News

Let's start off our 2023 right by getting some feedback from you all!

Select your top 3 favorite horse breeds.

Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly

Happy new year everyone! We hope 2023 is off to an excellent start for you. Today, we are sharing our 2023 plans and updating you on our in-person planning days.

Planning

Bedouin and I met at the end of 2022 for our yearly in-person planning session. Across 2 days, we sat down and talked through all our goals, the future of HoFa, player ideas, and extra features. We also did quite a bit of business planning for our gaming studio.

During our planning days, we spent a lot of our time reviewing the current status of HoFa, features still to be added, and listing features we need to officially say HoFas gameplay is complete. During this time, we managed to list everything we want to accomplish by the end of 2023 in order to “complete” HoFa. This means our biggest overarching goal is to ensure HoFa is complete by the year's end. Talk about a new year's resolution! 

Bedouin and I are both back home and tasking ourselves with more in-depth planning from timelines, hiring goals (ooh), update schedules, business needs, and more. In previous years, we have revealed a full yearly plan in order to remove any mystery of updates and also receive early feedback from players. However, we are going to deviate from our usual year-long plan reveal and try something new.

Update Schedule & Plans

Development Updates

As mentioned, we are going to try something new this year and keep development updates a bit more mysterious than in previous years. We plan to release a monthly development update on the 4th Thursday of every month starting in February. We know this might seem a bit boring to most, but we do want to note that our first two goals are to officially squash every in-game bug and greatly increase load speed before we add a new feature. We also want to mention we are prioritizing features we have announced previously but have not finished yet, like explore.

As for player feedback, we are going to implement a new review process behind the scenes which involves more input from our current staff team, but also through utilizing the Premium Forum more often. After a feature is launched live, we will have a new feedback review process which includes collecting thoughts from the community as a whole.

Art Updates

During 2023, we have quite a few new feature development plans but also expanding current features and focusing on plenty of art updates. Art updates will be intermingled between development updates with some occurring on development update days. Art tends to take a lot of time to complete and with our current plans, some new additions are going to take months to finish. We’re looking at you, racing tack. 

Community Events

We also sat down for a bit and mulled over the idea of creating a consistent streaming schedule. We view HoFa as a source of information and education for many and want to share both Bedouin and my skills with our community. As of now, we are still considering ideas for live streams with the community, so if you have a request, drop it below. 😀

Also for the community, we are aiming to bring back in-game events that are both solo and team-based. We currently have plans for larger quarterly events and maybe even a few smaller events in between!

TLDR:

So, what should you expect this year?

• Consistent monthly development update schedule with new features, bug fixes, and expansions.
• Large art updates that include tack sets, backgrounds, items, and more.
• More community building through streams and events.

Our first updates of the year will be weekly roundups of bug squashes which will occur on Fridays during January. Then, our first development update will be on February 23rd. 

Next Update: Jan 6

Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly

Another year has passed! Every year, we try to look back at the previous year and see what we’ve accomplished. It’s a great chance to see it all at once and celebrate our wins! This year has really gone by quickly for both Bedouin and I. Despite being busy in our personal lives, we managed to accomplish quite a bit for Horse Fable as we’ve outlined below.

Parts of this year were really slow and other parts were quite productive. We want to thank everyone for sticking with us through another year of ups and downs in Horse Fable’s development. We’re excited to wrap up this year and dive into next year!

Here’s a list of all we’ve accomplished this year, split up by quarter.

By the Feature

Quarter 1

• Crossbreed Marking Variations
• Item Unequipper
• 2022 Breeding Bonanza
• March Madness

Quarter 2

• Grade horse layers
• Appaloosa Redo
• Genetics Search
• Player Search
• Appaloosa Re-Do
• Leopard Variations
• Tennessee Walker and Irish Cob leopard variation 4 auction
• 2022 Spring Fling
• Variation Pass Token
• Increased breeding variation pass rates
• Horse auctions returned
• Stud & brood list returned
• Horse sale list
• Dutch Warmblood
• Rainbow Western Pad
• New Splash Variation
• Added the ability to choose variations in Spectral Tokens
• Face Re-Roll Token
• Community Feed
• Select All in Mass Equip
• Horses get energy returned if removed from discipline shows
• Discipline Show Changes - horse point payout increase
• Removed the 10-horse limit to halter shows
• Community hub that lists all boarding centers
• Hall of Fame returned
• Sticky tabs returned
• mass update working paths
• Registry and Club Forums

Quarter 3

• Horse Fable attended BreyerFest!
• Club Shows
• Tack Uses
• Tab Freezing
• Promo Code System
• Custom Horse Backgrounds returned
• Previewer
• Explore - discoverable items, wild horse capturing
• Crafting System - Cooking
• Crafting System - Dyeing
• German Hats
• Halters, blankets, polos
• Harnesses
• Hanoverian
• 2022 German Fables
• vaulting discipline
• Black and Brown Harnesses
• Mustang Re-do
• Background Update: Stable
• Explore items
• The Equinox Collection
• Dyed Saddle Pads
• Horse Fa-Boo-l Halloween 2022
• Halloween items and The Witch's Cauldron          

Quarter 4

• 2022 Winter Tack Set
• Winter Solstice Dye Collection
• Gingerbread & Snowflake Harnesses

By the numbers

• New accounts: 2,770
• Items introduced: 751
• Recipes introduced: 692
• New breeds: 2
• Breed re-dos: 2

Look for a New Year’s post tomorrow as we start to look forward into 2023!

Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly

Happy Holidays from HoFa! Today begins a bit of a vacation for HoFa staff but we aren’t leaving you without a few extra holiday goodies.

❄️☃️ NEW! Gingerbread & Snowflake Harnesses ☃️❄️

Down from the workshop and rolling in on the early train,  a new set of harnesses have arrived in the lands. A new pair of holiday tack pieces have been handcrafted at the capital and are ready to be used! The Gingerbread Harness and Snowflake Harnesses are the first seasonal harnesses to be released to us all. Both tack pieces offer a show and twin boost, with Gingerbread Harnesses offering a large twin boost. Both are available until December 30th at midnight EST/game time.

🌕🌌 Winter Solstice Dye Collection 🌌 🌕

As fall fades away, we must say goodbye to the Equinox dyes and turn our eyes to something new. Winter Solstice recently occurred which means our new winter dye collection is officially ready to ring in the new season. 

The Winter Solstice dye collection includes five new dyes that are based on the colors of winter and the holidays.

Cinnamon - A common ingredient in many holiday dishes. From Rugelach to Coffee Cake, cinnamon warms our hearts as we enjoy the holiday season. This dye is a darker red/brown hue.

Snowcream - An old tradition around the holidays for Curly and her friends, snowcream was made using snow (yes the outdoors kind), sugar, and cream. Now no longer a tradition (you know snow is dirty right?) but a happy memory, snowcream may live on in Horse Fable. :) This dye is a medium cream color.

Frasier Fir - Inspired by the biggest agricultural product in Curly’s hometown. Frasier Fir trees are a time-honored tradition for many. These trees are a wonderful blue/green hue and are most beautifully decorated for the Christmas season. This dye is a medium blue/green hue.

Dark Teal - Now a more common holiday color for ornaments, wrapping paper, and clothing, Dark Teal is a beautiful dark blue-green color perfect to complement blue-eyed horses.

Ice - Every year ice tends to be a hot topic in our households. As temperatures fall and we all attempt to drive to holiday events, ice tends to be quite the issue. This dye is a light blue/purple hue. 

Winter Solstice dyes can be found around the lands until February 27th at midnight. 

🎅🏻🔔 Ho, Ho, Ho! 🔔🎅🏻

Sleighbells ring, and down from the chimney comes a Santa Hat, Jingle Bells, and a Poinsettia! Deck the halls and celebrate the season with a cute new hat and these fancy jingle bells. Both items are available in the General Store until December 30th. Poinsettias can be found while out exploring the lands until Februrary 27th at midnight.

✨🎁 Gift Bundles 🎁✨

Treat yourself this holiday season and grab a gift bundle or two! Several winter item bundles have been added to the Ingot Store in bulk at a discounted price for those who wish to buy in bulk! Items included are Winter Solstice Dyes, 2022 Winter Tack Set, Santa Hat, Gingerbread Harnesses, and more! These packages are available until December 30th at midnight EST/ game time.

🎄🗓️ 12 Days of Giving 🗓️🎄

Our 12 Days of Giving wrapped up yesterday but you may have noticed all of the items are still with us. We wanted to give everyone a bit longer to purchase these re-released items and have extended their sale date until December 30th at midnight EST/Game time. We hope you manage to grab a little bit of everything!

❄️📦 A Gift For You 📦❄️

It wouldn’t be the season of giving if we didn’t give you all a bit of something from us! Use code HappyHolidays at Town Hall to receive a bundle of goodies from us. 🙂

We hope you all have a wonderful rest of the holiday season and we greatly look forward to an amazing 2023!

Holiday Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly

It’s our final day of giving and today we are bringing back another tack set!

🍪 Day 12 of Giving

Today we are bringing back last year's holiday tack set, Gingerbread tack! This tack set comes in both english and western versions and offers a large twin boost. Single tack pieces can be bought in the General Store.

❓ A Question

What’s your favorite holiday?

Holiday Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly