Pferd & Pony – Mein Pferdehof 2

Summary
Mein Pferdehof 2 is a stable management simulation. There is no real story apart from inheriting the horse farm with the task to build it up again. You start with one horse and you earn money by breeding and selling horses, housing guests, and winning tournaments. The game is round-based, you decide when you've finished with a round and manually start a new round. Starting a new round will affect horse stats like hunger or exercise.

Game Design
The game's art style is mostly 2D with an attempt of realistic textures / 3D-looking horse models. They kept the design concept of the prequel, but changed the graphics. There is a farm overview and a town overview, from which you can enter the different locations. There's no open world, you navigate by mouse (mostly) within a menu button area, except in riding mode, when you control the horse via keyboard in a 3D environment. The game saves automatically after every action you do. Nothing gets lost and you can not return to a former savepoint.

Horse Model
There is one adult horse and one foal model. Individuals vary in size, the model stays the same. The horse model is quiet with just a few idle animations, some of them based on its health and trust, and the cleanliness of the stall, but they are way less expressive than in the prequel. It turns its head (away or towards the player depending on trust level), or lets its head hang down when sick, shifts its legs from time to time, paws with its hoof, turns its ears and swishes its tail. Its eyes stare lifelessly into the void. The foal is similar, but sometimes turns to nuzzle its mother's shoulder. In riding mode, the horse's animated movements are rather wooden, the legs move without engaging the rest of the body.

Character customization
You can customize your player character with a range of different skin tones (unfortunately including very stereotypical ones rather than realistic), facial expressions, hair styles, accessoires and clothing. Your image will be shown in the papers of horses you breed. Since tournaments require tournament dress, while the rest of the game doesn't mind what you wear, it's common to just stick with tournament tack at all times. You do not have to purchase anything, you just need to pick and wear it. You also need to decide whether you're a boy or a girl, which does not influence the character customization apart from a body shape and underwear change. In riding mode, Character Model in Riding Mode info pls While you can buy a few different items of horse tack, it all looks the same on the horse (in riding mode, there's a generic saddle and bridle) and makes no difference in stats, either. is this true?

Locations
There are two overview maps - one for your horse farm and one for the town. On the horse farm overview, you can access the stable, office building, and breeding pasture; other parcels can not be entered, but you can buy parcels, upgrade or demolish buildings from this menu. These parcels are a parking lot, a guest house, a pasture, a watering station, a training parcours, a round pen, an indoor riding arena, and a couple of fields to grow grain. From the farm overview, you can also get into town, or start a new round. On the town overview, you can access the vet, farrier, breeder, retailer, tournament arena, bank, and auction house.

Your Stable starts out with one stall, but you can upgrade it to up to 32 stalls. With each upgrade, the stable background gets a bit more fancy. Stable Level 1: 1 stall Stable Level 2: 6 stalls Stable Level 3: 12 stalls Stable Level 4: x stalls Stable Level 5: x stalls Unlike in the prequel, you can change a horse's stall and sort your horses in the stable as you like.

Horse Care and Stats
Every round, your horses' stats are changed as the horse grows hungry, thirsty, dirty, and restless. If you don't take care of their basic needs, horses will lose trust and health, as well as strength and endurance if they are not exercised. You can regain this across a few rounds by taking better care and giving them exercise. Via the menu in the stall, you can take care of all needs, equip tack, or change the location of the horse (pasture, stall, trailer, breeding pasture, or training paddock). In the horse book, you can see information about your horses name, sex, pedigree, breeder, age, coat color, stats, tournament level, and sales price. Some stats you can raise to 100% by regular horse care – these are trust, hooves, exercise, coat, feed, and water. Other stats are capped at individual values that you can increase by breeding better horses – these are health, strength, and endurance.

If feed, water, or health stat falls to a critical level and you don't do anything about it, you risk it being taken away by animal welfare. You will get three warnings on three days to take better care, if you ignore that, your horse will be taken away and be gone from the game irrevocably. You should take care that you don't leave a horse's excercise at zero for too long – if they get an illness in that time, you won't be able to excercise them, resulting in health to drop until they get taken away. Possible solution: Can horse trainers train them while sick?!

