GamersInfo.net

In Horsez you are playing a young girl (Ginger) that has just completed study at a prestigious Scottish horse-riding academy and has now arrived at a new academy to continue her studies. You’ll need to balance your academics and social life with the care and training of your horse so that you can hopefully win the weekend competitions. You can even have a young foal to raise and train.

Horsez comes with three language options. You can play in English, French or Spanish. I did my play-testing in English mode.

When you start a new game you’ll enter your name first, and then you get to scroll through an array of horses and choose your new, furry best buddy. After you’ve chosen your horse, you’ll enter a name. At this point you get to choose whether you want to play Adventure Mode or Foal mode.

I decided to begin my game in Adventure Mode. I learned immediately that I’m at this academy for the next six weeks. I have to schedule four activities each day during the week (and complete those activities) if I want a chance to compete on the weekend. In the first week my activity options were: Cross, Library, Stroll, Dressage, Room, Care, Jump and Chat Room. You can (and must) repeat some of the activities over the course of the week. You have to do Care (horse grooming and maintenance) at least every other day, though it seems like you’re better off doing it every day. A happy, clean, well-groomed horse is going to perform better overall.

As you successfully do the various activities, you earn tokens. These tokens can be spent at the school store between activities. At the shop, you have a choice to buy things for yourself or for your noble steed. For yourself, you can buy sportswear, everyday clothing, or hair-dye under the accessories section. All the hair dye colors were normal. I guess they figure green or purple haired teens don’t go to prestigious riding academies. For your horse, you can buy competition gear. There are different colored horse blankets, fancy shin guards in different colors and a variety of saddles. I picked up some snazzy purple shin guards for Chancy.

It turns out that “Cross” means a cross-country obstacle race. You guide your new horse (I named mine Chancy) through a meandering trail, broken up by jumps for you to take. You need to succeed in most of the jumps and complete the course within a certain time to get passing marks for this subject. I was able to control Chancy either by using the stylus on the DS touch pad or by using the control pad. I liked having this choice of controls.

The Library option has you go to the school’s library and gives you so many points of reading time. You’ll actually be reading about things important to know for training a horse. I know things about the different riding gaits now that I never knew before.

The Stroll is just taking your horse on a nice ride across the countryside. It’s a good chance for you to enjoy the scenery and spend some quality time with your horse.

I’ve tried Dressage. Evidently I’m fairly clueless in this area. I have read the book in the library. Apparently I’m supposed to click on the little icon on screen and use the stylus to draw the dressage figure indicated. I got zero points in my first dressage run, so I obviously need more work in that area. My second run went a little better, but I still failed it. You tap each little icon as it appears. As you go along you’ll come to a shape floating in a little pink-edged picture. It looks like you’re supposed to draw the picture with the stylus as you pass through the picture – not before.

The Room option is one of your easier choices. If you’ve used your tokens to purchase additional outfits from the store, this is your chance to change your clothes. Since I haven’t spent any money on outfits yet, there wasn’t really anything for me to do. I guess this translates to my ‘napping in study hall’ period.

Care is very important for the happiness and success of your horse. Now is the time to immerse one self in the nitty-gritty of horse maintenance. You’ll start out with an absolutely filthy horse and a selection of four brushes. You need to use all four of the brushes during the process but I still don’t have a good feel for when you’re supposed to change from one to the next. Work fast, my friend. There’s a lot of horse to cover (both sides) and not a lot of time. As you work you’ll see the mud flying and the horse changing color as his (or her) natural coat is revealed. After the grooming phase you get to give your horse a shower. After the shower comes the dreaded cleaning of the hooves. One at a time, you have to clean gobs of junk from the bottom of each hoof. You have to be very careful not to touch a spot that’s already clean or your poor horse will scream. I haven’t yet beaten the time limit on this one and I’ve done it a number of times. I keep going over and over the same spot and I’m not sure why the little blot of debris doesn’t come off. Grrrrrr. Once those little hooves are sparkling clean, it’s time to muck out the stall. You’ll use your handy-dandy pitchfork to clean up used straw and horse droppings. Once you get the hang of it, this goes pretty fast. When the floor is clean, you get to spread new straw, so don’t put away that pitchfork just yet. Finally, you get the warm and fuzzy part of horse maintenance. You call you horse over to you in the corral and then get to pet his (or her) clean and silky hide. This part is fun for both of you and your horse gets all sparkly when he’s happy. I swear the horse maintenance in this section feels so detailed that the only thing missing was the stable aroma and flies. Is this a good thing or a bad thing – you be the judge.

I really thought I’d do better at Jump than I actually did. The arrows will point you the correct direction to go through the course. You need to use the stylus to get your horse up to speed. When the box representing the jumping take-off area goes green, tap the screen sharply with your stylus to jump. We ran into the post a few times and managed to knock off the top rail once. You only get three mistakes per run, and you have seven jumps to clear, so be careful. I did make it through the course with two faults my second time around. Practice definitely helps.

