News

Hello everyone!

Upcoming Tack & Seasonal Backgrounds

We will be launching the western versions of valentines tack in a few weeks. Previously, the english valentines tack was available as bundles in the ingot store and included the saddle, bridle, pad, and a cherry blossom background. We are considering releasing the tack sets in the general store for ingots at a cost per piece instead. This would mean you can buy single pieces to mix and match rather than full sets. We need feedback on which option everyone would prefer.

Would you rather:

Option 1: Valentines tack sets be sold as bundles in the ingot store. Includes 1 saddle, 1 bridle, and 1 pad. This would exclude the cherry blossom background from previous years (see potential adjustment below).

Option 2: Valentines tack sets be sold as individual pieces in the general store.

Note: Valentine's tack will cost ingots as it has a large twin bonus.

We are also considering ingot cost adjustments to seasonal backgrounds such as the upcoming re-release of the cherry blossom background. Currently, seasonal backgrounds cost 100 ingots and had not offered any perks for equipping. This was decided on an old community poll which indicated the majority of players did not want perks for ingot items and wanted them to be strictly aesthetic only. We would like to hear feedback on a few options for backgrounds.

Would you rather:

Option 1: Keep seasonal backgrounds at 100 ingots but add a significant perk.

Option 2: Lower seasonal background to 50 ingots and add a small perk.

Option 3: Keep seasonal backgrounds at 100 ingots and add no perk. Keeps items as-is

Option 4: Lower seasonal backgrounds to 50 ingots and add no perk. Just lower their cost.

Please leave a comment in this post to let us know your vote for the tack and seasonal backgrounds. Also, for those of you who can't afford ingot items we haven't forgotten you! We will have a few bit cost items coming your way. :)

In the Background

Bedouin and I are working in the background to get lots of things adjusted, replanned, and in tip-top shape before we begin pushing large updates. I will be working on manually editing all reported broken horses in the bug box as well as prepping for our valentines update which takes up quite a bit of time. I also am reviewing applications for our focus group and will be reaching out to those who are selected once our first set of group questions are ready to be sent out. Expect an update in the next 2 weeks centering around valentines day and community! We are still having to work around our current real-life situations so everyone's patience is greatly appreciated and we thank you for sticking around as we adjust to our new reality. 

Have a wonderful rest of the week everyone!

Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly

Hello everyone and happy almost mid-week!

🌈 Grade Images

We have finished up the current grade image requests and have added markings and colors for Arabians, Andalusians, Clydesdales, Shetlands, Iberian Warmbloods, Welsh Ds, Thoroughbreds, Norwegian Fjords, and Brumbies. Congrats to players Wild_Brumby, Raine, SweetChinMusic, StirFry, Caledonia Acres, Middy, Rivendell Ranch, and Daria!

✨ Focus Group

We have had a lot of interest in giving feedback for our focus groups and will be looking for a few people to join the focus group team. If you are interested in joining our focus groups please email support at [email protected] with your in-game name, why you are interested, and if applicable, Discord name.

🐆 Live Stream - Leopard Markings

We will be doing a 1-hour live stream tomorrow, January 19th, at 8:30 PM EST/game time on our Discord server. Join us as we attempt to make the most spotty leopard variation possible! Those who join can give feedback on the markings and even marking ideas for leopard variations. Who knows, maybe we will get into something extra wild!

Before we end today's news post we wanted to ask another general question for all our players! On the topic of markings, what is your favorite marking in-game?

Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly

Happy weekend everyone! Today we have part 2 of our 3 part marking variation update!

Crossbreed Marking Variations

Up until now, crossbreeds did not have all the marking variations purebreds had. I have officially finished all layers for crossbreeds for leopard genes, KIT genes (To, Sa1, W#), frame overo (Fr), and splash white (SW). All KIT genes have 6 variations for both maximum and minimum types, 4 variations for maximum and minimum splash whites, 6 variations for overo, and 3 variations for all leopard patterns.

In our next marking update, we will be finishing up current grade horse image requests and variation 2 for roan. We expect this to be done by mid-week next week. Skewed roan and duns will be added once we are off our art pause.

Leopard Variations

In the upcoming month, we will be adding more leopard variations to total to 6 per leopard variation type. As of now, all breeds with Lp have three leopard variations. Today we have added 1 more variation for leopard for Appaloosas and Mustangs in the foundation store. Those who won our design a white marking contest will be contacted next week about their prize!

