Ping: Quiksand - Horse Racing Game

[CraigSca]

I know you spoke about the lack of a good horse racing game out there before. While I personally am not a fan of the genre, I stumbled upon this today and thought (you and maybe some others) might be interested.

http://www.horseracegame.com/

[Izulde]

I'm still waiting for the day they make a Derby Owners Club PC or console adaptation.

[cartman]

From the demo, this game does look promising.

[DaddyTorgo]

From the demo, this game does look promising.

no breeding to it though hmm

[Buccaneer]

From the demo, this game does look promising.

They all do. :(

[Lathum]

no breeding to it though hmm

then it's pointless IMO

[DaddyTorgo]

then it's pointless IMO

sorta my feeling too. Otherwise it's just like "oh I raced this horse into the ground...okay...time to move on"

kinda kills the..."dynastic" aspect of the game without it

[billethius]

That does a fantastic job of recreating the feeling of racing. But there's no real career play. So if what you're interested in is putting Secretariat, Citation, Seattle Slew, etc.. into a race together and seeing how it plays out, this game is for you. The historical horses are well modeled and run as they should. Overall - it's a fun game, but it lacks depth for people who like career modes.

On the other hand, I've had A LOT of fun with The Racing Breed (http://theracingbreed.com/). The career mode is very deep, and while there are no homebreds, a breeding farm will buy mares and (good) colts and breed them. So you'll occasionally come across a foal out of one of your mares in the yearling sales. Download the demo and give it a try.

[Buccaneer]

A dynastic aspect can hae nothing to do with breeding, even though it would be a plus - as in pedigree. In previous games, a dynasty would typically run 10 years (wagging it), enough to see many new crops of promising 2 yr olds as well as veterans with robust track records. We won't see breeding results.

I know this is not the type of game being described in OP but just saying that there is enough with HoT/QPP to build upon to substantially improve the game without going into fantasy.

[Izulde]

That does a fantastic job of recreating the feeling of racing. But there's no real career play. So if what you're interested in is putting Secretariat, Citation, Seattle Slew, etc.. into a race together and seeing how it plays out, this game is for you. The historical horses are well modeled and run as they should. Overall - it's a fun game, but it lacks depth for people who like career modes.

On the other hand, I've had A LOT of fun with The Racing Breed (http://theracingbreed.com/). The career mode is very deep, and while there are no homebreds, a breeding farm will buy mares and (good) colts and breed them. So you'll occasionally come across a foal out of one of your mares in the yearling sales. Download the demo and give it a try.

See, for me, a large part of the fun in horse racing games with a homebreeding aspect (which is the only kind I'll play, incidentally) is tracing the various bloodlines of your stable's horses through the generations.

[Buccaneer]

I think there are two different kinds of games: a macro strategic game and a micro tactical game. What Izulde described is a macro game where you play for generations. Games like HoT/QPP were micro games where you judge a horse, not on breeding, but simply on watching him/her race.

[billethius]

See, for me, a large part of the fun in horse racing games with a homebreeding aspect (which is the only kind I'll play, incidentally) is tracing the various bloodlines of your stable's horses through the generations.

Agreed, and there's really nothing on the market currently that can both do that and recreate the feeling of American racing. The Racing Breed (linked above) is the closest I've found. It really is an excellent game. Claiming races, two 2yo auctions, real-life breeding to start which eventually becomes completely fictional as horses in the game world become sires and mares. Furthermore, the developers seem very open to user suggestions for the next version. Homebreds have been requested repeatedly, so I'd assume they'll make it in.

[TCY Junkie]

Agreed, and there's really nothing on the market currently that can both do that and recreate the feeling of American racing. The Racing Breed (linked above) is the closest I've found. It really is an excellent game. Claiming races, two 2yo auctions, real-life breeding to start which eventually becomes completely fictional as horses in the game world become sires and mares. Furthermore, the developers seem very open to user suggestions for the next version. Homebreds have been requested repeatedly, so I'd assume they'll make it in.

This game has very good potential. Hard to keep up with what the best horses are doing. A ton of info in the game but hard to get to all of it. The game does not keep track of enough history of the retired horses. The biggest complaint is trying to find the next race(all the races are listed and you have to find the ones they are eligible for). Also a few too many horses get trapped on the inside. Would highly recommend the demo, but could easily understand if you don't like the game.

[daedalus]

I'm still waiting for the day they make a Derby Owners Club PC or console adaptation.i would be there in a heartbeat.

i miss being able to play DOC.

still have all my horses. :D

[cartman]

Wasn't there an online version of Derby Owners Club released for the PC?

[PineTar]

http://www.horseracegame.com/images/sim_only.gif

What does that even mean?

[cuervo72]

no breeding to it though hmm

Geez, even FF7 allowed you to breed Chocobos.

[QuikSand]

That does a fantastic job of recreating the feeling of racing. But there's no real career play. So if what you're interested in is putting Secretariat, Citation, Seattle Slew, etc.. into a race together and seeing how it plays out, this game is for you. The historical horses are well modeled and run as they should. Overall - it's a fun game, but it lacks depth for people who like career modes.

On the other hand, I've had A LOT of fun with The Racing Breed (http://theracingbreed.com/). The career mode is very deep, and while there are no homebreds, a breeding farm will buy mares and (good) colts and breed them. So you'll occasionally come across a foal out of one of your mares in the yearling sales. Download the demo and give it a try.

Thanks, sounds like you and I are looking for pretty similar things. I'll give it a look.

I have no interest at all in seeing whether some-guy's-digital-version-of-Seabiscuit can beat some-guy's-digital-version-of-Secretariat.

[Icy]

That "the racing breed" looks like a good game but uggh, i know we are used to FOF but... this interface looks like from the early 80's being generous:

http://theracingbreed.com/screen6.htm

http://theracingbreed.com/screen7.htm

http://theracingbreed.com/screen9.htm

[Ajaxab]

That "the racing breed" looks like a good game but uggh, i know we are used to FOF but... this interface looks like from the early 80's being generous:

http://theracingbreed.com/screen6.htm

http://theracingbreed.com/screen7.htm

http://theracingbreed.com/screen9.htm

It does look like a Powerpoint slide gone horribly wrong.

[billethius]

Oh yeah, the interface and in-game graphics are terrible. It bugged me to no end at first - to the point where I didn't ever watch races and just looked at the results. It didn't take me long to get over all of that, though. For all of its rough edges, and it has plenty, the game is fun and shows a lot of potential for future growth.

Edit: In fact, here's what I wrote over on the OOTP boards:

I picked up The Racing Breed over the weekend after playing around with the demo. It's very raw, especially in the interface and graphics areas, but it does provide a very good thoroughbred racing experience. All in all, it's a very good and deep game for a first release.

Cons:
1. Interface - there are several screens that could be cleaned up and made easier to navigate through. This feels like an old DOS game most of the time.
2. Graphics - the in-race graphics bothered me at first, but I got over it pretty quickly and now watch all races that my horses run in as well as many of the major races taking place at the other tracks.
3. Simulation takes a decent amount of time. Again, this was something that bothered me at first but I don't even notice now. And it makes sense ... if you figure a horse runs every 2 weeks, and they need to fill (say 8 horses) 9 races per day for 5 days per week, there have to be at least 1000 horses in the game that are simulated (running, training, hurt, etc..) every day.
4. My other problems with the game tend to be feature requests rather than actual problems:
-When I go to claim a horse I'd like to see if he's ever routed/sprinted/tried turf before. You can currently only see the last 6 (I think) races.
-I'd also like to know when a horse has been claimed or the owner gives it to a new trainer. The past performance sheet doesn't currently display any of that information.
-No way to search for horses by name or past trainer or anything like that (that I've found).
-I'd like to be able to simulate to a certain date rather than having set amounts of time to simulate (1 day, 1 week, 4 weeks, etc..). And when simulating, I'd like to be able to go back and look at results of races that I missed.

Pros:
1. Realistic breeding using real world sires (and eventually, nice horses that run during the game). Unfortunately, you can't breed your own mares, though when you retire a mare, she is used by the game as a broodmare.
2. Nice auction feature. There are 4 auctions during the year:
-There's a 'horses of racing age' auction in January. Here you can purchase horses that have already been running. I used this to buy a few horses when I started my game, but haven't used it since because it's a bit too easy to buy really nice horses once you have a good amount of money.
-There's a '2-year-olds in training' sale in March. Though as far as I can tell this isn't like a real 2yo in training sale as you don't actually see anything regarding a work for the horse. It's basically a standard 2yo sale just before the racing season for 2yos start.
-There's a yearling sale in early December. You'll see yearlings go for anything from $1k to $1 million+ based on breeding.
-Finally, there's a 'select yearlings' sale in late December. Almost everything here will run over $100k and the breeding overall tends to be better than the normal yearling sale.
3. Full AI run stables (owners, trainers).
4. Full 9-race cards 5 days per week for most of the year at 4 different tracks (California, Florida, Kentucky, New York). You can ship your horses to other tracks, but it does cost you money so I only tend to do it for stakes races.
5. Completely functional racing level system includes claiming races, non-winners of 1, 2, 3 allowance races, and optional claiming races as well as open allowance, smaller stakes races, and graded races. For the most part, the AI does a good job of placing horses where they belong.
6. Trainers realistically train their horses. You'll tend to see horses work as they normally would ... starting with a few 3/8ths works, then a few 1/2 miles, then a few 5/8ths, and finally, if you go long enough without giving them their first start, you might see a 3/4s work. Between races, horses will occasionally work 3/8ths or a 1/2. Furthermore, you can get an idea of your horses abilities by taking a look at their works as the nicer ones tend to work a bit faster than the cheaper horses.

So... if graphics are your thing, this game probably isn't for you. Of course, if you like horse racing and like graphics heavy games, you probably don't own any horse racing games. Everyone else - visit the site and download the demo. It allows you to play through 2 months of racing.

[Honolulu Blue]

visit the site and download the demo. It allows you to play through 2 months of racing.

Did it. Enjoyed it. Sent the order. Thank you very much for the tip!

Graphically it seems to be a step back from good old Hooves of Thunder (which, considering it was released in 1995, is saying something), but under the engine, it's a couple of steps forward. One interesting thing I noticed is that the low and mid level claimers seem to take about 2-3 weeks to get back to full health, while the allowance/handi/stakes racers take longer - around 5-6 weeks. It seems realistic to me, and one of the needed changes from HoT.

Don't quote me, but you might see a dynasty coming up sometime soon.:cool: