EQUUEST: Bad Management killed a Rising Star 

This video took a long time to make due to a few external factors. To be clear, yes, I do want to see every horse game succeed the purpose with this video is to make it clear that without a strong pilot at the helm, this game does not have a chance as it stands now. I don't know if they will find a coder for the same price, and I don't know if Shoe will disappear again, leaving the devs high and dry again A second project manager must be assigned to ensure the game can move forward. However, I do wish them the best.

It's a curse. Whatever pandorian forces SSO is using to keep other horse games down needs to be investigated.

“We’re making a horse game.” Famous last words before disaster.

Horse games gotta be cursed, I have never in my life encountered a sub-genre in games that had that much drama in it. Thanks for covering it as always, Rattle ^^

"Failed due to poor project management" can be said of so many games, indie and AAA alike. Too many people confuse "manager" with "idea guy"

when ender said "guys, i just wanted to draw pretty ponies for (a) fun horse game wtf is happening" (in the discord screenshots) i really felt that. thats a bit how i feel on the rdr subreddit

not even a minute in and "yet another horse game that is on the brink of collapse" made me giggle 😂 i thought this year was supposed to be the year of decently fun horse games 😅

“Who wants to watch the downfall of a horse game?” Me every time Rattle uploads: Oh boy, another dead horse game!

when you mentioned how backers were dissatisfied with an update that was about backend work, i had to roll my eyes. at this point, we need to talk about backers and their expectations and... comprehension of games in general. i'm gonna be honest, between the owners of these projects and the people that back them, nobody knows how actual game development looks. the backend is the majority of the actual game - if you're mad to see backend updates and just want to see the pretty horse art, back a picture book, not a video game. that's not "no progress" - that's the actual progress you would want to see. the backers were only satisfied when they saw pngs of horse lineart, which is insane to me. it's like they took the "Horseisle Inspired" thing so seriously that they forgot HI was an actual game that was coded first, and all the breed and coat color updates we saw when we played the game were AFTER THE FACT and not the majority of the actual game development. people are just begging to get scammed and disappointed by failed game projects when they're investing in something they don't even understand. if you don't know how stocks work, don't own stocks - if you don't know how game development works, don't invest in game development. you have no idea how to tell if you're being fleeced when you can't tell what a proper game development schedule would look like. this was an obvious failure the moment she said there was only one coder and everyone else was miscellaneous art (so basically the moment the kickstarter was posted), and the moment people started accepting art updates as real ones and spurning code updates as inferior. that is not meant to disparage the artists, they deserved better, but how in god's name did we end up with artists sitting on their hands with all of their work finished when there wasn't even a coded game yet?! art for a game that doesn't exist! they were literally making this game backwards and people still PAID TO BACK THIS, when it was obvious these development issues existed from the outset even without knowing the drama. at a certain point, if we want good horse games, we need to start actually asking for them. we all joke about horse games being cursed but the thing is, the only common thread between every single failed project is the backers who are putting down money on sometimes extremely obvious scams, or genuine efforts that are just obviously infeasible. that's not a magical curse, that's just getting what you're asking for. this issue exists with all game development kickstarters but horse game fans are desperate enough to keep throwing money at this stuff anyway with increasing lack of discretion. nobody in this situation got shafted as much as that singular coder, set up to fail, and then blamed for literally everything that went wrong afterward. frankly i don't think the game deserves to be finished at all - why should we accept a turnaround when a turnaround would mean putting money in Shoe's pockets? nah, i think it's better off burning to the ground

23:00 Rule #1: Never conduct business with friends, it almost never ends well. Especially if the other person has another day job to take care of and cannot commit 100% to the project.

Why do I feel like stuff like this keeps happening because a lot of people simply don't realise just how hard it is to create something until they're in too deep and then will try to save face but it just doesn't work...? Not that people shouldn't try and create something! I just feel like there's not enough research done beforehand?

In the horse world in general, don’t put up with an unprofessional work environment. Even if you are volunteering or doing something for school credit, you shouldn’t be expected to do a project manager’s job as one small cog in a machine.