Focus Group

We have had a lot of interest in giving feedback for our focus groups and will be looking for a few people to join the focus group team. If you are interested in joining our focus groups please email support at [email protected] with your in-game name, why you are interested, and if applicable, Discord name.

Before we end today's news post we wanted to ask a general question for all our players. If you could add any one item to the game, what would it be and what would it do?

Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly

Hello everyone and happy 2022! Today, we have quite a bit to share for our 2022 plans.

Updates

In 2022, we expect to follow a monthly update schedule for game features with possible bug fix updates in between. As of now, we plan to only alert everyone of our monthly updates or any large bug fix updates. Some smaller bug fix updates may be posted to the news but not to social media or our Discord server.

As of now, both Bedouin and I are stretched very thin due to personal reasons, jobs, and working on HoFa. Moving to a monthly update schedule will help us both more easily prioritize getting game features out without causing a ton of disturbance to what we need to tend to personally. We hope you all understand we are not going missing in action anytime soon and have already scheduled well in advance to do our best to ensure features move out smoothly and on time.

Also for 2022, we are moving to a once-a-month art update schedule because we are still recovering from our last quarters spending. As of now, we have a pause on art spending until revenue increases to where we can consistently pay for art. This means there will not be a breed update for January. We will, however, be focusing on marking variations and any grade image requests for January.

Quarter 1 Features

For 2022, we have decided to reveal features we will be working on per quarter rather than our yearly plan. We believe this can help us better adjust to a monthly update schedule and also more easily adjust plans as needed.

In our first quarter, we expect to release:

 -  Explore features with a map, items, wild horses, and more. You will be able to move around a map and explore the lands of HoFa around the town of Eqcetera. This will be our first big step into a very new type of game feature so it may roll out in several updates to ensure bugs are squished.

 -  Achievements will also be added as a way to earn extra currency and maybe even items! There will be several types of achievements that will help you by guiding you through several game aspects. These will also give you a bit more guidance as to possible game goals rather than wandering aimlessly as we do now. :)

 -  Gardening. Yes, this may be surprising to many of you but we have decided to add gardening. This has been in the works for the past year and hasn’t been added due to well, we rebuilt the game and added a bunch of other stuff before. However, gardening will offer many new items and also help benefit the economy. 

All of the above listed features will all intermingle and offer many more hours of content for you all to enjoy. We believe this is a great first step toward a game that has an economy that isn’t as dependent on premium currency (ingots) nor solely on show winnings. 

Rest of Year

We do have a general idea of features for the rest of 2022. Historically, we have mapped these out by month but since we may be making adjustments on the fly, we only wish to mention them as being added this year.

In no particular order we plan to add:

 -  Player versus player competitions. These will offer the ability to challenge others in one on one competition.

 -  Player jobs. Earn a bit more income through working various jobs. This way you can earn bits when finances get rough or if you just want a larger money hoard.

 -  Estate builder. This is an art heavy feature which will include the ability to build your own beautiful estate in the way you have always envisioned. 

 -  Feature request. We will eventually open up a feature request for players to suggest ideas to be added to the game.

 -  Club shows. Club owners can make club halter shows for horses registered to a crossbreed campaign. This means those in the campaign will also have their breed changed to the campaign breed.

 -  Campaign activity. There will be changes to crossbreed campaigns which require activity in the campaign for it to continue. Any campaigns that are deemed “inactive” will be marked as inactive and the campaign will be available for someone else to claim.

 -  Halter show changes. We will be changing halter shows to run every 24 hours rather than based on entrants. This means even 1 entrant will run a show but payout will be scaled down for smaller shows.

 -  Discipline show changes. We plan to run discipline shows more frequently to help the cron jobs be more smooth. This will mean discipline shows will run every 6 hours and will run much faster than the 1 to 2 hours they take now. We will also be adjusting the horse point payout for higher tier shows so those horses earn more levels than now.

 -  Vet fees. Dr. Bea Hoofinit will offer more vet options from fixing boo boos to checking for any possible diseases. We won't go too wild on this, they’re pixel horses after all.

 -  Ice Pastures. We will add ice pastures for those who wish to send specific horses to be frozen while also still being able to play. This will have a cooldown time per horse when they are removed from the ice pasture. Frozen horses do have to thaw out!

 -  Additional town. Ideally, we will have another town added by the end of 2022. This means more NPCs, locations, exploration, and possibly much more!

Should we end up on a faster schedule than we expect, some of these features may possibly come in quarter 1. As a note, features that will be art heavy most likely won't be added until mid-year or later to give our artists time to work.

