Horse Asset Pack Horse Animset Pro by Malbers Animations has become a bit of a thorn in my side, as someone who always keeps an eye out for new games that include horses. From its initially completely wrong walk animation to its current issues with wobbly bendy forelegs, the suboptimal asset pack is the direct cause for many game horses looking sort of wrong. With the release of Horse Herd by 3D Bear last month, it looks like HAP is getting some much-needed competition in the animated horse asset market.
Read MoreThis article is an add-on to my recent post about upcoming Indie Horse Games: These tips were compiled while gathering info on upcoming games and noticing a few common areas of improvement. They don’t necessarily only apply to horse games but I do see it in almost every new horse game project launched by new creators without industry experience.
Read MoreEquestrian the Game was just released in Europe will be out worldwide in May 2022. I thought this was a fantastic opportunity to catch up with Molly Ericson 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.
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