19:28 in relation to a dev (arbiter) speaking ill of a backer (me, reverie) in vc - i was one of the top backers, if not the top. to be clear, arbiter knew that i was a backer and that i was in the vc (muted), and the things she spoke of were related to horseisle 1 drama. this was apart of my reasoning to pull my backing. we have since spoken and apologies have been issued from both sides, for both the original hi1 drama and what was said in the vc.

“here’s a little flag you can wave for shoe. i’m sure she’ll appreciate it 🚩” IM HOLLERING 💀💀💀💀 that’s how you properly handle ppl dog piling you

The segment of people on discord being upset that rattle was asking questions is so upsetting to see. If it’s taking so much time to be transparent that it’s taking away from development then they shouldn’t have promised full transparency. “Drama” shouldn’t take away from development, if it is then the project manager is incompetent and not focusing on actually doing any work. This idea that criticism is somehow slowing development is just so saddening to see since any good project worth the money SHOULD be criticized! And the team should be able to stand up to scrutiny! If it doesn’t then you shouldn’t give money.

i'm glad Ranch of Rivershine seems to be avoiding all the curse all horse games seem to experience these days. While it's far from perfect, it's nice that Eloise is such a nice person. Her being the only dev is probably how she avoids all the drama too though lol.

Horse games are literally cursed, doesn't matter if its Browser or PC or whatever. Its INSANE how many games I've watched over the last 20 years act like they're going to be the next big thing in horse games only to literally never even release, never mind release and actually be good. Its a wonder to me that SSO and Howrse even exist. They are truly an exception to the "Horse Games Don't Happen" RULE in this genre.

It's so sad that we either don't get good horse games or if we do get it, the community has to be super toxic. I don't know why we can't just get along and be friends.

As a web developer, I cannot understand how she though switching Code from what is essentially front-end technology to Unity which is a different kind of technology was a solid idea.... 😵‍💫

For anyone wondering what happened more in depth with Wild Horse Islands (I witnessed it firsthand): their owner? Developer? I'm not exactly sure what his title is, but anyways, he decided to restructure the Discord server, but had not PINGED any announcement roles BEFORE closing the channels that needed rework. I believe the reason for the restructure was to remove some channels that were deemed unnecessary. People had many sales threads, chats, resources, and giveaways IN PROGRESS DURING the time he made the channels invisible. Keyword: Invisible. They still existed, just not publicly visible. Many people didn't even know what was happening until they looked in the general chats. The reasons this angered so many people was that there was little warning that there would be changes in the first place and that no one had any time to save any of their work. When the server reopened, the ability to create Threads to discuss sales was removed, which is the biggest blow to the community. Again, threads were the way that people communicated with each other about trades, sales, auctions, giveaways, etc. Important channels like #value-chat (where people could discuss or read how valuable a horse/item was) and #game-help (a questions type channel to get help from the community rather than asking staff)were also removed. Other channels that were seemingly unproblematic like art channels and voice channels were also removed. The reason for these changes was, in summary, that it became too hard to moderate everything. The server was about 38k members. Then, the allegations came out about underage moderators, favoritism, unprofessionalism, and homophobia and probably some other stuff. I don't really know if any of those allegations are true, but due to the general channels being so very heated about everything, the Discord server became read-only.

Kudos to you for always keeping my interest regarding a genre of games I’ve never even played before! I am concerned someone crossed an old fortune teller woman and cursed all horse media for a hundred years though

good lord, the way that discord server talked to you was bizarre!! You were being so genuinely respectful too???? what da hell

As an artist myself, I don't really mind volunteering to do art for a game; however, (and it's a big however) If I'm not getting paid, the art will still solely belong to me. There would also have to be a low amount of required weakly hours of work since I'm not being paid, and would have to prioritize jobs where I am. No one gets my art for any reason unless they pay me for it. They can get permission to use it.

11:25 That's advice for ANY game. Don't insult the people who gave you money. THEY owe you nothing, you're the only one who owes.

Love your videos, look forward to them so much. Horse games HAS to be cursed because I’ve never seen a game genre fail everytime so badly. I’ve been playing Wild Horse Islands since 2022, off and on this year. I was very disappointed when the discord server shut down, it was very abrupt. It was a place for players to connect in trading, selling, breeding, and just overall helping eachother. But what happened? I haven’t heard anything about why is shut down.

1 programmer $10k kickstarter project Could have ended it there, the conclusion was evident already.