Changes Soon

It’s that time of year where we all decided to make changes. HoFa is a wonderful game as it is but there are quite a few aspects of the game we believe are weak as they are and are causing quite a problem with our game economy. These are the foundation store and tack. 

Foundation Store

As of now, you can buy as many foundation horses as you like which means most of you buy foundation horses until you have enough amazing ones. Retirement pastures are filled to the brim with retired unwanted horses and Sae Vedd is quite done with the massive influx of yeeted unwanted equines. On February 5th, we plan to implement a foundation store limit of 20 horses per day. Doing so means we feel more comfortable adding in a highly requested feature, a better foundation store which offers higher quality horses for a higher cost. These horses will be pre-generated and you will be able to see everything about them prior to purchase. This will probably be added at a later date after February 5th.

Tack

Right now tack lasts forever and never breaks or needs replacing. Also on February 5th, we will be adding uses per tack piece. All types of tack such as saddles, bridles, pads, backgrounds, and even companions, will have limited uses. Items costing ingots will last longer than those costing bits. Adding in this change means we feel more confident adding in items with greater benefits and potentially adjusting item prices.

Office Hours & Staffing

Both Bedouin and I are quite bogged down and doing our best to balance all life has handed to us. To help us, we have decided to make specific office hours in which we will actively be checking the bug box, chats, and email. This ensures that you all can better expect email replies and potential bug fixes at certain times. Currently, our hours will be 10 AM to 4 PM EST/game time on weekdays. Anything outside of these hours will be addressed at the next open office hours.

We will also soon be opening up applications to join our focus group. As a member of the focus group, you will have access to special feedback forms that Bed and I will use to direct game play plans. More information will be sent on this once we get closer to a focus group time.

2022 New Breeds

In 2022, we plan to add several new breeds to our HoFa family. With well over 100 options narrowed down to just 25, we now have our top list of breeds to be added. We do not want to spoil much, but we can say a few we will be adding. In no particular order, we will welcome:

 -  Paso Fino. A gaited horse breed with quite a fancy step!

 -  Icelandic. A popular Icelandic breed with a unique gait, the tolt.

 -  Shire. Bigger is better! These draft horses are the largest in the world.

 -  Dutch Warmblood. Finally, a warmblood breed to add a bit of spice to our breed lineup.

We have no specific dates as to when new breeds will be released but maybe if enough excitement occurs for one of them..they could be first? 👀

As a note, it's possible for there to be changes to this general schedule with some features or art occurring quicker or later than expected. Anytime something may change, we will let you all know in advance. 

Here’s to a great 2022!

Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly

It’s time to put a wrap on 2021 and gallop on into 2022! We have many achievements from 2021 and although our plans changed slightly (Spoiler, it was actually a lot), we managed to make the best of it!

January

January brought us the Breeding Clinic with straw, eggs, and embryos. We also added in changes to account freezing and featured our first road map. We also welcomed the Tennessee Walking Horse!

February

February marked the addition of our first special tack sets, Red Velvet and Strawberries N’ Cream, to celebrate Valentine’s day. Alongside these tack sets the Cherry Petals background item was also added. The generic stock horse image was also added to give generic stock breeds a beautiful new look!

February marked the addition of some surprising new features, Grade Horses, and crossbreed campaigns. Creating your own breed was now possible as well as breeding any color into any breed.

March

In March, we celebrated St. Patrick’s day with the release of two new saddle pads, Shamrock Green and Festive Orange, and a few forum contests. We also welcomed the Knabstrupper breed with all of its wonderful spots.

March began our expansion of horses to have personalities, careers, and foal training! Horses now had personalities and could be entered into careers to earn bits. Horse energy was also added which determines the number of horse actions per day. Horse energy removed breeding fail wait times and gave basic and upgraded players the same number of shows per day. 

April

After a wild March, we took it slower in April to make some changes to halter shows and catch up on bugs. That didn’t stop us from adding in a new wiggly companion. Earthworms were added as a companion along with more April Fools pranks around the site. 

We also welcomed the generic pony base which gave all generic pony crossbreeds a cute new look! Alongside the pony release, we also made our first community tack sets, Fire and Ice and enchanted Lake sets.

May

May marked a big month for us as we were preparing to reset the entire game economy. We scaled down the number of bits in-game and made short-term adjustments to help level out the economy. The breeding planner, foal predictor, and mass actions were added to help with QoL. Up to this point, we had followed our 2021 roadmap fairly well! We aren’t known to let things go fairly well for long, are we?

