Hey everyone! The time has finally come - the release of Horse Runner DX is here! I am very excited to release the game and would like to thank you for all the lovely feedback and the many good suggestions. Version 1.0.4 contains the following improvements and fixes:

• Improved chance of survival: One much-requested feature was that the whole herd is not lost in the event of a mass crash. Previously, you lost all the horses if you jumped right into an obstacle and the horses could no longer avoid it. This has now been mitigated so that only the first horse is lost and the rest of the herd survives.
• Compatibility with demo: If you have already played the demo, your progress will be carried over automatically. But if you want to start again from scratch (which I recommend), you can reset your progress individually under Settings\Data. You can, for example, keep the leaderboard and only reset the challenges and your apples.
• Improved performance: The game has been further optimized so that it runs very smoothly even on slow PCs. On the Steam Deck, for example, the game still runs smoothly at 60 FPS with 3W TDP. For Steam Deck users, this means even longer battery life.
• New logo and Steam image: The previous logo and image, which were a bit too generic, have been redesigned to better reflect the retro and pixel art character of the game.
• Adjustment of the speed bonus: The speed bonus at the end of the levels is no longer offset against the "Slower" power-up. Now you always get a bonus for every "Faster" power-up, even if you have "Slower" at the same time.

• Unlockable bonus horses: By completing challenges, you can gradually unlock bonus horses. Some of these horses come with several power-ups that you can use right from the start.
• Local leaderboard: Your best high scores are now saved in a local leaderboard so that you can better compare your runs.
• Screenshot mode: To create a nice screenshot, you can go to the new screenshot mode in the pause menu, which hides everything else.
• Tutorial hints: When you play for the first time, you will see short hints that explain the game. You can reset these hints under Settings\Data so that, for example, someone you let play also sees the tutorial.

Hey everyone! Since the last update, development of Horse Runner DX has progressed at a galloping pace. As always, the demo will be kept up to date and will continue to receive regular updates with your suggestions for improvement. Thank you for all the lovely feedback and suggestions Update 1.0.0 includes the following improvements:

New Features

• Unlockable starting horses: From the title screen you can now access the list of unlockable horses. By completing challenges you can unlock more and more horses to start the game with.
• Leaderboard: From now on, your high scores will be saved and displayed in a local leaderboard. Each horse that finishes a run will receive its own entry with its name. You can reset all entries under Settings\Data.
• Tutorial hints: When you play through the game for the first time, you will be shown tutorial hints that explain the game. You can reset the hints under Settings\Data if you want to see them again.
• Screenshot mode: There is now a screenshot button in the bottom left of the pause menu and the game over screen. This allows you to display the game without the UI and take a screenshot at your leisure.

Improvements

• Improved music controls: You can now go back and forth in the music playlist using the F7 and F8 keys. With a controller you can use the shoulder buttons for this: LB/RB on Xbox controllers, L1/R1 on PlayStation controllers.
• Improved background music: A new music track was added and the loudness of the music tracks was adjusted to match each other.
• Automatic pause: If your controller is disconnected or the battery runs out, the game will now automatically pause so you don't run into a rock :-)
• Hiding the mouse: When you play with a keyboard or controller, the mouse cursor is automatically hidden so that it does not disturb you.
• Improved Shaders: The quality of the shaders has been improved, making text more readable and the game looking better overall.
• Improved fonts: The font used to display apples and the score has been improved so that the text no longer jumps back and forth when counting up.
• Improved progress bar: The progress bar now includes the goal flag to make it clear that the bar always refers to a level.
• Improved notifications: The notifications have been given a background to make them easier to read.
• Improved UI layout: The UI layout of all screens has been adjusted to provide more space for text in certain languages.
• Improved UI navigation: Fixed an issue where the game would accidentally quit on the title screen when pressing the wrong controller button. Sorry about that.

Hey everyone! Once again, thank you very much to everyone who played the demo version! After the last update added new horses and new music, this update makes everything a little prettier and more polished. The demo update 0.8.6 includes the following improvements:

Improvements

• Tree and bush shadows: All trees and bushes in the landscape now cast a shadow. This gives the landscape more depth and contrast - and simply looks more beautiful!
• Improved background graphics: The background graphics have been improved to ensure that the colors and lighting are more consistent overall.
• Added new sound effects: When you land on a bale of straw, a rock, a tree trunk or a bridge, there are now additional sound effects. For example, the straw rustles when you land on a bale of straw.
• Cheaper first horses: If you didn't collect enough apples on your very first run, you couldn't buy horses after the first level. The very first horses are now cheaper so you don't have to stay alone :-)
• Explanatory texts for power-ups: The help screen now displays a short text for all power-ups explaining the effect of the power-ups.
• New menu icons: Since some languages have very long translations, some button texts in the menus have been replaced by icons.
• Better challenge info: The challenge info at the end of the level now also shows tasks that have already been completed, so that there is no confusion compared to the pause menu.
• Corrected power-up text: The "Apples +1" power-up had a misleading name and is now called "Apples +50%". This means that for every apple you collect, you have a 50% chance of getting an additional apple.

Hey everyone! Many thanks to all the nice people who tried out the demo! The demo is constantly being developed and updated every few weeks. So it's worth checking back every now and then :-) The demo update 0.8.3 includes the following improvements:

Content Improvements

• New coat colors: There are 4 new coat colors, making 10 different horses in the game. The new colors are Buckskin, light Dapple Grey, dark Dapple Grey and Snowflake Appaloosa (the spotted ones are my favorite).
• New and updated sound effects: All sound effects in the game and the UI have been revised and/or replaced with new ones. The horses now snort and neigh depending on the situation.
• New background music: The game now contains more and new music tracks. Problems with YouTube's Content ID (despite valid licensing) should now be resolved and no longer be incorrectly detected.
• More exciting landscape: The landscape of all biomes has been made a little more varied and now has more topology. There can now also be small rivers in the mountain landscape.

Technical Improvements

• Improved camera: The old camera was sometimes shifted by half a pixel and was therefore blurry for a moment. The camera has been completely redesigned and is now always sharp and buttery smooth.
• Adjusted audio volume: The volume of all sound effects and background music pieces has been normalized and adjusted to common loudness standards. The overall sound is now much more balanced.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed jittery movement of the following horses
• Fixed completion issue of level based challenges
• Fixed the balancing of challenges
• Fixed the bonus for level based challenges
• Fixed flickering dead horses
• Fixed crash when resetting data during run
• Added confirmation before resetting data
• Improved drawing performance of vegatation

Hey everyone! First off, a big thank you to everyone who played the Horse Runner DX demo, shared your thoughts, and posted gameplay videos on YouTube. Your feedback has been incredibly helpful! With Demo Update 0.8.2, there are several improvements based on your suggestions and bug reports:

Gameplay Improvements

• Acceleration at the end of the level: If you don't want to read the bonus information and challenges at the end of the level, you can now jump to accelerate immediately.
• Improved biome variety: Biomes are now alternated more evenly so that each landscape appears with a similar frequency. This means that challenges to reach a certain landscape are now much fairer.
• Adjustment of night brightness: Since the night was a bit too dark for some, the brightness was increased slightly for accessibility.
• Improved controls during gameplay: The pause menu can now be opened and closed with the start/options button. In the game, the X button can now be used in addition to A. On a PlayStation controller, Square can now be used in addition to X.

Technical Improvements

• Improved support for non 16:9 resolutions: At some resolutions, there were black bars on the edges due to the pixel-perfect display. Now the game is displayed as large as possible and (almost) without borders, even at unusual resolutions.
• Improved retro filter: The scanline shader has been reworked to look better even at unusual resolutions.
• New hotkeys for music: There are now a few handy hotkeys to control the background music - mute music (F6), previous song (F7), next song (F8).
• New hotkeys for screenshots and display: Create screenshot (F9, My Pictures folder), hide UI (F10, e.g. in the pause menu), toggle full screen (F11).
• Improved controls in the settings menu: To switch a setting (e.g. English >) you can now also press right (keyboard/controller). Pressing left no longer jumps out of the current setting item.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed notification text that was difficult to read at some resolutions
• Fixed localization issue in the power-ups menu
• Corrected text for the power-up "Points +20" (previously +10)
• Fixed edge case that allowed jumping out of water
• Fixed info at end of level for the power-up "Faster"
• Fixed poor landscape display on narrow screens
• Fixed missing landscape on ultra wide screens

New Input Methods

Steam Deck Support

• OS: glibc 2.23
• Processor: Intel Core i3Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: OpenGL 2.0 (with ARB framebuffer object extension)
• Storage: 100 MB available space