BABE WAKE UP A NEW RATTLE VIDEO ABOUT A FAILED HORSE VIDEO GAME I'VE NEVER HEARD OF JUST DROPPED!!!🎉🎉🎉

their first mistake was only having one programmer. it honestly irritates me that people keep trying to make projects seeming to not understand in the slightest how creating a game works. imo 10k is a pretty small amount to make a good game and one programmer is not enough. literally any college with a game design program probably has plenty of people who would be willing to work on the project I dont understand how people are so incompetent

are you planning on making a video on the WHI situation? i've been a player since the start and have been a part of every outrage in the art channel, it's honestly sad how everything fell apart so rapidly.

It's funny how we have so many good games coming out this year, but yet almost all horse games of the same year are in a dumpster fire state. Maybe we need that one hero to break the curse.

I’m convinced no horse game will go without drama at this point 😂

Honestly what Killed me was the 6 day timeout 💀

I know less than nothing bout horse games, but I subscribed IMMEDIATELY after this vid - this is the content I didn’t know I needed in my life!!

Horse Games that aren’t SSO try not to fail challenge: Impossible

so obsessed with stories like these, thank you. as a game developer this stuff happens all the time in smaller teams even things for companies. it's insane how these kinds of situations will never stop, especially in the horse game genre!!

I'm starting to think that when developing a horse game, don't say it's just a horse game. Add something like.. steampunk puzzle racing game with rockets that just so happen to be on horses, or pokemon capturing but horses that have the ability to become power crystals, giving people hero like abilities that depends on the level of friendship and trust with the horse... Maybe then this witches curse will get confused and leave.

more defensive server members than the riders of rohan xD loving the content rattle, always bringing some light into situations

So kind of all these horse games to ruin themselves to provide your channel more content, always such a treat :D But in all seriousness, it baffles me how horse games always fall to the same accursed fate. Game development isn't easy, every developer has to carry their own weight and more, but these seem to be very basic things that are being neglected that lead to disaster. Pride seems to be quite the rampant disease around here.

Since you brought up WHI I wonder if you have any interest in covering the absolute dumpster fire that went down there in the discord. It’s super frustrating to see how they continue to handle everything regarding their community and making the discord a “read-only” was a final nail in the coffin for any interest I had left in the game :/ Cheers!

Another good video! I think Horse Isle deserves a video of its own. I loved that game, it was the first horse game I really got invested in

As someone who used to be a programmer but left because of how frustrating the industry is dealing with a client who had no understanding of what’s a reasonable ask and constantly changed there min and demands updates when their in the middle of their workflow is beyond infuriating and multimillion dollar production team often say to don’t get paid enough to deal with all that let along a solo developer carrying the game on

3:07 RIP ppl who loved games like H1-2-LIFECYCLE, horseland (game or tv), old SSO (with mods etc), - that one Japanese racing game where horses fly and stuff-, WQM, and other indie games such as Horsey racing (GGG), Lost Pegasus, Barbie Horse Games, etc. I'll never forget prime time for horse games with shitty graphics ;w; Yet the devs and mods/staff did really care back then, and they all went on to do great things. I am so proud of them!! Also, i have to say, once again, I LOVE THE MEMES RATTLE! you never fail to make me laugh, even on a serious topic.

1) I love this video! You go into so much detail and go so far out of your way to talk to so many people it really makes this a super comprehensive video essay! 2) could you please list the games you were playing in the b roll? Sone look super fun! 3) what are your thoughts on Howrse? I know it's an older game but I hear no one really talk about it

oh man this game! I remember it but I kidna forgot about it cus not much happened with it I never really joined the discord cus I am anti social and just...well horse games and there discord severs are proving best to avoid. I think contributed like $5 or $10 to this games kick starter ( I chose the smallest option ) a while back I wanted to give more money cus I wanted the game to succeed but I was also so afraid of the game not coming into completion and my money going well...out the window I hope this game gets farther along in its production and this miscommunication doesn't kill the game.

Holy moly. This whole situation is madness. You made it pretty interesting, even though I really could care less about horses or horse games. The email from the coder's partner was mind-bending. If I read it properly, the coder was in a three-way relationship and the second girl ran off to be with shoe and joined her and her husband. Sometimes.. sometimes people make their own lives more complex than necessary.

