Alexandra Ledermann 8 - Les Secrets Du Haras

Summary
Emma, aspiring veterinarian from California, ends up at a stud farm in Provence, France, led by Flora from the previous game. The main story of the game is solving the mystery around Marie, the stud farm's disappeared owner, in order to save the farm from a greedy investor. There's also riding competitions and an open area to trail ride in, and you can breed foals and raise them.

Game Design
The game is in 3D, with photorealistic textures. It's not a fully open world, but you can ride around a small map and access most game locations from there. You are mostly free to do as you please, but once you are in the middle of a quest, your actions may be limited to quest related things.

Time
Time moves in incoherent ways in the game. It is day-based, and days add up to weeks and months. However, each month consists of one week of seven regular week days. A game year consists of 84 days. However, horses age differently from the regular year: they age 4 months every Sunday, so a horse ages a year within 3 weeks (=months) of player time. The current date is in your calendar (press “1” to get there). The game starts on Saturday, August 2007 when you arrive in the village.

The different months come with northern hemisphere seasons (Winter in Dec / Jan / Feb; Summer in Jun / Jul / Aug; etc). Each season changes the textures of the environment, coloring the leaves or covering the world in snow (which crunches underfoot!). There are three different weather conditions per season (like fog, rain, snow, sun, cloudy), which are randomized with different probabilities. Cold / wet weather will affect horses that are left in the pasture overnight or given a bath. There is a daylight cycle with dawn, day, twilight and night, affected by the season – days are shorter in winter.

The main story is not tied to the passing of specific dates (there is usually a waiting period of a few days between chapters). Some quests are tied to specific times in the day, though. If you miss the time window, you need to try again the next day. Some regular side events have fixed week days. The village has market days (for tack / clothing) on Thursdays and Sundays 8am to 6pm. Competition days are Wednesdays and Saturdays between 8am and 4pm. Every Sunday, Emma gets her weekly wages added to her inventory. There is a notification about market day, competition day or pay day when Emma wakes up in the morning. Village NPCs may behave differently depending on time and weekday (e.g. most are in church on Sunday morning and in their own houses at night).

The day cycle has a lot of influence on game progress. Unlike its prequels, this game has an ongoing clock while on the stud farm, in the village or in the countryside. An in-game hour takes a real-life minute. Story events as well as horse care activities, discipline training, or fast-traveling stop the clock and take a pre-defined amount of time instead. There are time limitations for certain actions, like not doing horse care late at night (past 8pm). These time limits also come into effect for some of the story quests. Emma can set an alarm for 6am-10am, and choose to go to bed anytime from 8pm. Otherwise, Emma is teleported to bed at 4am, and a new day starts. This means a day can have 10-22 hours to use up. If you were to just spend it waiting for the day time to run down, this would be 10-22 minutes, but the real time you put into the day depends on whether you do activities that take more real time than game time, or activities like fast travel that take up more game time than real time.

When saving and reloading the game, Emma is always teleported to her bedroom, while the time is as it was saved.

Here's a list of time each activity uses up: ''This is taken from the game file “DayMng_GameplayTime.txt”. If you want to mess with game files to change these times, read below.''

Some areas use up time even for just entering its menu. The computer uses up the set time even if you just open it and stare at a blank screen, and shopping uses time for each action – both when clicking “buy” on an item (whether you click Yes or No), and when you close the store menu.

Unclear: What is Box? Entering / leaving the stable does not use up time.

As you unlock more of the map, some fast travel points become available: The stud farm, the countryside around it, the village entrance, the north of the village right by the market, the south of the village in front of the church, and later in the game the forest and gorges areas that you can get to from the countryside trails. These travel points use up a set amount of time, often way more than actually riding there would be.

Fast Travel depends which area you travel from / to:

Controls
Arrow Keys for walking (no WASD) – Up = forward, Right/Left to steer (no function on Down). Hold Shift for running, or double press Up. Arrow Keys for riding, jump with shift (only at designated obstacles), quick start or stop with Shift + Up/Down. Space to interact with items/people/location gates. For some things, you need the mouse (interacting with menus, horse care activities, lunging minigame etc). To change the key binding directly in your save file, see the Key Binding section.

Gameplay
Emma stays at the stud farm to help out, and soon learns about the mystery around the disappearance of Flora's friend Marie. While training horses and taking part in competitions are gameplay features, they take second place behind solving the mystery. While some story events involve riding, a lot of time is spent running on foot through the French village close to the stud farm. It's possible to almost completely ignore the horses and just pursue the main story, which does not require Emma to be a successful rider, or even to do the work at the stud farm she gets paid to do.

