Last devlog we talked about horse updates, medical system, sound system and new scene.

Demo

The stable doors are about to open! We are excited for our demo release on 02/24/2025 Steam Next Fest. This is a huge milestone for us, and we can't wait to hear about your experience and possible feedback.

New Locations

Exceptional progress has been made by our artist, we have implemented a new racecourse inspired by prestigious Prix du Jockey Club in France, it is designed to reflect the competitive spirit of real world horse racing and offers high-class racing experience.
Race track inspired by Prix du Jockey Club The ranch track is a new local venue where races happen before reaching graded competitions. This track will add variety to race progressing structure and will serve as an early proving ground for horses.
Ranch

New horses and animations

New horse model system is seeing continuous progress, this time we'd like to showcase some of new animations and coats. We also tried to make unique horses by making different parts, but this turned out not really work that well and we are now focusing more on making more coat colors. Perhaps different breeds in the future, but for now we are focusing on coat colours.
Trot animation
Walk animation
Yearling walk animation
Foal idle Animation
New coat designs

Localization

To make Horse Racing Manager more personalised for players around the world, our development team has implemented localization support. Now, players can customize the game to match their preferences, we've added wide selection of currencies, the ability to switch between imperial and metric units for distance, weight and temperature, and multiple options for date formats and number formatting.
Localization menu

Facilities

We have finished the first draft of Facilities, we moved from a graph tree, to a folderlike structure. We think this is a bit cleaner. We added facilities for stables now, but the system is also built in a way where it can support facilities for race tracks and auction houses. We have integrated the effects of the facilities into the game around 50%. Currently there are 55 facilities in the game, but this might still change.
The UI is still a work in progress, but a sneak peek of facilities

Betting System

One of many exciting systems that we are preparing for full game is betting system, which our team began working on recently, so far system includes betting types such as win, place, show, across the board, exacta, trifecta and superfecta. Our goal with parimutuel betting, also known as pool betting, is to create a betting experience that feels authentic, each bet that is placed is originated from somewhere, not just randomly generated.

And there was sound!

In our last Devlog, we introduced the first steps towards immersive sound design, since then, we've focused on enhancing these elements. We've made improvement to the race track audio, adding some depth and detail to the galloping noises, crowd cheer, and ambient sounds. The race announcer system has seen major progress, though the logic is still in early development. Currently, we are testing the feature using AI-generated voice to ensure that system works as intended and bring out immersion of racing. While this is a temporary solution, our long-term goal is to replace the AI with real voice actors, which will add more authenticity and excitement to every event. This is also the reason why we put quite a lot of effects on the AI voice to hide its imperfections. One thing that is a problem with AI voice models is that you can't specify what tone or how excited the prompt should be, this makes it where this changes in a single sentence and sounds very off.

UI/UX Development

Our specialist has made some significant progress on particular layouts, and I think we are reaching a point where game's final visual "identity" is beginning to take shape. More on this topic later, when we get closer to final designs. We have been thinking of doing a shadcn style, where we also change the top bar to be smaller and introduce a command menu.
Sneak peek of command bar

Medical system

Several key improvements has been added to the medical system. the overview screen has been completely reworked and new graph has been added for player to see relevant data. We've also implemented allocate healing system, allowing player to manage horse treatment by distributing resources. This way system now calculates recovery times based on available recourses.

Database handling optimisation

Now all database operations have been moved to memory, this improves performance significantly, allowing for smoother gameplay and better handling of large amounts of data.

Scene management improvements

Our developers implemented a custom scene unloading system to handle larger scenes more efficiently and prevent crashes when switching between complex environments.

Alpha Testing

Once our full game is in a more mature state, we will start alpha testing. We will then invite a select group of players to test the game and give us feedback from the discord group. We will do the playtesting via Steam.

Discord Server

We have member count of over 200 already. If you have suggestions, ideas or something else you want to talk about, it's a great platform and an easy way to reach us. Join the server here!

Whats next

We are continuing work on various parts of the game, and we will keep you updated on our progress. We are participating in Steam Next Fest 2025, and you will be able to play the demo there. After the Next Fest we have thought about doing an early access release given that the game is in a state where it's playable. Some side features might still be missing, but we want to have the core features there and somewhat of a balanced game. We are continuously working to enhance Horse Racing Manager, and your feedback is invaluable. Our goal is to make this franchise the most realistic horse racing simulator in the world. Don't forget to add Horse Racing Manager to your Steam wishlist! Your support is crucial for us and greatly appreciated. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2740170/Horse_Racing_Manager/

[ 2025-02-24 16:23:30 CET ] [ Original post ]