Grooming increases trust with your horse, but not doing so won't get a penalty. Your horse, however, will show dirt (starting semi-transparent and getting more opaque the dirtier it gets) in all areas of the game, including riding. (If you like pintos, good for you, FREE PINTO!). Grooming will give visible feedback on removing the dirt layer, although the actual cleanliness stats can be full even while the horse looks visibly dirty.

Keeping a horse in the pasture will freeze its feed and excercise stat, but lose a tiny amount of water stat each night (significantly faster with a mare nursing a foal). Lack of water doesn't seem to affect the horse's health and therefore won't alert the welfare services. This means you can go for a very long time without caring for your pastured horses. They will lose trust, but unlike the prequel, trust gain per round isn't capped, so you can gain full trust back by caring for / petting your horse.

Food Type Stats
Better food fills up more stat points, as you can see in the table. The water gain or loss doesn't really matter, as you have unlimited water supply with one click. Since you can only feed a horse 4 portions of any food per round (only 3 if you don't ride that round), best quality is the only type allowing you to feed a very hungry horse all the way. Unless you need to save money, you can use this type all the time, otherwise you can alternate and mix. If you plan on riding the horse, make sure to not feed it before, as you already use up portions that after riding will just be enough to fill the horse's stomach. If you overfeed, you will get a notification, but not lose feed (unlike in the prequel). * The price is calculated by the best ratio bulk price, which is in effect from 50 portions upwards.

Illness and Injuries
There are a lot of different illnesses and injuries that can happen to horses. According to the vet, some of the products she sells will reduce the likelihood of certain illnesses. i need to study more whether this is correct, or she's just saying that to sell me stuff. All illnesses will eventually go away, even if untreated, but it will go faster with the correct treatment. While a horse is sick, it is blocked for riding.

Riding
A 3D world with hardly any interesting things to mention.

Jumping from heights hurts your horse badly, so does riding underwater, but sometimes you get away with doing it.

There are a few game goal orienteering missions. The game shows you a map before the right, but since you can't access it while riding, it's extremely hard to figure out where exactly you are.

Breeding
Breeding horses is a source of income, as well as a way of achieving better stats in health, strength, and endurance. If you own a stallion as well as a mare, you can use the breeding pasture and perform the breeding action there; otherwise you can pick a stallion at the breeder's and use him at a fee of ~400-1100 Cr. Sometimes, you need a few tries for the mare to get pregnant. On the breeding pasture, you can only try once a day, while you have unlimited tries at the breeder's. You can test at the vet's whether your mare is pregnant. Pregnancy takes 18-19 rounds. After that, you'll get a notification of a foal being born. If you're attentive, you can also spot it the round(s) before, when your horse has a lower feed and water stat than usually. Pro-Tip: A mare's pregnancy goes on even if she's sold to the breeder. If you re-buy her after pregnancy should be over, she will give birth to a foal the next round. If the foal is older than 11 or 23 rounds, it will age up the next day into a yearling or adult!

Starter Horse Attributes
The starter horse is always a mare, 50% Pinto 50% Oldenburger, 100 health, ~56 endurance, ~55 strength. The coat color is randomised.

Coat Variations and Genetics
The game has several breeds and each horse's ancestry gets listed in percentage. The breeds come in all colors and without breed specific attributes. The individual horses vary in height, base coat (within a coat color, the individual shade varies), pattern and stats.

The coat colors available are Grey, Liver Chestnut, Black, Bay, and Pinto (while base varies with that one).

Horses can also have patterns or markings, including pinto (listed as a separate coat color instead), leopard (as part of pinto), or the two of them in combination; white socks, blaze or snip.

The horse book's last page shows a listing with percentages of all the breeds a horse has, while the highest percentage one gets listed on the first page.

Available Breeds:
 * Hanoverian
 * Oldenburger
 * Trakehner
 * Westfalian
 * German Riding Pony
 * Lipizzaner
 * Criollo
 * Quarter Horse
 * Appaloosa
 * Pinto (which, technically, should be Paint Horse)
 * Welsh Pony
 * unknown (this seems to be listed the same way as breeds, a horse will be listed as unknown if that is the highest percentage, even if other of its breeds are known)

Horse Stats are hereditary, but there also seems to be a random component involved - a foal can be worse or better than their parents. However, horses do get better by constant inbreeding and always crossing the best ones. Inbreeding has no negative effect.