Percherons joined us in late May 2021 and marked our 2nd draft breed and encouraged us to add a new discipline, Pulling. 

June

June was a slow month as we were working on our behind-the-scenes plans for HoFa launch and the announcement for our branding change. However, we did add in the rainbow saddle pad and welcomed the Quarter Horse art re-do!

July

July was a month full of art and changes. We welcomed the Ahkal-Teke as a rare breed and also completed all somatic mutations. Our first few grade horses were bred including Lp in Andalusians, Cr, and Lp in Arabians!

July brought discipline show tiers which expanded discipline showing for those who had topped out in the show system. This also introduced discipline tier benefits which work just like halter title benefits.

August

We vastly changed our plans in August and announced a rebrand and change to the site. We announced HoFa branding and launch on August 7th which was being worked on in the background of all our updates. We also welcomed the draft cross base so all draft crosses had beautiful new art.

With the announcement, we were able to give some details as to what we were doing and the game plan for the rest of 2021. Our plans were laid out in the background for us to add in NPCs, quests, and exploring all of which would take plenty of dev time and even more art costs.

September

We kept September light on the game updates so we could focus on all things HoFa and ensure the site was moved over to a new layout and all new code. The game was being built from the ground up in just a few short months so all our energy and efforts had to be directed to that for launch.

This is around the time we realized we had so much more to do than expected. However, that has never stopped us before. On top of the change to HoFa we managed to add in both light draft art and re-do the Shetland Pony art!

October

On October 16th, we internally launched HoFa to all current players for testing. This was not without a few bumps and even more crazy bugs. During this time, we were also plowing along with quest writing and NPC making. In total we had 13, 14 if you want to count Crowley, unique NPCs to design, write, and send off for art.

We also were preparing for our explore feature with 18 new items for art as well as a map. Oh yes, a map. ;)

November

In November, we welcomed a whole town full of local NPCs and opened the doors to the public! November was a crazy month full of bugs, new additions, and so much more we have actually lost count of everything. November was also a wild month for both Bedouin and me as real-life became exponentially more complicated thus hindering some of our plans. 

We released the American Saddlebred as our first new breed for HoFa alongside the new dirt layers for ungroomed horses! Quests were live but quite bugged as we spent several weeks convincing the locals they don’t have to talk in circles. Also added in November was our second community-colored tack set, the Light Tan. We also updated our German shepherd and turkey companions, added a new career, and added player level and traits.

December

We took a step back in December and decided to focus on bug fixes over adding in the exploration update. This allowed us to knock out many bugs and prioritize bug fixes in December on into January. We did however manage to add in a new breed, Morgans, and not one but SIX new markings, two new tack sets, and update the reindeer calf and great horned owl to end our year with a bang!

The Numbers

In 2021 we…

  - Welcomed 5 new breeds, 2 art re-dos, and 4 new generic cross bases.

  - Added in 10 new saddle pads, 7 saddles, and 7 bridles for a grand total of 5,327 tack image layers.

  - Completed gemstone tack totaling 1,932 image layers.

  - Completed Western Tack, a highly requested tack set! Adding in 1,748 more tack images.

  - Completed several marking variations totaling over 1,200 unique marking layers with quadrillions of coat color options.

  - Grew to 9,200+ accounts with more added daily.

  - Posted two end-of-year polls with over 200+ responses.

  - Welcomed 14 new locals with quests for 11 of them!

  - Added 12 quests to try our hand at quest input with several more awaiting being added. ;)

  - Had one public launch and we released HoFa to the world!

Wrapping Up

We are amazed how far we managed to come in 2021 even with many on-the-fly adjustments, changes, bug fixes, crazy ideas, and even rough days. As a community, we always manage to make it through all of our changes be they exciting, not very popular, or even some that are unexpected. We are often motivated to keep going thanks to the encouragement of our player base which often in tough times helps Bedouin and me through even the worst of days.

2022 holds fantastic features that are the beginning of polishing HoFa to be what we like to call “the future of horse sim gaming.” We tend to try not to boast or pat ourselves on the back publicly, but given how tough 2020 and 2021 have been for us both, we are pretty proud of what we have accomplished. We would never have gotten this far without our player base there to help guide us to what kind of game you all want. We believe HoFa is great and will be even better, thanks to listening to all our players have to say. So, thanks for being such a wonderful support system and giving wonderful feedback.

Be on the lookout on January 8th for a rough draft of our 2022 road map. There is plenty in store for our next year and we are excited to have you all along for the ride.

Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly