Horses in Computer Games

[Clare]

I loved the Zelda - Ocarina of Time game on Nintendo, partly because it had a gorgeous brown or bay horse, Epona, which you could ride. The horse came when you played a song for it and at one point you went back in time and befriended the horse as a foal.

Where else have you ridden virtual horses?

[Clare]

Oblivion comes with a fair selection of horses from pinto cobs to black Watch Rider horses, to general riding horses.

There's also a Unicorn and guess what, if you befriend it and kill a lot of fearsome beasts, you can get to ride the unicorn. Annoyingly, this unicorn is a creature of the forests and will keep on opening a corral gate and wandering off to its home.

Best of all, if you join Nexus Mod Manager which is free, you can get access to a whole stable of horses and ponies of many varieties. A Palomino, Quarter Horse, Appaloosa, you name it. You will find them stabled at any city gate and you can buy them, if you have the right coin, or you might find one wandering if its previous rider has been killed. These only work in Oblivion. Great people who enjoy Modding games with tools made available by the creators of Oblivion, have made them and released them free.

https://www.nexusmods.com/about/vortex/

Nexus Mod Manager is safe to use but beware of random people claiming they have horsey downloadables for your computer. These could come with bugs or could wreck your computer.

[Clare]

Some of you may have tried Star Stables, which claims to have a million users online.

https://www.starstable.com/en/

This is a multi-user world, particularly made for girls who love horses and ponies. The makers say you can meet up with your friends online and have adventures, explore, learn horse care and race one another.

The game is free up to level five and after that you would need to pay. I don't know, but I am presuming that you can keep participating at that level, but not get access to prizes, different horses, different adventures and so on. Still sounds like a great way to spend a wet afternoon.

If anyone has played in Star Stables, tell us all about the experience!

[Clare]

The Witcher is a game for adults with fantasy monsters, violence and magic. Having seen this running on a high-powered computer, I can assure you the horses are well drawn and pretty realistic. When standing they even toss their heads a bit, like to shake away flies. I have not played it yet.
I met the author, who is Polish, of the original books at Eurocon a few years ago.

[Roland]

Clare wrote: "The Witcher is a game for adults with fantasy monsters, violence and magic. Having seen this running on a high-powered computer, I can assure you the horses are well drawn and pretty realistic. Whe..."

I've played Witcher 3 and as a retired equestrian journalist I agree Clare - although odd glitches occur. Although my horses behaved, I've seen screenshots of horses - well the main character Geralt's horse, Roach - in weird places like on rooves. Roach behaved for me, although she did wander off to find the best piece of grass. Yes, Roach is a mare - or rather Geralt prefers chestnut mares and calls them all Roach...in the books and games.

[Clare]

Thanks for that Roland, I'm thinking Roach isn't very complimentary... unless it means something else in Polish.

The nearest I've come to that glitch has been when I followed a modder's advice in Oblivion and rode my horse across seven leagues into Elsewyre. But once you get there, there's nothing to do.

Can you tell me about your work in journalism? I'm in my final year of an honours journalism degree.

[Roland]

Here's the Witcher Wiki entry for Roach. As an an angler in my teens, I thought of the fish and that's what the author wanted:
https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Roach....

As for my career in journalism here are two posts about me - https://rolandclarke.com/2020/10/07/i...
PLUS https://iwsganthologies.blogspot.com/...

The first actually has a link to the second. I'm sure that won't answer everything, but it may spark specific questions for me to answer.

Where are you doing your degree? My academic foray in journalism lasted one term - at Humber College, Toronto, Canada.

[Clare]

Thanks, I'll check them out soon. I'm reading Honours Journalism at Dublin Business School. This is a multimedia journalism degree.

[Clare]

International Velvet

Great film / book about eventing.
I have bought
and will give an unbiased review when I read it, but there are several books ahead in the queue.
Suggestion that the location seems to be moving around the place in the blurb, Canada / UK/ France, so maybe concentrate on one location you know well in the next story. And mention horses more. Just my immediate impression, feel free to ignore.

[Roland]

Clare wrote: "International Velvet

Great film / book about eventing.
I have bought
and will give an unbiased review w..."

International Velvet was not a bad film and handled the eventing well. I enjoyed it - and some of the riders I knew were involved.

Look forward to your review of Spiral of Hooves but no rush as I understand the TBR queue. Although the novel opens in Canada, the rest is primarily set in England. There are scenes in France as as one of the key horses is French-bred - and one of the MCs is French...and the heroine is Anglo-French. The sequel is set in the US after the opening chapter but features some of the same characters. In fact one - a French woman - appears in my current novel set in North Wales - crime again but not horses in same way.