Horse Lifespan
A horse has a lifespan of ??? rounds. A foal reaches yearling stage at 12 rounds of age, and is an adult at 24 rounds. You can breed your horses for most of their lifespan, until they are ??? rounds old. After that, a horse will stay with you until it's ??? rounds of age, then you get notified that it's moving to a retirement farm and it disappears fom your game. ToDo: i need to age a horse

Foal Care
A foal stays in its mother's stall from age 0 (birth round) to age 11. You can not feed it yet, it gets fed by its mother. You need to groom it and build trust by petting it. At age 12, it becomes a yearling requiring its own stall. You now have to feed your horse, but can not saddle or ride it yet. If you don't have an empty stall, your young horse will end up in the pasture (not visible on the farm overview, but it exists) until you have a stall for it. At age 24, your yearling is a grown up horse and you can train and breed them.

Management
Running a horse farm costs money. The in-game currency is called Credits. You have to manage your finances well enough so they balance out with the costs of running a horse farm. Every round, you lose or gain a little bit of money. Every 6th round, it's pay day and you get a finance notification that tells you whether you've made financial losses or profits. In random (?) intervals, you might also get a notification to pay taxes or other bills. It makes sense to think about which buildings you really need, as each has maintenance costs. If you want to upgrade a building, you need to upgrade your office building to a certain level, too. You can earn money by selling horses and having guests staying in your guest house, taking care of boarding horses, as well as winning tournaments. In the office building, you can access different features like statistics, hiring staff (riding instructors, stable hands, and horse trainers), or place ads for more guests.

Guests will want to ride. This needs riding instructors who are assigned to some horses (your own or boarders). These horses need to be healthy (no illness/injury, and health stat >65), and have a trust stat >60. You will get an error message daily if any of the assigned horses are not eligible.

Goals
The game gives you 17 (optional) goals for the game, unlocking consecutively, a few at a time:
 * Raise trust with your first horse to 70 to gain 1200 Credits.
 * Vaccinate all your horses to gain 4000 Credits. (this is auto-fulfilled, because your first horse is already vaccinated....)
 * Complete orienteering track A. – Reward: 300 C
 * Complete orienteering track B. – Reward: 900 C
 * Complete the healing herbs orienteering track. – Reward: 300 C
 * Get 10 boarding horses.
 * Win the competition on L level. – Reward: 3000 C
 * Raise the number of visitors to 12. – Reward: 300 C
 * Complete orienteering track C. – Reward: 1500 C
 * Find the old church ruins. – Reward: 2000 C
 * Buy the horse Mamut. – This doesn't work unless you install the patch for version 1.2

Orienteering Track A
A track in the Hills. The marked spots to find follow a path. Not the path on the ground, but mostly the direction you follow intuitively is right. Most of the time, the next item is or will be in sight soon after riding through a marking.

Orienteering Track B
A track by the beach. The marked spots to find follow a path. Not the path on the ground, but mostly the direction you follow intuitively is right. Most of the time, the next item is or will be in sight soon after riding through a marking.

Herbs Orienteering Track
Finding the herbs without having an in-game map is a real bother. Here's a guide in German. Translation with a few changes for better understanding: I don't know the English location names, so i'll just use the German ones with a literal translation. 1. Follow the path, at the first fork go left, you will reach Alte Koppel (Old Paddock, a spot with a bunch of obstacles) dann die 1. Abzweigung links nehmen, bis ihr bei der alten Koppel seid (viele Hindernisse). Before the paddock, take the left path, leading down to Smaragdsee (emerald lake). There's a tree to the left with the first herb. 2. Follow the path around the lake, through Titanenschlucht (Titan's Gorge), afterwards take the left path, follow the path until the path curves right (there are trees), ride off the path (to the left) towards the mountains, there's a bay in the mountain, in there you find the herb. 3. Go back to the path and keep following it. When you see the river to the right, there's the next herb on a little hill. 4. Take the path left of that hill, jump the two fence obstacles when you encounter them and follow that path. The path will do a u-turn left, then a u-turn right, right after that one, ride off the path (to the left, up a slope), towards the rocks, the herb is behind them. 5. Go back to the path and keep following it. After a curve to the right, there will be two more fence obstacles, follow that path and then ride down the serpentine, at the bottom is the next herb. 6. Turn right and follow the path, after the curve to the right, there's a fork, go straight/right-ish, there's another curve to the right, then go right at the next fork, next fork go left, at the rock by the roadside, go left off the road, up a slope. There's a crack in the rock you need to ride through (there's trees and an archway there), turn right and the herb is there. 7. go back to the path by the rock, follow it (direction NW), when the path curves right, you go straight, off the path, up a ramp by the mountain you'll find the last herb.

