Alice, yes, please come on stage
Our next speaker Alice Ruppert is a game designer, programmer and writer
based here in Zurich
she works as Lead Game Developer at N-Dream, creating games for the AirConsole platform
which allows people to play local multiplayer games using smartphones as controllers.
Her most recent project is The Mane Quest, a website dedicated to horses in video games
and Horses in Video Games is what she will talk about tonight.
Let's give Alice a warm applause.
[applause]
Hi, I'm Alice and I'm here to tell you some stuff about horse games and why you should care about them.
(cause you probably don't do that yet)
So, what are horse games even?
Generally, what I call "horse games" are games whose primary mechanics are focused
on riding, taking care of, and breeding horses.
You can see some examples there.
Many of them could also be classified as something like "stable management simulators".
Single player horse games are often about owning and training more and more horses and
upgrading your stables, multiplayer versions are about buying or breeding the prettiest
horses to make everyone else jealous, and probably winning some in-game money in some racing minigame or something.
Dozens, if not hundreds of games in this genre have been produced on pc, consoles and mobile devices
and although I have not quite played all of them yet (I'm working on that), I'm fairly confident in
saying that none of them have been genuinely good.
You may see this and think "well that looks decent enough for some horse crazy kids",
but the reality is that games in this genre never hold up to any sort of industry standard
to what constitutes a "good game", neither for adults or kids.
And it's more than just an issue of scope and budget.
Like, it's not just small games, it's bad games.
They are badly balanced and usually zigzag between being frustratingly difficult due
to bad and over-complex and nonsensical control schemes or childishly easy
usually, like, within the same game.
Instead of choosing an art style that makes sense within their low budget, they go with
pseudo-realistic graphics that usually look dated before they're even released.
By the way, in that top gif, the horse's feet move wrong, that's not how a horse walks, ever. It cannot do that.
And also they have long feature lists, claim to offer a ton of features, but all their mechanics are shallow
and simply not fun, with many tasks getting tedious and repetitive
and the supposed "reward" of riding a horse feels clunky as hell and tedious and like
more work than actually controlling a thousand kilo animal with your legs does.
I know, I've tried.
And like, the games somehow makes that *more* work
Now you may be wondering - justifiably - why an entire genre of games is just not good, and to be honest
I'm still working on getting to the bottom of that, but here's some insight I've gained already:
Many horse game dev teams do not want to be making horse games,
exceptions being few and in between.
The development for this type of games is usually low budget contract work paid for by
publishers of children's media. But:
Those publishers appear to be really out of touch with their potential audience
They don't actually playtest with actual kids who actually like horses
And more importantly: They underestimate the potential target audience that they could reach
if they actually made a game that held up to any sort of industry standard
and like, that is somewhat interesting to play for people who play games
But....
BUT: People who are passionate about horses exist, and
they exist in the gamedev industry: I'm meeting more
of them on, like, almost a daily basis
It's kind of self evident that nobody buys games that are bad, because nowadays you can inform yourself about that stuff
And also: Games can get people interested in stuff they don't usually care about,
meaning the actual potential audience doesn't have to be limited to horse crazy horse people.
Not only "farming enthusiasts" play games like Stardew Valley.
A good horse game could draw in a crowd of people who like buildup, crafting, pet collecting,
life sims, base-building and so much more.
So, why is this relevant to you as a game developer:
First of all: While mainstream games are finally catching up to writing and designing complex female characters,
games are still rather bad at embracing femininity in general.
Stereotypically "masculine" hobbies like football or basketball or car racing get several
big budget game releases every year, while traditionally "feminine" interests
(which includes horse riding, but also things like fashion, baking or romance) are relegated
to low effort web and mobile games.
People who want good horse games are told they should just play Red Dead Redemption
or The Witcher, because hey, there's a horse in it. But imagine nothing like Fifa and PES
existed and we told guys who are really into football that they should play Katamari Damacy
because hey, there's a... ball in it.
So yeah, let's embrace stereotypically female interests in video games
As a game dev, you can profit from these audiences, like horse enthusiasts, if you take them seriously.
Not just as "little girls who like horses and will be happy with whatever breadcrumbs you
throw their way", but as adult gamers who have been playing games all their lives and
are constantly ignored in their desires for good games about a subject matter they actually care for.
Because those people exist, and ever since I've started talking about this subject,
I'm getting more and more and more messages from people telling me they would absolutely
love to play, pay for and support a decent horse game and that they're disappointed
with what is available.
So, if you want to read, talk more on the subject of horses in video games, I invite you to visit
themanequest.com, where I write reviews and news and analyses
and like generally just lament the lack of good horse games
Anything related to horses in games and stuff. Thanks!
[applause]
Do you ride horses?
Yeah
Do you have one?
No. It's expensive as hell.
How do you think I have the time to make games, and write about games
like, I couldn't do that if I had a horse.
Idon't know about life in Switzerland, I thought maybe it was easier here. But yes, okay.
[laughter]
Thank you!
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