Player Stats
Emma has four stats. Popularity is raised by participating in competitions and buying clothing, hairstyles and assessoires in the market. But what is it for? Chances are that the mechanic is left over from the two prequel games, where popularity was part of the weekly grades at the boarding school. Teaching is experience with the lunging training. A higher level unlocks more challenging / varied lunging exercises. Comprehension is experience with the Dialogue activity. A higher level unlocks more needs the horse may express. Champion Vision is a feature to use in training and competition. It will slow down to allow for better jump timing (Cross Country & Jumping) or shows the path you need to memorize (dressage). Tokens are the game's currency. You start out with 80 tokens, and will earn 1000 Tokens every Monday morning as a salary. You can also win tokens (5 figure range) when competing. You can spend it on items which are either riding clothes, tack for your horse, casual clothes, hair dyes, collection items, or quest items.



Horse Stats
In the horse's profile, you can see its age, sex, breed, coat color (which is mostly inaccurate), health conditions and stats.

Care Stats
Coat, Hoof, Appetite and Stall are tied to the usual minigame activities. Physique is the energy a horse has, which is depleted by riding the horse in disciplines and by illnesses. Morale is the horse's happiness. Both increase when the horse is left in the pasture for the day, which includes doing activities in the pasture (Lunging, Dialogue) – except sometimes it does NOT increase when doing them?!. Trust is raised by doing the Dialogue activity, and Training by lunging the horse. For more details, the dedicated Fandom Wiki has a full article on care and its stats.



Skill Stats
When accessing the horse's profile from a training or competition interface, the care stats are not shown, instead you see the discipline stats: Agility corresponds to Dressage. Endurance corresponds to Cross Country. Muscle Structure corresponds to Jumping. Each skill can be trained up to the individual potential of the horse. A horse starts at level 0, though some bought horses will already be partly trained. The potential is displayed as 1-5 horseshoes. Each horseshoe is rounded to 100 points, in the game files (see below), you can see the exact value between 100 (?) and 500 points. The pink training bar is the permanent stat bar that fills up until the next level (1-5) is reached. Sometimes, a part of the training bar will be displayed in purple – this part of the training isn't fully settled in the horse's brain yet, unless you train again on the same day, it may decay overnight. Maxed stats are displayed in white (unconfirmed!). Ageing Each horse ages 4 months each Sunday – that means a year in horse age is 3 weeks in player time. A foal grows up into an adult horse at the age of 2 years. The coat is automatically converts to the corresponding adult one. From a certain age (which?), a horse becomes retired, and can no longer do training activities.

Horse Customization
There are five horse breeds that differ slightly in their model (size, placement of tail). They are the same model and coat variations we get in the prequel.
 * “French” (Selle Français)
 * “Arabian”
 * “English” (English Thoroughbred)
 * “Conemara” (Connemara Pony)
 * “Appaloosa”

There are 9 coat variations, available for all the breeds (except Appaloosa, which only comes in leopard and piebald).

Horse Care
In the stable, you can access feeding, medication, mucking, brushing and hoof picking, which either gives you little cut scenes, or the usual grooming minigames. Brush (but not the head!), scrape hooves (but not the frog!), remove dirty straw and replace with fresh straw. This is meant to be done every day, but stats don't always decay over night (might be a bug). Only the energy stat requires regular care so it replenishes, allowing to ride the horse in training. If you neglect your horse, it's likely to get sick, which, if untreated, immobilizes the horse for some time, which means you can not train it.

From the stable, you can also access the pasture with your horse, where you can hose down your horse (check for weather, or horse can get sick!), or train lunging or horse behaviour.

Illnesses
When you get a notification in the morning that your horse is sick, you can take care of that in the stable at the first aid box. You need to pick the correct remedy to cure the horse. You'll get a cutscene about the treatment, then your horse is fine again. If you pick the wrong one twice in a row, a vet will be called, cure your horse, but immobilize it for a day, meaning you can't ride training or competitions with it. You can still ride your horse for transport, though. The same applies if you don't treat your horse at all.

Dialogue Activity
Like in its prequel, there's a dialogue activity. You get three separate cutscenes where your horse expresses a certain behaviour. You need to pick the correct reaction from a menu to fulfill the horse's needs and raise your skill in this. Hints on correct reactions are given when studying horse behaviour in Flora's office. The dialogue activity is available for both adults horses and foals, but they may have different needs, or different ways of expressing the same need!



Lunging
New in this game is the lunging mode. (In the English version, it's simply called “training”). This requires keyboard controls to control gait and direction, as well as simultaneous mouse control, following a marking on the floor and collecting bonus (or minus..) points. This is available for both adult horses and foals.

Riding
There are three disciplines to train and compete in – dressage, show jumping, and cross-country. The mechanics have been slightly updated from the last game. Move with Arrow Keys, jump with space. When standing still, you can hold Shift when pressing Up, and immediately canter. The same way, Shift+Down does a complete stand still. If you run into obstacles of any kind (or invisible walls) at a rather straight angle, your horse will refuse and stand still. If the angle is slight enough, the horse will move aside (not like a horse, more like a billard ball) and keep going.



Cross Country
The next obstacle is lit up with a colorful circle that indicates whether the horse's speed is correct. Blue/Turquoise will be a perfect jump, green is a good one, and anything below yellow will lead to a refusal. You can use the feature "Champion Vision" to put the horse in slow motion so you can get the speed and angle exactly right on tricky jumps.



Show Jumping
In front of each obstacle, there is a colorful bar on the floor. Altering speed will change its color (same color coding as Cross Country), depending on horse's skills, it will be easier or harder (or impossible) to get the best colors. You can use the feature "Champion Vision" to put the horse in slow motion so you can get the speed and angle exactly right on tricky jumps.



Dressage
Dressage follows a line of dots on the floor, which indicate the path as well as the requested gait. Gaits come with extended/collected modifier keys. There are special figures like passage or pirouette etc that are executed by repeating a set of arrow keys in the right order. Another type of task is riding by memory along a line that disappears once you start. You can use the feature "Champion Vision" to display the line (Press twice fast to turn the feature off again, otherwise it stays on and you lose your whole Champion Vision for the whole ride in one go). Dressage gives points (0-10) for each part of the course, which add up to and end grade. Unlike the prequels, this game chose to add cutscenes where your horse is out of your control between sequences you do control, presumably to make it easier.

Competitions
Competitions take part every wednesday and saturday, the time window closes at 4 pm. They can be in either discipline, or a combination of all three. Your horse can only take part if it has the required skill level in the respective discipline(s). Competitions take 10 hours off your daytime. Beginner competitions can be taken part in from skill 0, intermediate requires the horse to have skill level 2, professional requires skill level 3. The higher the horse's level above the requirements, the more range the color scheme for jumps will have, making it possible to achieve perfect jumps. Having only the required skill level results in not being able to get all show jumping obstacles into the color range that allows to jump them without kicking bars off the obstacles.

For some reason, Beginners Comp “CompConc1” unlocks the secondary achievement “Win a beginner's level Jumping competition” but not the other two disciplines.

Trail Riding
The trail riding area links the different game locations. As you progress in the game, you unlock the gorges and the forest.

On trail rides, you can not jump. The horse has no trot, it goes from walk right into canter, then gallop, then a faster gallop.

You can dismount anywhere by pressing Ctrl(Right) (if there is space and the ground is even) and explore on foot. Your horse will wait where you left it, and be marked on the map.

Secondary Objectives
While the main story is heavily focused on solving the mystery (you can finish the story and never care for / use horses for anything other than transportation), most secondary objectives are centered around horse care and competitions.

Secondary Objectives unlock after finishing related objectives.

The first time you get Secondary Objectives is at the end of chapter 1 (if you decide to stay) or the end of chapter 2 (if you left). '''Careful! If you do some activities during Chapter 1, you cannot unlock the corresponding objectives.''' This concerns the following activities: Open laptop, Open library, Catch figurines, Communication activity, Lunging activity, Entering in the farm lounge, Going to the town hall place.

Automatically unlocks at the end of chapter 1/2:
 * Groom a horse to perfection (coat, hooves, and stable).
 * Take care of a sick horse.
 * Reach Endurance level 1 with a horse.
 * Win a beginner's level Cross-Country competition.
 * Reach Agility level 1 with a horse.
 * Win a beginner's level Dressage competition.
 * Reach Muscle Structure level 1 with a horse.
 * Win a beginner's level Jumping competition.
 * Take care of a foal until it reaches adulthood. (you don't need to actually care for it, as long as you keep it until it grows up)

Unlocks once you get your first own horse:
 * Acquire 3 horses for the stud farm. (You can immediately sell them again)
 * Sell back a horse.
 * Help birth a foal. (The one in chapter 1 does not count)

When opening the map for the first time (after Chapter 1/2 only):
 * Unveil the different points on the overall map.

When first using the laptop in the office (after Chapter 1/2 only):
 * Surf the different sites. (3)

When finding the first figurine (after Chapter 1/2 only):
 * Get together 50% of the hidden figurines. (There are 10, so you need to find 5)

After playing the Communication Activity for the first time (after Chapter 1/2 only):
 * Accomplish the horse's three requests on the first try. (No mistakes)

After playing the Lunging Activity for the first time (after Chapter 1/2 only):
 * Obtain 100 training points for a horse. (lunging activity)
 * Get 300 education points. (Education points refers to the player skill called “Comprehension”... reach level 3.)

Unlocks when first entering in the farm lounge (after Chapter 1/2 only):
 * Check this month's weather. (Achieve when you check the TV)

Unlocks when first opening the library in Flora's office (after Chapter 1/2 only):
 * Read the different books on the bookshelves.

Unlocks when you first to the town hall square (after Chapter 1/2 only):
 * Post a photo on the internet site. (Sell a photo via the mail box on town hall square.)

Unlocks by leveling your horse to level 1:
 * Reach Endurance level 2 with a horse.
 * Reach Agility level 2 with a horse.
 * Reach Muscle Structure level 2 with a horse.

Unlocks by winning a beginners' competition:
 * Win an intermediate Cross-Country competition.
 * Win an intermediate Dressage competition. (not yet achieved / confirmed!)
 * Win an intermediate Jumping competition.