Orienteering Track C
A track in the forest. The marked spots to find follow a path. Not the path on the ground, but mostly the direction you follow intuitively is right. Most of the time, the next item is or will be in sight soon after riding through a marking.

Bugs
There is a display bug when a mare has a foal – if she is dirty, the dirt will not show (or show less dirt = more transparent dirt layer) until you send the foal out of the stall, then the dirt comes back, until you bring the foal back...

Sometimes when selling a mare, clicking the sale icon (not the confirmation, just the preview) again will change the breeder's price offer (within a range of the last two digits), choosing the highest earns you a few extra credits. Have not found out what causes this.

Sometimes when selling a foal and then returning to the town overview, the foal is back in your trailer and you can go back to the breeder, resell it (this time, he offers a much higher price!), go back to town, and repeat until you are rich and bored of repetition.

Differences between Releases
The first release version 1.0 has a bunch of bugs, but also a bunch of imbalanced gameplay features that have been amended in the version 1.1 patch (Download and change log, in German).

Technical:
 * bug fixes with user names
 * better compression of save files
 * some fixes for the online-function

Missions:
 * bug fix for an empty mission
 * higher rewards for many missions
 * mission “Buy the horse “Mamut”” can now be fulfilled.

Game Mechanics: Income/Expenses:
 * income for boarding horses, riding lessons, and trail rides increased.
 * upkeep cost for buildings decreased.
 * wages for horse trainers decreased. No employees were harmed.

The Breeder:
 * horses the breeder offers have been adjusted in stats/value.
 * horses can't be sold infinite times at the breeder.
 * horses on offer are vaccinated.
 * one offered horse per round may be randomly exchanged with a new horse.

Breeding:
 * The breed percentage has been updated. Dominant breeds of parents horses will be more likely to be passed on, while breeds with small percentages will be rare. Purebred horses are easier to achieve.
 * Berber and Tinker (Irish Cob) added to available breeds. “unknown” got removed from breeds and their percentages.

Miscellaneous:
 * chances of horses getting sick decreased.
 * when starting a new game, the guest house will already be built.
 * horse trainers will raise the horse's trust until it's high enough to use the horse for trail rides and riding lessons.

Differences to Mein Pferdehof (1)
This game is very similar to its prequel. It's basically this game with a graphics update, some mechanics changed, and a few features added. The stud farm and town setup is the same with all its locations, the stalls have the same design (just fitted with the new graphics), the sounds of the game are the same, the available tack, feed types, etc are the same, even the texts explaining the game / notifications / internal error messages. New features: Updated/changed mechanics: Fans of Mein Pferdehof might enjoy this sequel as well, although it is missing the cartoony charm of the first game.
 * 3D riding
 * online-function for trading horses with other players (the website platform for this is not available anymore).
 * horses age slower (foals grow up later, pregnancy takes longer)
 * a lot more stalls (up to 32, but including boarded guest horses)
 * horses staying in the pasture over night don't lose excercise or feed stats

Additional Media




Running on Windows 10
After successfully installing it on Windows 10, you need to change the compatibility mode in the settings, (Compatibility Mode Tab) of the .exe-files to "Windows 98/Windows Me" and tick the check box "Run as administrator" in the same tab. This must be done with these three files: - MeinPferdehof2.exe - starter.exe - ausreiten.exe

After that you can start the game via "starter.exe" (starting it via the stardard installed exe-file doesn't seem to work...).

Sometimes, i am running into “script error” messages somewhere in the game, but they don't seem to affect the gameplay.

Running on VirtualBox (Windows XP 32bit)
After installing, there is the well-known copy protection problem. Or possibly, i only got that because i used an .iso file. Fair enough.