Horse Club Adventures – An (Almost) Perfect Summer Getaway

When I look back to my years as a bright-eyed, horse-crazed kinder, one core pillar of my childhood stands taller amongst the rest. When lessons on real horses were few and far between, one of my favourite pastimes was wandering off to my local toy store, admiring their display of plastic steeds. And when it comes to Europe, few brands remained consistently on top of the game like Schleich. From their barn and stable collection, all the way to elves, dragons and unicorns of Bayala and the grimdark atmospheres of Eldrador, the Munich-based company remains a bastion of imaginative play.

What truly set apart the brand, for me, was its overall vision. Unlike other horse toys, too full of glitter and obnoxious paint jobs for my tastes, Schleich was grounded in believable realism—encouraging a much more sophisticated, dare I say ‘mature’ type of play. A brief stroll across the internet will reveal sprawling estates, catalogues of names and genealogy and riveting stable drama, re-enacted through standard plastic figurines and pure human ingenuity. And while I was never fully ‘into’ that world, it still provided me with fond memories that followed me all the way to adulthood…

… which brings us, at last, to Horse Club Adventures, the first chapter in the equestrian franchise by the same name. Developed by Wild River Games, based on Schleich’s own trademark, the game follows the Horse Club as they embark on many adventures around the fictional town of Hazelwood. With the third chapter now a scant month away, let’s dive into where it all began—and see where we may be headed next!

HORSE CLUB ADVENTURES: A TRIP TO LAKESIDE

Horse Club Adventures immediately gains some brownie points for its unconventional premise. Our old friend, Sarah, has invited us to spend the rest of our summer vacation at Lakeside with our horse. A chance to reconnect after she moved away, but also to meet her new riding buddies and have some fun before returning to the humdrum of city life. Small as it may seem, this tiny detail already lends weight and intention to the worldbuilding. The two-weeks deadline further keeps the story from meandering off, centering the narrative on our budding friendship with the Horse Club.

Meet Hannah Kramer, Cayenne and their friends! Left to right, Lisa and Storm, Sarah and Mystery, Sofia and Blossom.
Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

Horse games are no strangers to their own variant of Isekai syndrome. The main character enters a static, lifeless world, desperate for the player to solve the problem at hand. This may include saving our stable, winning the Big Tournament, or completing The Big Quest—or all three things together. Horse Club Adventures combats this by establishing our presence in the valley as temporary from the start, rotating the main cast as our guides for the adventure, giving us insights as to their personalities, goals and overall relationship.

Compared to my all-time favourite, Secrets of the Ranch, Lakewood sadly offer little in terms of depth. Outside of quest dialogue, all NPCs share the same generic phrases, with no deeper lore to be found. Still, they are serviceable for what they are—although I still wish kid games would put some bite back into their writing. But that’s a story for another day.

The few instances of multiple choice dialogue are mostly inconsequential for the story.
Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

IT’S A GIRLS’ WORLD

The heart of the story rests entirely on the Horse Club proper: adventurous Hannah, whose parents own Lakeside Stables; animal lover Sarah; gentle, artistic Sofia; and competition-obsessed Lisa. While the narrative seldomly explores their individual relationships, in favour to the one with the player, it’s clear the group shares a deep emotional bond—one that is mediated by, you guessed it, their steeds. What I find most interesting is that only Hannah and our character own their horses outright, while the other girls have leases. Even Lisa, arguably the most accomplished athlete of the group, is not above riding Mr. Kramer’s gelding, Storm. It’s another small detail, but one that is significant to the experience of many Horse Girls, myself included to a degree.

The riding cast is further rounded up by Tori and her black mare, Princess. Lakeside’s resident spoiled rich equestrian. Tori introduces herself early on, although she poses no real danger to the player. Most of her antics happen safely off-screen, only corroborated by Hannah’s (admittedly biased) testimony. She’s neither reckless in the saddle, nor a scheming manipulator out for revenge. Her worst offence, as far as we know, is just being a little cocky about her riding abilities, which not one of the girls dares to call into question.

Oh, and also being the daughter of the big bad of the game. How could I forget?

