Welcome back readers! It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, but I tell ya, the month-long hiatus has done good things and I’m ready to be back in the saddle! Thank you for all you kindness and patience while I recharged.
So we’re going to start off July with a bang– I am going to be reviewing mobile horse games! Specifically for I-phones at the moment, but I might branch out to online horse games, we’ll see. I’m going to play one a month and the first week of every month will be a review/guide for that game!
I’d love it if you would send in requests, but they must fit these parameters:
- No online chatting. That’s right, all of my reviews will be for NON-Multiplayer games, so you can know which games you can safely download without the unexpected surprise of, “oh, this game has chat features now I have to delete it and they have my data, great.”
- HAS TO BE ABOUT HORSES! Otherwise I’m going to be doing this forever.
That’s pretty much it.
For today, let’s dive into the first game I’ve been experimenting with– Wildshade: Fantasy Horse Races.
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Overview
From reading the overview on the App store I thought this game would have more of a storyline, but it doesn’t, really. You race horses, breed them, try to train and upgrade them to race in higher tier levels– you get the idea. There’s a very brief tutorial at the beginning on how to race but other than that it’s mostly a “learn as you go” kinda game, which I really like because I don’t like long tutorials.
Basically, you race against 7 other AI players, and you can jump to get speedboosts and every course is a little different but what is very interesting about this game is the use of “magic spells”.
Yes, they are called that. And I didn’t notice this the first time, but when you use a “spell” (it’s a powerup that you can throw at other players. Yeah I don’t like the verbiage either) the little rider yells words. It’s hard to hear what they are (and I play with the sound off because the horse sound effects get very old, very fast) but that detail does make it feel more like a “spell” than just a powerup which… could be a big problem for some people. It’s fifty-fifty for me.
The graphics are pretty good on this game. You can’t customize humans and they are definitely less quality than the horses. I absolutely love the model for the horses in this game. It’s the perfect mix of cartoony and realistic. Sometimes I can’t help but take a screenshot because they are so cute.
It also makes it a bit shocking when, in the middle of the game, you get hit by a powerup that makes your horse roll on the ground paralyzed while giant ice shards smash it.
This game is weirdly violent for its whimsical graphics. Not in a gory way, but using the spells is the only way to make progress in the game, and they involve throwing fire, planting bombs that actually throw horses to the ground, put up rock barriers for them to trip and smash into, there’s a tornado thing that just makes them spin around, and then that ice thing I mentioned above. There’s no blood but you see these poor, cute animated horses rolling around the ground trying to get up and it’s kind of sad. Maybe I’m just weird and care way too much about little CGI horses but I was not expecting it.
I think the game’s main fault is that every level has a certain “skill requirement” for your horse and right around the middle the horses that you start with stop leveling up and then you realize that in order to do the higher levels, you have to retrain other horses to get UP to that level which can lead you to do several races over and over again just to get to those tiers. Which is a little annoying, because from what I can see, most horses have a base level of 500 to 550, and when you need to get to 750 and you only get 3-5 skill points for every race… it gets exhausting.
The breeding is pretty cool. They have an insane amount of coat combinations. I kind of like that they have this little guide on the side where you can see what every marking looks like. It’s awesome because you can create a custom horse, screenshot it, and then you have a picture of that horse. You can’t PLAY it, but it’s like a custom avatar creator for brainstorming equid characters.
My attempt to make a Hydrequid:
Overall, it’s a decent game. The addiction factor is strangely high despite its misgivings, so I’d recommend having timeblockers if you are like me and could literally play such games all day if allowed… it’s a problem XP.
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Features/Tips/Interesting Notes
- You cannot choose your own name or your horse’s own names in the game. You have to pick from supplied lists. Which I kind of like XP
- Despite the other riders you’re competing against just being AI, they are ruthless. So it feels like you actually have to work to win first place.
- There’s this thing about buying equipment and brushes, because your horses get dirty, but I’m not entirely sure how that affects their racing level. I think the new equipment is just for looks.
- Unicorns cost real life money, despite there being advertised as unicorns in the game, you cannot earn them through normal gameplay.
- Interestingly, there is only 100 levels and so many races, so there is actually an end to it.