Unlocks by leveling your horse to level 2: There are no further objectives for training past level 3.
 * Reach Endurance level 3 with a horse. (not displayed in the notebook, but exists in the game files and the game registers it as an unlocked and achieved objective)
 * Reach Agility level 3 with a horse. (same)
 * Reach Muscle Structure level 3 with a horse. (this one is in the notebook)

Unlocks by winning an intermediate competition:
 * Win a professional Cross-Country competition.
 * Win a professional Dressage competition. (not yet achieved / confirmed!)
 * Win a professional Jumping competition. (not yet achieved / confirmed!)

The game file that logs secondary objectives is in the save game folder, “ObjectifSec_List.txt”. The state of the objectives in the current save can be found in "Diary_ObjectivesData.txt". The list in the file contains 33 objectives, and so does the list in the note book, although some of them are never revealed even though they are fulfilled, they keep being displayed as “???”.

However, in translation file named "LLoc_IDiary_Objectives.txt", 41 objectives are available. Here is the list of the 8 objectives that are not implemented in the game:
 * Obj_Shop_BuyOne	-	Buy an object in the shop.
 * Obj_Shop_Explorer	-	Visit the different shops in the village (including the market).
 * Obj_Shop_BuyMarket	-	Buy an object at the market.
 * Obj_Shop_CivilianClothe	-	Buy all of the civilian clothing.
 * Obj_Photo_PostFour	-	Obtain X tokens thanks to your photos.
 * Obj_Collection_Half	-	Fill up more than half of the collection.
 * Obj_Diary_Note	-	Take notes from at least six books in your notebook.
 * Obj_Character_Speak	-	Speak to all the characters on the Stud farm and in the village.

Photo Objectives
Every month, there's a new photo quest available. Use the PC in Flora's office and visit www.reporter.ubi. This will add the current photo requirement to your diary (tab “photo objectives”). You can then ride around the countryside and try to find the subject. “5” opens the photo mode (first time also prompts a tutorial - move the mouse to move the camera, click to zoom (or right-click to zoom out). You can take a photo of whatever you like, but to fulfill a photo quest, the photo will only count if the photo mode cursor changes. When looking at your photos (key “4”), you'll recognize those photos because they are captioned. No caption, no handing in the photo! If you hand in the required subject in the village (Town Hall Square mailbox), there is a token reward of 300 Credits.

Where to find the subjects: Cows:

Locations and Characters
While there is an option to fast-travel using the map, the intended way to travel from stud farm to village or other places is on horseback (which is odd, since Emma lives in the village, but her horses live on the farm...). Whenever Emma is in the countryside, it's basically open world for exploring the area and reaching the different locations. Fast-traveling between stud farm and village entrance takes 2 in-game hours (longer for deeper in the village), while taking a horse takes about 45 min.

Village Béléou
Béléou is a fictional village in the french countryside where Emma gets stranded at the beginning of the game. There are a bunch of NPCs she can talk to, some of them play a role in the storyline as well – including Hugo (a neuro-atypical character, potentially homeless? unclear.), artist Créon (Luigi in English version), Claudette (Hilda) the store owner, ... Most of the story tasks happen in Béléou, and in Chapter 3, Emma chooses an appartment in the village. All NPCs have a “standing schedule” of where they are standing in which time frame, depending on daytime or weekday. e.g. in the afternoons, the mayor plays chess with the taxi driver in the post office café; on sunday mornings, a lot of people are found in the church.

Village NPCs
Hugo - mornings at village entrance, evenings at church square Luigi (Créon) – his atelier on market street, or church square Father Luis – in church or in front of it Taxi Driver – at café on church square, or playing chess with mayor on town hall square Mayor – in front of townhall, or playing chess with taxi driver on town hall square (sunday morning in church) Chloe – from noon in front of café on town hall square, or in her house on town hall square Hilda (Claudette) – in her house (close to village entrance), or at her store (in the alley close to town hall square) Camille – Chloe's younger sister, sometimes in Chloe's house, mostly on church square, playing jumprope or hopscotch alone, or playing a game with another (unnamed) kid. In the daytime, often seen riding a pony at the stud farm. Thomas – has no backstory, just gives pickup lines when interacted with Nameless Person who constantly sweeps her balcony opposite of Hilda's house Nameless Person sitting in either of the cafés

Stud Farm
The farm officially belongs to Marie, who has mysteriously disappeared, potentially dead. It is currently run by Marie's friends and employees Flora, Miguel (Michael), Carol, and Raphael (Oliver), who is Flora's cousin, two of whom we've already met in the prequel. You can access several rooms:
 * Common Room: use TV to check the weather
 * Flora's Office: use the bookshelf to learn about dressage and horse communication, use the laptop to check for competitions (www.cupedition.ubi), hints for hidden collectables (www.wekidia.ubi), hints for photography quests (www.reporter.ubi).
 * Guest Room: it's where you sleep in the beginning of the game.
 * Stable: take care of your horses.
 * Competition Board: take part in competitions.
 * Riding Arenas for Jumping and Dressage, Cross Country Trail

Stud Farm NPCs
Flora – in her office morning, late afternoon (and asleep at her desk later at night), whole crew in the common room for lunch break Michael (Miguel) – on stud farm courtyard in daytime, some evenings in shady square watching birds Carol – on stud farm courtyard in daytime, some evenings in market square, and she lives in one of the apartments that Emma didn't move to Oliver (Raphael) – on stud farm courtyard in daytime, or in his house on little shady square

Breeding Center
This is not an accessible building, when you ride up to it, it just opens a menu where you can buy, sell, or breed horses.

Collectables
There are 10 hidden figurines in stud farm and village. The models in the world and the collection entries are mixed up.

These are the locations:

Finding all of them unlocks a bonus in the main menu:

Story
The game is separated into story chapters, starting with a tutorial chapter in which Emma arrives and learns about all the game mechanics, including the riding disciplines. After completing that, the player freely decides what to do with the day.

When finishing a chapter, a popup will inform you on what day the next chapter starts. Every new chapter begins with a diary screen, showing a date to progress the time, and recounting what recently happened and how Emma feels about it. Then, you return to the game, and usually get a text message or call by a character, sending you onto the next quest. If not, try leaving your apartment, someone might be waiting outside. You may also choose to ignore the quest and go about your business, and pick up the story the next time the conditions are right (e.g. if a quest asks you to go somewhere at midnight, and you miss midnight by more than one hour, you can go again the next day when it's midnight).

Emma and Oliver are determined to solve the mystery, as they do not believe that Marie is actually dead.

Hint: If you want to make separate saves to play out every decision, you need to make a new save before the decision, because once the decision is taken, the game will auto-save your current save!

Chapters
There are 20 chapters in the game, but depending on your choices, you only get about half of them. For choices and consequences, see Choices and Endings section.

Chapter (Tutorial) “The Adventure Begins“
- get to know the stud farm - learn about horse care – Flora lends you one of her horses - try out the riding disciplines (no free play yet)

Chapter 1 “The Happy Event”
Wait Time before this chapter: 2 days. Fetch quest:

Go to the stable at midnight (between 12 pm - 00.59 am).

Big Choice: Stay or Leave

The game moves on to chapter 2 or 3, depending on choice.

Chapter 2 “A Brillant Career”
Wait Time before this chapter: next morning. This chapter only happens when Emma decides to go to her internship in Paris.

The game moves on to chapter 4.

Chapter 3 “Young Woman Seeks Apartment”
Wait Time before this chapter: 2 days. This chapter only happens when Emma decides to ditch the internship and take the job at the stud farm right away. First of all, Emma gets to choose her first own horse. Emma is also responsible for Amelie, the newborn foal.

Oliver invites Emma to his place, there is a cutscene. He then gives her the ads for available apartments in Béléou. You can also pick up a collectable figurine in his room.

The choice of apartment has influence on where in the village you start your day, but also has an influence on which chapter comes next:

Chapter 4 “Young Woman Seeks Apartment”
Wait Time before this chapter: 2 days This chapter only happens when Emma decided to go to her internship in Paris, and then came back to the stud farm. First of all, Emma gets to choose her first own horse. Emma is also responsible for Amelie, the newborn foal. Plot Piece:

Emma needs to decide for an apartment in Béléou.

You visit Oliver to get the key to the flat, so you can pick up the collectable figurine there in any case. Oliver is less excited than in chapter 3 with the cutscene. The choice of apartment has influence on where in the village you start your day, but also has an influence on which chapter comes next, because:

Chapter 5 “The Mystery of the Tape Recorder”
Wait Time before this chapter: 4 days. This chapter only happens when Emma decided to rent Hilda's apartment. Action Cutscene:

The game moves on to chapter 6.

Chapter 6 “Business is going badly”
Wait Time before this chapter: 6 days. This chapter happens after chapter 4 or 5.

Spying Quest:

Big Choice:

Chapter 7 “Infiltration”
Wait Time before this chapter: 3 days. This chapter only happens when Emma decides to Emma finds a secret letter from Oliver on her doorstep declaring a meeting:

Next, meet Oliver at 10 pm by the mayor's house (the game says 10.30 pm, but the time frame is 10-11 pm).

Chapter 8 “Infiltration”
Wait Time before this chapter: 3 days. This chapter only happens when Emma decides to Emma finds a secret letter from Oliver on her doorstep with a list of things she needs to aquire:

Next, meet Oliver at 10 pm by the mayor's house (the game says 10.30 pm, but the time frame is 10-11 pm), bring all the items.

Chapter 9 “The Mystery of the Pendant”
Wait Time before this chapter: 4 days. This chapter only happens when Emma and Oliver Emma gets a phone call from Luigi The game moves on to chapter 11.

Chapter 10 “Mission Vegetable”
Wait Time before this chapter: 4 days. This chapter happens after chapter 7 or 8, if Emma & Oliver didn't

Chloe asks Emma to meet her, and asks her for a favor. You'll find Chloe on the Town Hall Square in front of the café from 12 noon.

The game moves on to chapter 12.

Chapter 11 “Marie's Secret”
Wait Time before this chapter: 3 days. This chapter happens after chapter 9. Oliver has a plan how to...

Meet Oliver at the right spot:

The game moves on to chapter 12.

Chapter 12 “The Photography Competition”
Wait Time before this chapter: 4 days. This chapter happens after chapter 10 or 11. Emma finds a letter at her door, inviting to a photo competition.

Where to find them:

Chapter 13 “Hilda's Crush”
Wait Time before this chapter: 4 days. This chapter happens after chapter 12 if Emma finished the photo competition. The results of the photo competition are in! Meet Hilda on Town Hall Square.

The game moves on to chapter 15.

Chapter 14 “The Meeting”
Wait Time before this chapter: next morning. This chapter happens after chapter 12 if Emma

Go see Oliver to talk about the plan

The stranger is...

In any case, the game moves on to chapter 15.

Chapter 15 “The End of a Dream?”
Wait Time before this chapter: 4 days. This chapter happens after chapter 13 or 14. Oliver is calling – come to the stud farm right away!

Chapter 16 “A wacky idea”
Wait Time before this chapter: 3 days. This chapter happens after chapter 15 if

Oliver asks Emma to come over for the “idea of the century –

The game moves on to chapter 18.

Chapter 17 “Trapped”
Wait Time before this chapter: 4 days. This chapter happens after chapter 15 if

The chapter starts with a cutscene, Emma is sitting in the courtyard of the stud farm,

The game moves on to chapter 19.

Chapter 18 “Bad Publicity”
Wait Time before this chapter: 3 days. This chapter happens after chapter 16. The television people arrived! Meet them at the village entrance, where the journalist will immediately request you to bring him a coffee...

The game moves on to an ending cutscene.

Chapter 19 “One Last Speech”
Wait Time before this chapter: 3 days. This chapter happens after chapter 17. Oliver is calling Emma to his place for a good surprise:

The game moves on to chapter 20.

Chapter 20 “The Final Discovery”
Wait Time before this chapter: next morning. This chapter happens immediately after chapter 19. In a cutscene, Oliver and Emma are frustrated that they still have not solved the whole mystery of Marie's disappearance. While talking,

The game moves on to an ending cutscene.



Choices and Endings
Some of the player choices will affect flavor or even plot of the game (details in the chapter spoilers above!). Certain choices (including finishing a certain amount of side quests) will also affect what ending cutscenes you will get.

Diagram of choice and consequences:

Chapter 1: Different flavor of one of the ending cutscenes.

Chapter 3 or 4:

Chapter 6:

Chapter 7 or 8:

This affects the ending.

Chapter 10:

Chapter 12: This affects the ending.

Chapter 14: This affects the ending.

There are two parts to the ending sequence, combined depending on previous choices.

Part 1
Flora, Emma, and Oliver are meeting in Chloe's café.

Ending 1

You can get this ending by

Ending 2

You can get this ending by

Part 2
In the last scene, Emma is riding her horse through the countryside,

Ending A

You can get this ending by

Ending B

You can get this ending by

Ending C

You can get this ending by

Wasting Time
Want to pass time quickly so you can skip towards the next chapter? Fast-traveling uses up a set amount of time every time you move, depending on distance. This takes way more time than actually walking or riding between those places. Just travel back and forth via the map until it's bedtime or quest time. You can go to bed earliest at 8, but automatic bed time isn't until 4 am. Instead of walking into your house to go to bed, you can also fast travel around until it's close to 4 am, but you need to time that well, otherwise you'll be stuck with not enough time to use fast-travelling (game doesn't allow it!), but too much time to stand around waiting for 4 am.


 * Stud farm – Village Entrance: 2 hrs
 * Stud farm – North of Village: 2:38 hrs
 * Stud farm – South of Village: 3 hrs
 * Village Entrance – North: 38 min
 * Village Entrance – South: 1 hr
 * North – South: 23 min


 * Village Entrance – Countryside: 53 min
 * North – Countryside: 1:30 hrs
 * South – Countryside: 2:30 hrs
 * Stud Farm to Countryside: 1 hr


 * Village Entrance – Gorges: 1:23 hrs
 * North – Gorges: 2 hrs
 * South – Gorges: 2:23 hrs
 * Stud Farm to Gorges: 2:30 hrs


 * Village Entrance – Forest: 2:08 hrs
 * North – Forest: 2:46 hrs
 * South – Forest: 3:15 hrs
 * Stud Farm to Forest: 3 hrs


 * Countryside – Gorges: 2:30 hrs
 * Countryside – Forest: 1:53 hrs
 * Gorges – Forest: 1:15 hrs

Another option is using the fact that interacting with the stores consumes a lot of time, too – open the store menu, close it, you have spent X hours! You can do that until the shops close – market closes at 6 pm (but only happens on Thursday + Sunday!), Hilda's store closes at 7 pm. However, Hilda's store is several screens away from any fast-travel points, so if you want to use that, you need to walk there first, so using only the map solution tends to be less effort.