WHY is it so many indie horse game devs have this mentality of "it's my way or the highway! No one can do it better than me!"?! Do other genres have this curse? Also, jeez... that discord really was a hornet's nest, huh... 😥 Kudos to you for keeping your cool!

does the drama ever end?????perfect video as always. was very entertaining with my morning coffee if i do say so myself

I'm literally seeing this game for the first time owo

Ngl super happy WHI got mentioned cause the developers have continued to make bad decisions and are super lazy with their updates, refused to listen to their community and shut down the feedback entirely claiming they were "being attacked" when players were upset with never being heard

I swear horse games are genuinely cursed. I can't think of any other game genre this isolated in it's successes

I wrote a horse isle 1 private server .. they came and tried to take over my project wanted to add features that werent in normal hi1, but it was meant to replicate to the original hi1 server perfectly. They then went and tried to make their own game instead ..

Gotta to watch rattle to recover from possibly failing both of my big tests today

I started to play furry paws again today and this shows up in my feed. spooky. Great video!

6:16 10-thousand or 10k - 'ten thousand k' is a rather bigger number LOL

I love your videos, so much. However, I am sick of getting excited about a horse game and then I see you post LOL

why cant there just be 1 new horse game thats actually good without any drama

As someone with experience writing software, this sounds like a project that would require multiple programmers, full time, for at least a year. The budget is woefully inadequate to hire the people needed and the scope is too big for people to do this in their spare time.

Unrelated but whenever I see one of your vids about yet another now dead horse game, I'm reminded of this open world horse game that the creators (?) of Howrse released and was available on mobile, and it was genuinely a decent game from what I remember.. until they took it back down. I miss it and I'm a lil bit sad 😅

Wait what happened to Wild Horse Isles?

Im glad you have heard about the issues within wild horse Islands, because I did enjoy playing that game ( Even if not as good as it could've been) The issues within the development team and the awful mods for the discord server kind of ruined it for me. Considering I was being bullied in the server for awhile and the mods basically ignored me, It's been very difficult to want to come back to a game like that ☹️ Horse game curse please stop 🤞🤞

Now wild horse islands? *Noooooooo* nothing is safe 😳

Oh my - horse games really are cursed

God, i am so SICK of horse games dropping like flies

Have you ever played my riding stables life with horses? To my knowledge it’s only on steam I’d love to hear what you think of it

i saw this and thought "hey i saw the kickstart for this on fb". and theres the screenshots from the post lol 😂

33:12 There wouldn't be so much people asking if they would communicate right in the first place. God dammit

Will u ever make a video about wild horse islands? 👀

The product manager sounds like someone who should never be managing anything Anyhow, fyi lines of a code isn't the best metric if (something) { do this; } is three lines of code. if (something) do this; is one lines of code that does the same thing. A crafty programmer can fit a long function into a simple line, tho it may not be readable for others (which isn't great). A inexperienced coder could copy and paste the same long piece of code everywhere (instead of making a reusable method/service/class), inflating count.

I played Horse Isle as a kid, Looking back now as an adult , I remember people using it to flirt as well. knowing what I know now I am 99% sure these were adults targeting kids

i may have no interest in horse games but how you break them down makes me feel so bad for those that do, it seems like every horse game falls to greed or never finishes. yall deserve better than all this. sidenote: loved the travelers rest b roll, love that game!

i realllly want another game like alicia online im crushed that they took it down

Good that Alicia Online is keeping up through all of these years! I enjoy it way more than SSO, I know it's a diffrent genre but come on, free game with no micro payments? Bro I love that! btw, I was so schocked at Gumshoe reference, love it!! (Edgeworth please stop cutting his salary lol)

Have you done (or would you ever consider doing) a video on why so many horse games seem to fail?

Honestly I would LOVE to make a game, I find it an incredible and fun-looking feat, but I've got some serious unmedicated AuDHD and I know for a fact that I wouldn't finish it at this point in time. I may have ideas but I know I don't have the drive so I put any of that stuff on hold until I know I'll actually be able to do stuff and finish the project so people aren't left with a half-done shell. Edit: Holy shit I feel so awful for the coder what the fuck 19k lines of code in SIX MONTHS?! 😭

Horse games usually annoy me, usually because horse girls typically directly ignore the actual anatomy and true nature of horses, and end up being very culty.. but I was still curious as hell! Interesting story going here.

