Mein Gestüt: Ein Leben für die Pferde (2008)

Summary
You inherit a run-down stud farm from your grandfather.

Game Design
On the stud farm, the view is top down. Time is constantly running (except in menus or when the game is minimized). You wake up at 8am and the day automatically ends at 6pm. You'll get a popup with an overview of the achievements and finances of the day.

Controls
Walking around on the stud farm property means the controls are relative to compass direction - left arrow for west, up arrow for north, etc. Shift lets you run faster (on foot). WASD doesn't work. Alternately, you can move by moving the mouse in the desired direction while clicking left mouse button. When you walk close to an interactable area, you can press space or click the GUI element that pops up. However, pressing space won't close the info popups, this only works with pressing enter. When you run into a wall, most of the time, the horse will automatically move out of the way, instead of doing a full-stop refusal like in most games!

Accessibility
The settings allow to toggle between controlling a horse via keyboard or mouse. Moving the human character, both options are always on.

Saving
The game automatically saves at the end of the in-game day, so you should finish a day before quitting the game. The game files for the steam version can be found at .... \Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\My Riding Stables 2

Customization
Upon starting a new game, you can customize your character (male or female, and a small selection of clothing and hair styles for each, as well as three different shades of white skin). You can then customize your first horse. There are three horse breeds whose models differ very slightly - the Friesian has feathered legs, while the Andalusian and Hanoverian have the minutest difference in size and muscle shape. You can choose the base color, regardless of breed (black, grey, white, palomino, creme colored, red, or brown, and then add either a black mane, a blaze, white socks, a pinto pattern or an appaloosa butt pattern (please edit the correct terminology).

Locations
At the beginning, you only have your farm house, a paddock, and the stable. Other locations on the property need to be renovated, which requires a certain amount of stars in your stud farm's rating.

The Farm House
The game begins in your farm house. The house has two rooms. In the bedroom, you can sleep to end your day, and you can use the wardrobe to get changed in. The living room has a bookshelf for gaining knowledge, and a computer with an online shop for buying tack, clothing, food, and new horses, as well as an overview about your stud farm: its buildings, your horses, your won trophies, etc. Behind your house (north) there's a garden, with a carrot patch you can harvest from.

Bookshelf
After purchasing a book from the online shop, you can spend some time reading it. If you finish it, you will get a reward, increasing your horse's value, getting more tips from guests, etc.

The Stable
In the stable, you have access to horse tack, horse feed, and all the care mechanics around your horses. You start out with three intact boxes, while the back of the stable is visibly in disrepair.

Horse Care
When you select your horse in its stall, you can
 * braid mane/tail (one click action)
 * groom
 * pick hooves
 * hose down
 * check health
 * tack up
 * rename
 * sell
 * lead out of the stable

The grooming interactions are the usual stuff: don't touch the head or legs with the coarse brush or they'll lose trust; and scrape at each hoof for ~30 seconds while not touching the frog with the metal hoof pick. There's a softer brush which is used to increase trust. With not enough trust, you are not able to saddle or ride your horse! For good horse care, you are awarded golden horse shoes. When interacting directly with a horse (like feed, pet, mount), these options will only show up if you approach your horse from its left side.

The Paddock
You can leave your horses in the paddock (effects?). When you select them, there will be a cutscene of your horse coming out of the gate towards you. The downside to leaving them outside is that they don't count towards the horses ready for guests, resulting in fewer guests showing up.

The Riding Arena
In the riding arena, you can train foals (your own and client foals). Training a foal takes 1,5 hours of in game time.

What the tutorial won't tell you: Feeding your foal to reduce its bad behaviour is done by right click.

The Therapy Center
Another source of income is the therapy center, where clients pay for a horse massage.

Riding Mechanics
When riding off the property, into the trail ride areas, the riding controls change to the more intuitive arrow up - faster, arrow down - slower.However, the space bar isn't JUMP, it takes you back to the stables (with a popup to confirm).

The horse has an endurance bar stating how long your horse can gallop, and a dexterity bar for .....? Jumping happens automatically when you're galloping (does not work in canter) towards an obstacle.

Differences between Releases
e.g. localized names, or features on different platforms

Comparisons to the prequel Mein Gestüt
In Mein Gestüt, horses you lead would just walk/trot behind you without being on a lead. This game has implemented leads. When you would lead a horse into its stall, it would just teleport there upon selecting the option. In this game, there is a small cutscene of the horse actually walking into the stall.

Trivia
The horse model is probably the same, and the texture for the white horse is definitely the same as in Riding Star 3.

Additional Media
File:Mein Gestuet 2 - Ein Leben für die Pferde Manual.pdf

System Requirements & Compatibility
MINIMUM: OS: Windows Vista/7/8/10 Processor: Intel Pentium (or similar AMD) 1.5 GHz Memory: 1024 MB RAM Graphics: Direct 3D compatible graphics card with 128 MB RAM DirectX: Version 9.0 Storage: 500 MB available space

The game is available on Steam, the languages available are English, French, Spanish, Italian, German.