Alexandra Ledermann 6 - L'Ecole des Champions

Summary
Jade is a new student at a scottish riding academy in Darthmore. 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.

There are three difficulty settings, but not clear what they do.

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 slots to fill with activities. 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 the USA for a week, then going to Morocco for two weeks to train at another academy, then you go back to Scotland, before the final competition in the USA.

Exams
At the end of the week (directly after Friday Slot 4), your achievements will be evaluated. You need to achieve the passing grade in all three riding disciplines, in your horse's constitution, and your popularity. Each week, the requirements rise – while Week 1 lets you pass with a riding grade of 5.0, by the last week, you need a 9.0 to pass! If you pass, you enter the eventing competition. If you fail the requirements or lose the competition, you'll have to repeat the week (you only get to repeat it once before the academy would expel you, though).

Customization
In the beginning, you pick your horse from a few different breeds and coats, and can choose a name for yourself and your horse. There is no customizable horses, just a few presets to choose from. Your player character starts with one outfit, but in the game you can earn credits and buy more outfits (casual, cross country, and show outfits) in online shops you type into the computer in Jade's room:


 * www.horsegirl-store.com
 * www.elsys-fashion-store.com
 * www.poneyshop.com
 * www.horse-tips.boutique.com
 * www.horse-club-collection.com

Buying outfits or collectibles raises the popularity stat that is part of your passing grade. Don't buy everything at once, since you need to build up popularity anew each week!

Horse Care
The usual. Pick hooves (but not the frog!), wash with a hose (but not the head!), muck out, and brush (surprise: you CAN brush the legs and head with all brushes without disproportionate screaming and loss of trust!).

Horse Communication
One of the activities you need to do is communicating with your horse. Watch the behaviour it displays and choose the correct response(s). You will always get 1-3 behaviours at once. When you get several, they are often in the same combination, which might help with remembering. The animations are looped and it's sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the next one begins. The tutorial will tell you how to navigate the menu, but it's not intuitive, and hard to find out if you forgot: You can enter the action menu by hitting SPACE. The horse will still go through the animations behind the semi-transparent menu. Use the mouse to select a sub-menu, and click the correct action. If you need to go back to the category menu, right-click the middle of the round menu (nowhere else in the game asks you for a right-click, so it's hard to guess...). If you need to choose several actions, the picking order doesn't matter. You can change the action by clicking a new one. Once you're sure, hit space again and the game will go through the chosen actions in cutscenes. If you picked the wrong ones, you get smaller rewards.

To find out what the correct response to a horse's behaviour is, you can read the behaviour books in the library. However, some of the hints are very vague, while the list below describes the actual animations the horse does. (The actual actions in the menu might be called differently in game, i've only translated from my German game.)

Usually, the horse is standing in the same position, facing to the right. It's noted when an animation shows a different position. The tables are sorted by similar actions.

There are four categories: Emotion (Heart Symbol), Activity (Chess Knight), Nutrition (Food Trough), and Healthcare (Bowl of Hygieia).

am working on the table currently!

Riding
There are three disciplines to excel in – dressage, show jumping, and cross-country. There are two mandatory training sessions each week, each counting 50% for your passing grade (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 green one lights up leads to a successful jump. There's also a trust mechanic that can increase / decrease your chances at a successful jump.

Cross Country
Same controls, but next obstacle is lit up with a green circle. When the circle lights up, the jump will be successful. Watch out for your horse's energy, give it some rest (stand still / walk) in between.

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 an end grade. Some oddities: Some modifiers react to the gait (e.g. collection), others overwrite it (e.g. traversing is always in a canter, even if you were trotting before you held the key down. You will still hear the trot sounds and fall back into a trot when you release the modifyer. On the other hand, flying lead change in the game is treated as if it was a constantly modified special gait rather than one action that just changes the lead. The animation looks like a bad loop of the canter and doesn't actually change leads.

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 get to know the area, because some story episodes will take place there! There is also a photo mode and some items in each area that you can take photos of.

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

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/Farrier Patrick, Teacher Mr. Fitzgerald, Headmaster Nicole Uphoff, guest teacher Wendy Gillis, horse communication teacher Deborah, headmistress of the academy in Morocco

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
Week 1, Tuesday, Slot 4:

Week 1 (Scotland), Friday, Slot 1:

Week 2 (USA), Monday, Slot 3:

Week 2 (USA), Thursday, Slot 4:

Week 3 (Morocco), Tuesday, Slot 3:

Walkthrough:

Week 4 (Morocco), Friday, Slot 1:

Week 4 (Morocco), Friday, Slot 4:

Week 5, Thursday, Slot 3:

Week 5, Friday, Slot 1:

Week 6, Wednesday, Slot 3:

Differences between Releases
The German localized version features olympic dressage champion Nicole Uphoff as a guest teacher at the academy. The French version featured a cameo by Alexandra Ledermann, and in the English version, Pippa Funnell.

In Germany it was also released on the cover DVD of "Computer Bild Spiele 08/2010".



System Requirements & Compatibility

 * Operating System: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
 * Processor: Pentium III 1 Ghz
 * Memory: 128 Mb of Ram (Win 98/Me) or 256 Mb Ram (Win 2000/XP)
 * Hard Disk Space: 1.5 Gb of available disc space
 * Video: DirectX 9, 3D graphics card with 64 Mb Ram minimum
 * Sound: DirectX 9, Windows compatible sound card
 * Drives: 4x CD-Rom player

Windows 10
It was possible to install and play without any specific compatibility settings. The game runs well, only issue i have is that it partly does not recognize typing in the in-game browser to access the online stores.

Accessibility
It's possible to change parts (but not all) of the keyboard mapping.