- In-game money is called moon coins and sun gems. Sun gems are harder to get than moon coins (do not make the same mistake I did and end up spending all your sun gems on horse breeding because you think that they are the “cheaper” currency). Every day there are two horses in the store that you can buy for an extravagant amount of moon coins or sun gems. You can exchange sun gems for more moon coins, but you have to purchase more sun gems in the game with real world cash or else wait until you earn them leveling up. Brushes and all special equipment can only be purchased with sun gems– moon coins are used to breed horses and buy more stables.
- There is both fantasy colors and real life colors.
- Every few real-life days there is a tournament with high level prizes like mane colors and sun gems or a saddle or something. These will often include higher-tier levels. I use these to train unleveled up horses because they are technically “harder” levels but skill set isn’t an issue with riding.
- DO NOT CLICK ON THE “WIN A PRIZE IN EXCHANGE FOR WATCHING THIS AD” THING! Half the time the ads are broken and you get stuck in that spot where its like “download now” and all you can do is close out the app because NO I DON’T WANT SOLITAIRE THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Usually it’s moon coins anyway and you can earn more racing.
- It would be really nice if they would let you know what a horse’s max level is. I have horses I can’t bear to sell because they’re my favorites but I can’t race with them because they don’t level up and they’re not high-tier enough to ride in half of the races.
- Weird thing: the horses have no assigned gender. So you can just breed them with whichever horses you want. As someone who enjoys accuracy in horse games, I would like stallion/mare assigning (like, I have never seen gender fluidity in any other game with horse breeding, they all have stallion or mare designation, horses ain’t woke people), but it’s not a major issue.
- Tip not discussed in the tutorial: if you press on the screen and hold, releasing just before the timer finishes ticking down, you can get a “perfect” start and get more points.
- If you are ever having trouble with a level, set it aside and come back to it when you get a new horse. For whatever reason a new horse in the game system makes it way easier to win those levels that were giving you grief before.
- Honestly, I would give this game five stars just for the fact that its privacy policy and terms and conditions are so wonderfully easy to read. I hate having to sift through legal jargon because it feels like they’re trying to hide something from me, and Trophy Games had such clear, concise wording that I could have cried. They do state that because of how they collect data to make the games better (they do not sell your data to third parties, which of course is always appreciated), and because of in-app purchases, under 13 year olds cannot play this game without parental or guardian consent.
- Despite there not being a storyline, the settings are pretty cool, and the little bit of lore that is there does spark some story ideas. In fact, my newest WIP was inspired by this game. The lore kinda sounds like a more whimsical version of The Scorpio Races…
Long ago, once a year near the village of Wildshade, something magical took place. A rainbow glow filled the sky, a sign that the wild horses of Wildshade had returned! Nobody knew where they came from or where they would return to. But one thing they did know for sure was that the horses were proud, brave, and worthy of respect. The villagers gathered for a race, each horse choosing their own rider. No sooner were they on the horse than each rider felt free, unbeatable.
And then, tragedy struck: the village and the surrounding area caught fire, the flames were unstoppable. The Wildshade horses never returned. The village was rebuilt and the people returned, the landscape recovered, but there was no sign of the horses.
The people in the village held horse races in memory of those beautiful wild beasts, trying to recapture those magical moments of the past when the horses would appear and the wild race began.
~ Apple Apps Store game descriptionKinda wish they built this lore more into a storyline, but beggars can’t be choosers.
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Conclusion
If you’re looking for a decent little horse racer game with fun equid coat combinations, no chat, and a pretty simple gameplay… Wildshade is for you. The game can get a little repetitive after a while and I don’t know what happens after you hit level 100, but as far as games go, it’s a great start into the world of mobile horse games.
And I mean, the horses look like this! It’s worth trying just to admire these adorable little guys! Or… girls… like I said they don’t specify.
(BTW, know how I mentioned that this game sparked a new idea? This fellow here is the MC’s horse. And yes, he keeps the name Storm Riot BECAUSE ISN’T THAT A COOL HORSE NAME?)
Got any questions about Wildshade? Drop them below! Also, if you have any recs/requests, feel free to send them in the comments as well.