A crush in four slides. Nice job, you guys.
Alice, if you’re reading this, know that I wholeheartedly support your stance on Tori, and will fight you to take her to dinner.
Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

HORSE CAMP GETAWAY

Our little summer retreat begins at Lakeside Riding Stables, the Kramer’s family home. Comprising of a large house, a paddock and animal enclosures, as well as a riding arena and grooming post, Lakeside acts as our main hub of operations. Every night, after caring for our horse, we can enter the house to save the game and move on to the following day. A mirror near the entrance allows us to customize both horse and rider with an ever-expanding collection of clothes, hairstyles and coat patterns. Some items will appear by completing missions, while others lie in hidden containers spawning across the open world which, of course, we can (and must) traverse on horseback.

The narrative of Horse Club Adventures is entirely developed through Main and Side Quests. While the formers advance the plot, the latters are optional, unlocking further customization options. Keeping in line with the game’s premises, these missions are relatively straightforward and low-stakes, focusing on getting to know the inhabitants and do fun activities for the summer. At least until a certain Mr. Michaels shows up…

The player’s journal offers a recap of the activities of the day, and associated rewards.
Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

After concluding our tasks for the day, we are free to do as we please. However, one look at our Map (or indeed, the Journal) will point us towards two activities, set up with the explicit goal of exploring the area from top to bottom: finding Photo Motifs to complete our album, and collecting all the Ribbons from race boards. But to talk about that, we must first take a look at how riding actually works in this game.

HOLD YOUR HORSES

Let’s get one thing out of the way: in Horse Club Adventures, riding is annoying at the best of times. It would be easy to pin all the blame on the Horse Animset Pro (which the devs are commited to improving in the sequel), but that’s not the entire truth. The animation department is solid overall, although not flashy or very interesting. Instead, the issue lays on the controls and open world design.

When riding, the game camera is locked behind the player’s back, making it impossible to see our horse from any other angle.
Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

For starters, your horse has only one gait—the canter. Trying to slow down will result in a walk-trot amalgamation that, while harmless, is still fairly bothersome. Also, the speed between our horse and the NPC’s doesn’t match, forcing us to abuse the Sprint to keep up with whoever it is that we’re following at the moment. The Sprint itself is flawed in its own way. It consist of a baseline, which can be increased by giving food and water to our horse every night, as well as doing care activities. Rewarding the player for caring about their horse is usually a solid plan in horse games; however, the grooming bonus disappears the more your ride. Worse still,  grooming posts are few and far between, and there’s no way to fast travel to any of them.

Grooming minigames are actually close to perfect in terms of visual and sound design.
Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

THE LONG WAY BACK

The outcome of this philosophy is that riding out becomes a calculation. The uneven distribution of grooming posts means you may go long stretches without the ability that makes traversing the world more tolerable—and the lack of fast travel points, while understandable from a story and immersion perspective, makes exploring the farthest corners of the map a chore.

Funnily enough, races are mostly safe from this particular brand of frustration. Each bulletin board grants access to a single circuit, divided into three difficulty levels. The first is just a flat race, meant to familiarize you with the track. The other two feature an increasing number of hurdles, which you must clear to shave seconds from your final time. However, the interval between each jump means that running out of stamina is pretty much impossible. Thus, you can reach the finish line with the minimum amount of Sprint, and the winning time to boot. Races also feature a ‘mirrored’ version, doubling the workload without, in my opinion, adding much substance to the experience.

Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

For me, the greatest source of frustration quickly became the hidden containers. These unlock new clothes for the main character, and are pretty much optional. However, the game doesn’t acknowledge their importance directly, delegating this task to the ‘Help’ menu. And furthermore, there’s no way to track how many spawn every day, let alone where. This uncertainty, coupled with the size of the map and lack of fast travel points, quickly makes the challenge unfair, especially for dedicated completionists.

LIFE IN PLASTIC, IS FANTASTIC

Having fell off the Schleich train many years before HORSE CLUB took to the shelves, I was fairly taken aback by the new visual direction of the brand. While female characters were already in the majority, larger sets were essentially gender-neutral, spartan even. Fast forward to this new generation, and we see many trappings of girl-coded equestrian fashion emerge with a vengeance. Buildings are all a pristine shade of white, covered by purple-ish tiled roofs and dotted by teal window frames. Hearts, flowers and imagery of our protagonists become decorations for jumps, posters and accessories. Lakewood is thus presented as an established setting, rather than a sandbox for children to craft their own stories.

Let me be clear—there’s nothing wrong with choosing to cater to a specific demographic, and neither is Schleich beholden to my memories of it from almost twenty years ago. And further, it goes without saying that Wild River Games is not at all responsible for these changes. In fact, many sets available to purchase in real life have been recreated in great detail, making for a polished catalogue of what the brand has to offer.

