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.

Game Design
The game is in 3D, with photorealistic textures. Unlike its prequels, this game has an ongoing clock while on the stud farm or in the countryside, while story events as well as riding or fast-traveling take a pre-defined amount of time. There are time limitations for certain actions, like not doing horse care late at night, or competitions happening on fixed dates within a time frame. These time limits also come into effect for some of the story tasks. There is a daylight cycle, as well as seasons with different weather conditions (fog, rain, snow, sun/cloudy) that have an effect on horses when in the pasture. The daylight cycle is connected to the seasons (shorter days in winter). Snow on the ground changes the walking sound.

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.

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.

The day cycle has a lot of influence on game progress. 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. When saving and reloading the game, Emma is always teleported to her bedroom, while the time is as it was saved. The village has market days (for tack) on thursdays and sundays 8 am to 6 pm.

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 / horses don't complain. Only the energy stat requires regular care so it replenishes, allowing to ride the horse in training. 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.

Horse Behaviour
Like in its prequel, there's a horse behaviour mode. You get three separate cutscenes where your horse expresses a certain behaviour. You need to pick the correct reaction from a menu to raise your skill in this. Hints on correct reactions are given when studying horse behaviour in Flora's office.

Lunging
New in this game is the lunging mode. 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.

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.

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.

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

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 half a day off your daytime.

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.

Locations
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.

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

Horse Market / Breeder
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.

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. New chapters in the story are often connected to a certain day of the week (or a certain amount of days away from the current day?), so there can be several days without new story parts in between. 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!

please use spoiler tags to hide big plot points!

Chapters
Chapter “The Adventure Begins“ – Tutorial chapter - 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” 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” 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” 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” 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” 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” This chapter happens after chapter 4 or 5.

Spying Quest:

Big Choice:

Chapter 7 “Infiltration” 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” 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” 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” 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” 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” 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” 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” 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.

Chapters (work in progress)
Chapter 15 “The End of a Dream?” This chapter happens after chapter 13 or 14. Oliver is calling – come to the stud farm right away!

Chapter 16 “Une drole idée” 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 “Prise au piège” This chapter happens after chapter 15 if

Chapter 18 “Mauvaise Pub” This chapter happens after chapter 16. i'll add the english chapter titles lately, but i've changed my game language to French for fun and learning^^

Choices and Endings
Some of the player choices will affect flavor or even plot of the game. The choice in the beginning, whether Emma should stay at the farm, or go to her job interview

has an influence on which 2/3 apartements are available in chapter 3. Some of the choices (including finishing a certain amount of side quests) will also affect what ending cutscene you will get.

(not yet) Full Guide to each ending, major spoilers:

Collectables
There are 10 hidden figurines in stud farm and village. Finding all of them gives you a surprise. The models in the world and the collection entries are mixed up.

These are the locations:

Differences between Releases
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.

Tricks & Hacks
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.

There's a lot that can be done by messing with the game files.... will be added!

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

Additional Media
File:Petz Horsez 2 (Lexis Numérique) Manual.pdf



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