Ride! Equestrian Simulation

Summary
Riding simulation with some rather unique mechanics.

Game Design
The game has mostly-realistic 3D graphics.

Horses all use the same model but have some variation through different coats and heights.

There is some customisation by way of unlockable clothes and tack, but they all share the same models and are merely colour swaps.

Gameplay
Players can choose to begin a career in show jumping, dressage, or eventing. All three can be played concurrently if desired. Between competitions, players must schedule training to improve their horse's abilities. It is also important to give the horse adequate rest, or its mood and performance will suffer. There are no horse care elements outside of this resting mechanic. A player can have a total of three horses on the same save file - one for dressage, one for eventing, and one for show jumping.

The selection of horses is small, but it differs between disciplines. Their names and appearances are preset and cannot be altered. Horses have different personalities depending on their sex - mares can be a little temperamental, stallions are prone to getting overconfident, and geldings tend towards being timid. This affects how they need to be handled during rides and adds a tactical element to the choice of horse.

Training
Training serves to improve the horse's ability so that it can qualify for more difficult competitions. Reaching certain leveling milestones unlocks new tack and clothes. Training can be played manually or simulated, and has six different star ranks depending on how it goes. Simulation is not optimal, as it is very rare if not impossible for the best training results to occur this way.

Show Jumping
Show jumping has some complex mechanics. It requires managing speed, direction, balance, and horse mood levels. Speed and horse mood are indicated by a circular gauge with a horse head inside it. The horse head will fill up with red when the horse feels pressured, which typically is caused by unsuccessful jumps and long stretches of galloping.

Horses will jump automatically, but it is up to the player to position them correctly. When approaching an obstacle, an indicator appears on the ground and hovering horseshoes above it shift from red to green depending on how correct the stride is. Slowing down or speeding up will adjust the stride. If an approach is done incorrectly, the horse may refuse or knock down some poles.

Players must also maintain their own balance through jumps, shown by a half-circle gauge with an arrow inside. This arrow will move as the horse jumps, and the objective is to keep it as close to the center as possible. If it goes too far upwards or downwards, the player will fall off their horse. If they are only slightly unbalanced, the horse will slow down some but keep moving.

In competitions, the rules work same as in real life: whoever rides the course fastest with no penalties is the winner. There is both a hard limit for how long one has to complete the circuit, and an ideal time to aim for.



Cross Country
Cross country works much the same as show jumping, including the speed gauge, but also adds stamina management. In this game mode, the horse head filling up with red indicates fatigue. Staying at high speeds builds fatigue quickly, and slowing down empties it over time. If the horse gets too tired, it will slow down a lot and be harder to control. Just like in show jumping, time is of importance here, and so it's critical to balance going as fast as you can without wearing out the horse. Horses will have their own ideas about what speed is right; for example, they may speed up when going downhill, and slow down when going up inclines.



Dressage
Dressage is a rhythm game in the style of Dance Dance Revolution. The horse will perform the moves on its own, but requires precise input from the player to receive good scores. Arrow prompts come down from the top of the screen towards targets on the bottom. To perform a move successfully, the arrow keys must be pressed at the right time as the prompts pass over the targets. Once a move has been completed, the score is shown in the top right corner of the screen. The highest possible score is 100%, presumably the equivalent of a perfect 10 in real world dressage.

There is a "health bar" at the bottom right of the screen, indicating the horse's focus. This bar fills up as you get Good or Perfect scores. If you do poorly with the timing, the horse's focus will instead drop and the arrow targets will shrink, increasing the difficulty. If the horse's focus plummets too low, you will lose control of it and be eliminated from the competition.



Differences between Releases
In Mary King's Riding School 2, the instructor is Mary King, rather than the usual instructor.

In the German release, the riding instructor is Isabell Werth.

Additional Media
Game Manual

Trivia
The game was released as a cover disc in the German magazine "Computer Bild Spiele 08/2008".

The game development was funded in pre-production phase by the French Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC) in 2006.