Market: 45 min per shopping trip

Run forever
Want to lock the character to always running instead of walking? Hold Shift while leaving the game window (Alt + Tab), then return to the game. Character will run by default until you press Shift again.

Messing with Game Files
When looking into the game files, you can edit a bunch of little things! For sure way more things than I have tried to do, feel free to try out more, and edit this!

With Save Files
On my computer, the path to save files is: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Petz Horsez 2\Save\ From Steam, it should look like this, depending on your Steam folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Petz Horsez 2\Save\

To mess with these, leave your save game, but you don't have to leave the whole game, just reload the save game from the main menu!

More Beds!
If you want to sleep in a different bed every night, go into your save game's files and open “Level_Doors”. The first few lines are these:

strDoorID	iIsActive	iIsVisible Entrance	1	       1 PFarmBedToBed	0	       0 PFlat1ToBed	0	       0 PFlat2ToBed	0	       0 PFlat3ToBed	1	       1

You might also want to change your access to collection, alarm clock, and wardrobe: PFarmBedToIGirl	 1	        1 PFarmBedToIAlarm 1	        1 PFarmOfficeToICom 1	       1 PFlat1ToICol	 0	        0 PFlat1ToIAlarm	 0	        0 PFlat1ToIGirl	 0	        0 ...

Set all the 0 to 1! You can now interact with every available bed, but you will wake up in your own bed. If you want to change which flat is yours to have your savepoint in, that's a different setting: In Sce_VarsStates

Change strCurrentBed	PFlat2 PFarmBed=Farm guest room, PFlat1=Chloe's flat (church square), PFlat2=Hilda's flat (shady square), PFlat3=Oliver's flat (village entrance)

The rest of the lines in Level_Doors are other “doors” (=interactable locations), for example PChurchNaveToPChurchCrypt - re-enables the church crypt, just cool PVillageAlleyToPMayorHouse - re-enables the mayor's house, useful for getting the collectible

Cat Content!
If you want to get Crokette the cat for your flat without unlocking her during the story, go into your save game's files and open “NPCMng_CharacterPlanningStates”. CatPFlat1	0 CatPFlat2	0 CatPFlat3	0 Pick your flat (or enable it for all three) and set value to 1.

Fulfill Secondary Objectives
ObjectifSec_List change all FALSE to TRUE

Acquire Things
Pla_Acquisitions Set 0 or -1 to 1 to unlock dressage gaits, or tack. (i have not tested yet)

Changing Player Character Values
Pla_General

Tokens	       2689 – just change to what you like (have not tested past 7 digits) SalaryValue	1000 – yay, payraise!

Unlock buyable horses
Sta_HorseStore Sta_SpecialHorses Change the last 0 of a line to 1 to make it available at the breeding center. Special Quest Horses are in an extra document. Untested: change the horse's coat, breed, stats, ...

Customize Horse Stats
Sta_Slots

This is an overview over your horses. You can have a maximum of 8 horses! To read this table more easily, you can use Tab to align it. You can save it that way without changing it back, game doesn't mind. You can change: Name (character limit: ?), Sex (Male/Female), Age (in months), Breed (will affect horse model - Arabian, French, Appaloosa, Conemara, English), Coat (if you change age from foal to grownup, make sure to change foal coat to horse coat) and stats: Ag = Agility = Dressage skill End = Endurance = CrossCountry skill Mus = Muscle Structure = Show Jumping skill Lvl Ag = Current training level in Agility. Horse rises 1 level per 100 points, so 500 points is the maximum. Lvl Train Ag = Current training level, but the purple / temporary bar ?? Pot Ag = The potential / maximum level the horse can reach – this is the stat to mess with to make a perfect horse. Confidence = Horse Behaviour Activity level 0-100 Learning = Lunging Activity level 0-100

With Game Settings
'''The following data edits are not in a single save file, but in the game's settings. Make sure to make backup copies of the files before you change them, so you don't break your game!''' If you've already found your save files, you are close to all other files. With a Steam game, you can get there via the game's Steam Page > Settings > Manage > Browse Local Files. The path should be something like this, it depends on where you save your games: G:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\ C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\



Key Binding
The most common irritation is that you can change some of the key bindings, but not all of them. The walking / riding controls are set on the arrow keys (which is ergonomically inefficient because you need your right hand for the mouse if you're right-handed). But you can change the key binding for those in the files! G:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Petz Horsez 2\Save In Input_Data.txt, you can replace the number codes.

For WASD, you can copypaste these lines: TurnLeft	30	Commun	203 TurnRight	32	Commun	205 Forward	17	Commun	200 Backward	31	Commun	208 (It seems to just count each key in order, trial and error made this work.)

