Alexandra Ledermann 6 - L'Ecole des Champions

Summary
Jade, a new student at a scottish riding academy. You make your own class schedule and have adventures in between.

Game Design
The game is in 3D, with photorealistic textures. It is split into activities (no open world). At the start of each activity, you are placed in its setting, fulfill the task, and are taken back to the timetable menu.

Gameplay
You play as Jade, a new student at a riding academy in Scotland. The game starts with a dramatic cutscene in a thunderstorm This scene doubles as a hands-on tutorial for the controls and mechanics. Soon after, the actual game begins and Jade needs to make a time table, deciding every morning which four activities to do. It is the player's responsibility that by the end of the week, all riding disciplines have been attended twice, along with regular horse care, trail rides, and social hangouts with the other students.

The game goes on for six weeks, starting with a week in Scotland, before travelling to Morocco for two weeks to train at another academy, then you go back to Scotland, before spending two weeks in the USA for the biggest competitions.

Horse Care
The usual. Brush (but not the head!), scrape hooves (but not the frog!), wash with a hose.

Riding
There are three disciplines to excel in – dressage, show jumping, and cross-country. There are two mandatory training sessions, each counting 50% for your passing grade each week (or else, you need to repeat the week).

Show Jumping
Move with Arrow Keys, jump with space. In front of each obstacle, there are three bars on the floor. Jumping when the middle one lights up leads to a successful jump.

Cross Country
Same controls, but 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.

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 require extra keys. Dressage gives points (0-10) for each part of the course, which add up to and end grade.

Trail Rides
Each location has a trail riding area. If you put a trail ride into one of your daily slots, you can ride there without a time limit. These locations have optional photo collectibles. It is also useful to do a trail ride at least once, early in the week, to already know the area, because some story episodes will take place there!

Story
While you plan your day each morning, things won't always go as planned. Sometimes, an activity gets replaced by a story chapter!

once i've got the game, i'll add a spoiler tagged list which slots these are, for people who want to plan ahead. You're welcome to beat me to it!

The plot is mainly about Jade becoming a successful student and equestrian, while needing to uncover sabotage against her, but it also includes social calls like a birthday party or helping out your friends.

please use spoiler tags to hide big plot points!

Jade (Player)
red-haired girl

Teachers / Staff
Harry Temple, Teacher and Barn Manager? Patrick, Teacher Mr. Fitzgerald, Headmaster Nicole Uphoff, guest teacher

Students
By selecting the social hangout as an activity, you can approach your fellow students and find out their life stories. You get two turns each hangout, and need to come back to it later to hear more.

Ginger Spike Esteban Kiew (DE: Mai Ling)

Several Nameless Eléves in Morocco Academy

Plot
The first plot chapter:

Differences between Releases
The German localized version features olympic dressage champion Nicole Uphoff (DE) as a guest teacher at the academy. In Germany it was also released on the cover DVD of "Computer Bild Spiele 08/2010".