Horses of Hoofprint Bay Preview: A Nostalgic Ride

When I saw Horses of Hoofprint Bay on the list of new Steam demos, it grabbed my attention. In the spirit of Steam’s Horse Fest, I decided to try it out. It wasn’t long into playing that I was reminded of an old GBA game I played years ago very briefly, Pippa Funnell: Stable Adventure. Horses of Hoofprint Bay is very similar; you manage a horse ranch, expand it, keep, ride, and train horses, and take part in competitions.

I’ll admit that I couldn’t get into the GBA game, but I was much younger then. Fortunately, despite my earlier reservations, I didn’t encounter the same problem with Horses of Hoofprint Bay, and I ended up having a good time playing – and that was just the demo.

Horses of Hoofprint Bay now has a demo available to play on Steam. A release date has not yet been announced.

Story – Running Your Dream Horse Farm

Horses of Hoofprint Bay doesn’t come with a complicated story. The premise is you’ve raised enough money to purchase some land in order to start up your own horse farm, which has been a dream of yours. Now it’s come true, but the work’s only just starting. You have to build your farm from the ground up, expanding it, earning money, winning competitions, boarding horses, offering riding lessons, and breeding horses.

The fact that Horses of Hoofprint Bay doesn’t have a complex story isn’t a negative thing at all. The story is simply there to set the scene, establishing why you’re starting up a horse farm in the first place. The core focus is on the gameplay, and with a game like this, that’s exactly what you want.

Gameplay – An Addictive Retro-Inspired Horse Management Experience

Horses of Hoofprint Bay has everything you could ask for in a game where you run your own horse stables. The good news is that nothing is ridiculously overcomplicated. The attention to detail in horse behaviour and horse care is well done, but there’s also a balance between keeping it relatively simple but also realistic. 

Managing Your Farm

This is partially a management game, where you manage and run your own horse stables. You have to look after your horses and keep them clean and healthy, while also building up their stats to turn them into champion horses.

Fortunately, Horses of Hoofprint Bay isn’t horribly taxing or mentally draining in this sense. You do have to keep an eye on your finances and your horses, but the game is good at alerting you if anything is wrong, while helping you to keep on top of things. At the end of the day, you get an overview of whether you’ve earned or lost money, among other things. You’ll also be informed if your horse is sick or unhealthy.

You also have to manage your resources, such as being stocked up on food and snacks that will keep your horses happy and healthy. It’s easy to head to the store and pick up supplies, and they’re not ridiculously expensive either, so even if you are low on funds, it’s still affordable.

To grow your business and unlock new opportunities, you need to expand your farm. Not all of the upgrades were available in the demo, but you got enough of an idea of how it all works and what will eventually be available.

You start off with a rundown farm, but must expand to turn it into a thriving business.

Riding, Training, and Competing

To improve the stats of your horses, you need to get hands on, which means riding them, training them, and ultimately taking part in competitions.

There are several options for building up your horses. Early on, you get to construct a training field, which allows you to do different training exercises with your horse. Each one has a max number of stats that it improves. You can also take your horse on a trail ride, if you wish to do something more relaxing.

There are four key horse stats to watch out for: confidence, endurance, stamina, and strength. If you don’t maintain these stats, it can negatively hurt your chances of being successful while riding and training.

You are given goals in which to increase certain stats by a specific amount, in order to compete in competitions, as well as satisfy customers boarding their horses. You also know beforehand what exercises will impact on your horse, so you can work out what you need to do.

There are different training exercises on offer, with various stat increases available.

Training exercises can be as simple as switching between horse speeds: walk, trot, canter. Going through the posts at the right speed boosts confidence, while doing it wrong can have the opposite effect. Horses lacking in confidence may struggle to take directions and be more unpredictable.

You can compete in competitions to win prize money. Only the top 3 gets money though. Competitions aren’t exactly hard, but they’re not super easy either. You get penalized for completing the course over the time limit or a poorly-timed jump. One bad jump or too slow a run can seriously impact your position on the scoreboard. You also can only take part in one competition a day, so getting it right is key.

Nevertheless, despite the stakes, competitions are still fun to take part in, and horse riding and training is satisfying as you watch your horse grow and blossom.

Competitions can be tricky to win, but are still fun to participate in.

Caring For Your Horses

With horses, it’s not just about riding and racing them. They need TLC, too. Horses in Horses of Hoofprint Bay are beautiful creatures who need care just like horses in real life. They need to be kept fed, hydrated, and cleaned. Failure to look after your horses can result in them getting sick.

Horse care may initially seem a bit tedious, but honestly, after a while, you grow genuinely fond of these beautiful, hand-drawn animals. You find yourself developing a bond with them, wanting to spoil them with a treat or feeling satisfied after giving them a good brush and clean. 

Neglected horses will become sick and do poorly when ridden.

Riding Lessons

You can also teach others to ride horses at your farm. This isn’t the same as riding your own horse, where you control speed and jump at the right time. Lessons are about teaching people the correct posture when riding. As they ride past, you must correct their hand, back, and foot positions by pressing the correct prompt. For example, if the rider is leaning too far forward, you need to tell them by hitting the correct button. 

Lessons can get a little trickier after passing the tutorial, where you have to keep watch of three different components to correct and remember the button prompts. Fortunately, they remain on-screen even post-tutorial, there to remind you.

How much you get paid for riding lessons depends on how well you did correcting the students. It’s usually not a huge amount, but every little helps.

Lessons pay out money, plus it feels good to help others become better riders.

Completing Goals

During the demo of Horses of Hoofprint Bay (and presumably in the full release as well), you have goals to complete. These thankfully aren’t time limited, but are useful for guiding you on what to do next and what to work towards. Plus, you can get rewarded well for completing them, usually in money.

Customizing Your Character and Horses

When you start the game, you can name your character, change their skin tone, choose their face, change their hair style and color, and then change their top, bottoms, and shoes. The character customization was pretty decent. I get the sense that more may be to come in the full game, but otherwise it works.

You can also customize your horse, at least their tack, saddle, and such. However, things like their mane and tail and body cannot be altered. When you pick a horse, you get what you get. You can’t change their coloring or things like that. This is probably to add to the realism. In real life, you cannot change a horse’s body or hair color. However, this is something that might be added in later. 

You get to customize your character’s appearance.

Graphics & Audio – A Fabulous Hand-Drawn Setting

The most stand-out feature of Horses of Hoofprint Bay has to be its art style. It is presented in a 2D hand-drawn point-and-click environment, and it looks so beautiful. It feels like a lot of love and care was poured into this game. It makes it feel wonderfully retro, as well as nostalgic.

The audio works well in Horses of Hoofprint Bay too. Notably, when you’re training your horse, it does a good job of conveying whether or not you’re being successful. The audio for competitions is done well also, making these events feel alive, giving you a buzz as you work the course.