This will only change the keys for walking / riding – other things that require arrow keys will still use arrow keys, like the stall cleaning and the dressage minigame (the one where you quickly press a combination of arrows). The lunging activity is especially curious, because gait up and gait down work with W and S, while making the circles bigger / smaller requires changing extra lines in the input file: CircleIncrease	30	Apprentissage	203 CircleReduce	32	Apprentissage	205

These key binding work whatever is your keyboard language, because it depends on the key numbering and not on the key value. If your keyboard is set in AZERTY for example, these key binding become ZQSD.

Change Clock Display
In the English version, 12 hour format is used in the time display. If you are used to a 24 hour format, you can change it: G:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Asset\US\Database\Feature\RegionParams Open the file RegionParams_Modes.txt and change the value of Clock from 12 to 24 (or the other way round).

Change Daylight Cycle
Asset\Standard\Database\Feature\Level Level_SunCycle You can change the times when the sun rises and sets in each season.



Change Time Consumption
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Asset\Standard\Database\Feature\DayMng This folder contains two files with the time it takes to do activities. You can make them more realistic, or more convenient ;) This allows you to either do things without spending time on them, or you can crank the fast travel times up high to get to the next chapter faster... The numbers are in (in-game) minutes.


 * GameplayTime covers all activities:


 * MapTime covers the fast-travel times:
 * Village1 = north of village
 * Village2 = village entrance
 * Village3 = south of village
 * Farm = Stud Farm
 * Land = the trail ride area directly outside the farm
 * Forest = forest area you unlock later
 * Gorges = likewise, gorges area

Change Chapter Wait Time
.... or you can simply change that directly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Asset\Standard\Database\Feature\Sce in “Sce_WaitingDays”, you can change how many days of waiting come in between chapters! (i have not tested yet)

Change Rewards for Training / Competitions
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Asset\Standard\Database\Feature\Eva & Event The file Eva_Rewards lists the benefits / rewards gained from completing competitions. You can use this to train your horse's skills faster or earn more token for it. (i did not test yet) The file Event_CircuitXP in folder “Event” lists the XP for training. (i did not test yet, i could even be wrong).

Change Lunge Training Minigame
G:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Asset\Standard\Database\Feature\Learn (not tested yet)

Change Competition Time Limit
G:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Asset\Standard\Database\Feature\HARReg\HARReg_CircuitFeatures.txt The time limits for Jumping and CC are stored here. The difficulty setting you can set in the game options (and when loading a save game) affects which of the three time limits is applied before you get penalty points for not finishing in time.

Change Competition Placement
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Asset\Standard\Database\Feature\Rank There's placement tables for the NPCs you need to beat. You can make that easier or harder for yourself. Either raise the amount of mistakes, or just disqualify them by turning the last 0 to 1.

Change Stat Decay
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Asset\Standard\Database\Feature\Sta

In “Sta_UpdateDayCoeff”, you can change the decay of your horses' stats overnight.

It works very fine for box, brush and food, but does not work for hooves and physics.

Horse texture replacer
Change horse coat with the Horse texture replacer mod by Tangara140.



Steam release
The content is the same as the original release.

Character Names
Names of characters have been localized. Oddly, esp in the German version, names got changed to something french-sounding instead of keeping the original french ones. In the Dutch version, most of the names were changed to Dutch names.

Critical Comments
The character Hugo is depicted and described to have autism, but (spoiler tag for description of ableist comments/mechanics)

Trivia
The game starts on Saturday, August 2007 when you arrive in the village. However, the next day (after you've slept at the farm between the cutscenes) is *also* Saturday, August 2007.

The protagonist of My Horse & Me 2 is also called Emma, is also a red blonde girl (though seeming younger than this game's Emma) – AND is voiced by the same voice actor, Mirabelle Kirkland. Coincidence, or headcanon of how Emma used to ride at her uncle's farm in Pennsylvania before moving to California (presumably together with her dad, when her mother died), where she studied veterinary medicine before moving to France...?

"Béléou" means "maybe" in local Provencal dialect. Maybe this village exists, or maybe it does not.

The game files suggest that there is a way to answer all of Dr. Daniel's questions to his liking and being asked to sign the contract. However, there is no cutscene or text in the files that indicates anything that happens between Emma signing the contract and going back to the stud farm. Fans suspect a lot of crap from Dr. Daniel doing illegal activities, mistreating animals and sexist remarks towards Emma.

Additional Media






System Requirements & Compatibility
Save Files Location: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Petz Horsez 2\Save

GameDataPath doesn't exist
This error shows up upon first starting the game from Steam after install. The first error message gives the vital information: The path is wrong!

On the game's steam page, choose Settings > Manage > Browse Local Files. In that folder, open boot.txt. Also in that folder, choose the PetzHorsez2 folder and copy the whole path, it's probably something like this: G:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Petz Horsez 2\Petz Horsez 2 In the boot.txt file, replace the faulty path with the correct one, save it, now you can start the game.

Accessibility
There is a few options for key remapping, but not many. You need to use arrow keys, WASD doesn't work. If you play via Steam, you can use Steam's controller support and and use a controller.

To remap the keys via game files, see the Key Binding section, but it only works if you can access the files.