Idk if it's editing mistakes since it's a long video or something but you missed blurring a couple of names/profile pics from fb and things!

Yet another reminder that if all you have is an "idea" for a game, without bringing any other skills to the table, you have no business making a game. That is one of the first things we were told in game design at uni. Everyone under the sun can have an idea for a game, so you better have something else to offer. I honestly don't know why people would give this Shoe person money when all she seems to be is an "ideas" person. I guess we are that desperate for good horse games 😓

Something tells me had they replaced Shoe completely this project would've done much better. Too bad they can't since Shoe is basically in charge and they seem to be a power hungry person, refusing to add ANY secondary manager or backers for feedback to be allowed makes it obvious.

I thought this channel was a "development hell analysis" channel, but it seems to be entirely consumed by horses in general 😂

I’m so early love our vids!!!!!

10k seems insanely low to start a game even with free art. At this point horse games need to start focusing on the GAME not the art. That said the art for this game is beautiful and the artists deserve better H

I really love all the TNG moments

What were the games usee in the video? They look really fun especially the Stardew Valley looking one.

oh no!! it would have been sooo fun to have a browser horse game that wasnt... y'know.... hworze....

Wild Horse Island shut down? What???

Beating a dead horse game

im just wondering what the name of the game is with the purple dragon😊❤

This is probably a weird question, but back in the day did you play AVH?

what happend with Wild Horse Islands?

Not againnnn😩

Might just be reading into it, but it feels really sus to me when the "all women dev team" thing came up. Hear me out. Most of these kinda kickstarter projects just kinda pick up anybody qualified and interested, and it seems like it would almost definitely be a coincidence that all the talented and interested people on this project happened to be women. But advertising that everybody working on this is a woman implies that this was a like, choice, by someone who went out of their way to hire women, specifically because women generally get less opportunities in many lines of work. It just reeks of "Working on this is a privilege I can revoke and you're all only here because I'm such a good person". The usual 'boss is too friendly in a passive aggressive way to guilt you into working below your worth' dealio, basically.

GUMSHOEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

GUYS SWEM IS BACK IN DEVELOPMENT, THERE IS FINALLY GOOD NEWS FOR THE HORSE GAME COMMUNITY!!! HOPEFULLY!! (context; announcement from the discord)

I was a part in the HARPG community on deviantart back in the days and the drama oh my gawd the drama....so i´m not surpised that this games died because of drama...horse girlys are drama queens....

I wonder if horse game always fail because theyre made by people with practically no experience in game design. When it comes to games (or ANYTHING really) youre going to want to start with something basic. Trying to make a whole open world online game like Horse isle is absolutely not something you can do just because you play a lot of open world online games. Maybe start with a very small off line horse game with a beginning and end. No before you even try that, make a memory match game or somthing.

Wait what happened in horse valley discord?

Not gonna lie actual stables have this much drama sometimes there’s the famous dressage rider who embezzled a bunch of funds from the city. In personal experience my stable was full of mildly racist unstable trainers who barely paid attention to us during lesson because they where to busy having inappropriate conversations, who eventually where all fired or quit because of a spiral of all falling out and threatening to make public accusations of animal abuse against each other, did I mention some of them lived in the stable. Edit: I forgot that the owner was in prison, got out and raised a bunch of money on the story of turning his life around that mostly went to upgrading the unheated kitchen and break room and then he ended up back in prison (I think for financial crimes) Double edit: I forgot to mention the stable specialised in teaching police horses and disabled riders so there was more consequences to there negligence than if all this was at a typical stable.

What game are you playing in the background?

I've backed a couple of horse games like Astride (what a mess that one is fingers crossed they can bring it back) but the only one that seems to be doing good, and giving us what they said they would and showing us all the stuff they are doing BTS on Patreon and even the Demo is better than any full horse game out is Tales of Rein Ravine. fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong with this one unlike all the others that people have tried to make and put out, ALSO one note to take away from Equuest is DON'T WORK WITH FAMILY... It never ends well lol,

I swear this sub genre is so cursed. :((