Lakewood House, the Riding Stables and the Horse Club caravan, as they appear in the game.
Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

GREEN PASTURES

The world of Horse Club Adventures is fairly self-contained. In the beginning, our main reference points are going to be the Lakeside Stables and the Cups & Saddle Café, where the girls like to hang out with some freshly-baked muffins. As we explore, we’ll add Granny’s Mill, Old Anton and Mr. O Neill’s sheep meadow to the list, as well as the Boarding Stables and the Arena, home of the annual Lakeside Cup. Between each location lie vast open fields, lush forests and idyllic coastlines, populated by nay a trace of life besides our own. This lack of interaction unfortunately reflects poorly on what is, by all means, a competently crafted corner of German countryside.

Now, to be clear. Do I believe every horse game should have a sprawling open world, filled to the brim with activities? Nope. Do I believe every horse game needs an open world at all? Absolutely not—in fact, I applaud a game that knows its limits and makes the best of what they have. However, for a title built around this very mechanic, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for a little more substance. Hopefully, Ride West will seize the chance to make exploration a much more fulfilling endeavour.

Much like racing boards, Photo Motifs appear on the map once discovered.
Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

COUNTRY ROADS

I also want to take a moment to discuss the game’s overall artistic presentation. Set on a stage of perpetual daylight, Horse Club Adventures is bathed in greens, blues and yellows—a fitting contrasts to the white and magenta notes of most buildings. What I appreciate the most is that  each major landmark immediately recognizeable, allowing us to slowly feel at home around Lakeside with each passing day. Even with all the flaws I mentioned earlier, the bones of this open world are rock solid.

Against this picture-perfect backdrop, the human characters behave more or less like their doll counterparts do. Aside from the Horse Club, NPCs will stand in place, waiting to dispense quest objectives. The highest form of interaction happens during cutscenes, where 2D animated models will add a little more depth to the dialogue.

Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

And finally, a note of merit goes to the score, signed by Award-winning composer Winifred Phillips. Perhaps best known by her work on God of War (netting her four Game Audio Network Guild Awards, including Audio of the Year, Music of the Year and Best Interactive Score), Phillips crafts a collection of soothing melodies to accompany our rides in the countryside. Each motif also serves as boundary lines between each quarter of the map, intuitively helping us navigate our surroundings. The ligh, airy instrumentals exude the warmth and carefree spirit of a summer where everything can happen, as new friendships are born and old bonds affirmed.

Phillips received two NYX Awards for Best Game Soundtrack and Best Music for a Nintendo Switch Game for her work on Horse Club Adventures. Secrets of Skeifa Island was further nominated for Oustanding Score for Interactive Digital Media.
Horse Club Adventures © Wild River Games

TECHNICAL STATE

One thing where I truly cannot fault Horse Club Adventures is its performances. The game ran with buttersmooth precision on my trusty Acer Nitro 5 with nay a stutter, a glitch or framerate loss. It’s system requirements are definitely on the lower end, but Wild River nonetheless pulled all the possible stops to make it a flawless experience, at least when it comes to the pc version.

CONCLUSIONS

Horse Club Adventures is a game with many strengths, but also notable flaws. Its open world structure, while solid and accessible for younger players, presents several points of friction that dampen the experience of roaming around undisturbed. The riding is functional, but marred by janky animations and camera controls. And the narrative, while on target for a younger demographic, offers little depth to older players.

While not perfect by any means, the final product is nonetheless a more than decent starting point. Horse Club Adventures draws from many tropes of the genre to create a warm distillate of pure Horse Girl Summer, where friendship, adventure and a little bit of mischief come together for one last ride before the clock strikes midnight. There are times where leaving all your worries behind is necessary, and this cozy adventure around Lakeside provided me with exactly that. Furthermore, the competent character design would also lend itself well to a tv adaptation, on the vein of Horseland and The Saddle Club, balancing its playful aesthetics with a story full of heart, fun and, obviously, horses.

Will Horse Club Ride West be the chapter to finally bring the franchise to the next level? We’ll just have to wait and see…

Horse Club Adventures is available to purchase on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. 

More about Horse Club Adventures

REVIEW  ✦ YOUTUBE PLAYLIST ✦ PHOTO MOTIFS