The Chat Room is kind of the mini-adventure area of the game. You’ll use your stylus to walk around. People or objects you can interact with have a little blue triangle over them. The first few times I did the chat room, I just talked with the other kids. The kids in the game are teens, so there is some boy-girl interaction. It’s not something to worry about, but I suppose a younger player might ask a parent about it (or not, mine is too young yet, so I don’t know about that age group). Is it just me, or does anyone else find it creepy that the male foreman is standing guard in the hall outside of the girls’ bedrooms during the day?

After much effort, I get to the end of my first week at the academy. The grades you get are for Jump, Cross, Dressage, Popularity and Horse Level. I failed three so I don’t get to go to the competition. I get to do the week over. Drat!

Foal Mode is a slightly different animal than Adventure Mode. For one, you’re not going to be riding that foal anytime soon. You begin this section by purchasing your new foal. The foals come in a few price ranges. If you play adventure mode first you’ll (hopefully) have some extra tokens and can pick a higher end foal to start with. Your objective in Foal Mode is to train up that foal and then sell him (or her) at auction for a tidy profit.

The options in Foal Mode are Shop, Change Foal, Care, Training and Statistics.

The foal shop is much different than the horse shop. You can get decorations for the corral (as well as important stuff like upgraded feeding and watering centers), food treats (think apples, sugar lumps or carrots) and accessories that will help you train your foal. You’re going to need a rope to help with training. There’s a ball to play with and a tire swing you can set up. I have a feeling I’m doing something wrong in the shop. I’ve picked out items for my foal and tapped buy, but when I get out of the shop I don’t appear to have the items and my tokens are back at full. It’s more than a little frustrating. Okay, update. You have to tap the right handed arrow and not the left handed arrow in order to complete your purchase. I guess the left arrow is ‘never mind’.

You’re able to have up to two foals that you’re training at one time. The Change Foal option lets you switch between your two foals so you can be sure and work with both of them.

Caring for your foal is somewhat easier (sort of) than caring for your horse. You’ll still need to brush and wash your foal and clean out the stall, but there’s no time limit on each activity. Happily, you don’t have to clean the foal’s hooves. It’s nice not having a time limit, but I would really like to see some sort of progress bar. You really don’t know if you’ve done a thorough enough job until you report to the foreman and get his report. You’ll also need to turn the foal from side to side yourself. Don’t forget to clean both sides. I got a little jet black foal and named him Coal. The looks really nice, but the downside is that it’s super hard to tell if his coat is getting clean. I kind of judge it by the flying mud. The less mud that flies as I’m brushing him, the cleaner he’s getting.

Part of your care is making sure the foal has adequate food and water. You’ll refill his food and water buckets so he always has enough. I was warned not to let food or water get low, but also warned not to let the foal eat too much. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to keep the containers full and keep him from overeating. If you’ve purchased treats, this is the time you can toss an apple, or carrots, or sugar lumps into the corral.

Horsez makes some nice use of the DS speaker. You can call your foal (or horse) to come to you. When the foal responds you get to pet him until he glows all over with sparklies. As far as I can tell, you can pet your foal as long as you want.

Once you have taken care of the physical needs of your foal and made sure to lavish him with lots of love, you need to actually do some training. For most of the training, you’re going to need a rope, so make sure and buy one when you’re at the shop. There are three different training exercises you’re going to do. You’re going to teach your foal to walk in a circle around you, you’re going to teach basic jumps, and you’re going to teach him to lift his forelegs. For walking in a circle, little icons appear on the screen and you need to tap them with the stylus. They pop up faster as the round goes on. I didn’t find it difficult, but you do need to pay attention. Jumping is a little more challenging. You’ll get a box with a symbol written in it. Trace each symbol quickly and accurately for success. (I see both of these as good practice for the dressage events with my horse.) I’m still a little fuzzy on the ‘lift the foreleg’ exercise. I’m supposed to stroke his forelegs with the stylus and he will eventually decide to lift them.

The Statistics section lets you know the overall status of your foal. You’ll get a measure of Happiness, Health, Proficiency (with the training areas), Cleanness, Thirst and Hunger. consult this area often so you can keep on top of any areas that are sliding.

Basically, play with your foal, groom your foal, keep your foal fed and watered. Do lots of training. Do all this and you too can raise a fine young foal, ready to take his place at another prestigious riding academy.

I found Horsez to be a fairly involved game, and actually somewhat educational. If you or your older child loves horses, this is a great game for spending your entertainment dollar. While younger children might enjoy certain aspects of the game, the amount of reading involved will be way over their heads.

I thought the graphics in general were reasonably good, especially considering the medium. The horse specific graphics were wonderful. The corral where you keep your foal has birds and butterflies fluttering in and out of the picture. It was a nice touch.

While the teen time or shopping music is a little bouncy, the music when I’m spending time with my horse (or foal) makes me feel like I’m wandering the Irish countryside. It sets the atmosphere quite nicely.

The horses in Horsez are gorgeous. The foals are adorably cute. They’re all gangly long legs – just like a foal should be. If you’ve always wanted a horse, and the real thing just isn’t in the cards, I highly recommend Horsez! Enjoy.