Game Release & Developer Q&A: Horses of Hoofprint Bay is Out Now! Insights from Anna Glinsmann and Theresa Thoma

Disclaimer: This article is about a game I work on and whose success I am directly invested in.

Horses of Hoofprint Bay, a 2D hand-drawn horse riding and stable management game inspired by my childhood favorite, is out now on Steam! Developed by thogli studios from Germany and published by none other than me personally, Alice Ruppert a.k.a The Mane Quest, Horses of Hoofprint Bay has taken the horse game community by storm over the past year – though admittedly, I’m a heavily, heavily biased observer here. 

I will once again do my best to straddle the line between reporting on games and working on them by telling you all you need to know about our game’s release.

What Awaits in Hoofprint Bay

I won’t recap how this project came to be and why that is beyond amazing to me: find our origin story in the initial announcement article, and know that I owe you all an interview with the creators of My Horse Farm, one of whom even provided some funding for Horses of Hoofprint Bay because they like and support what we’re doing. 

Since the initial demo release in February 2026 a lot has happened: We added cross country competitions, desensitization training, beach and mountain trail ride environments, additional horse patterns, horse personality traits, more quests, achievements, staff members and the almost entirely useless but infinitely adorable option to go on walks with your mares and foals. The demo has received over one thousand reviews on Steam at a ratio of 99% positive and has been played by over sixty thousand people total — numbers that even my successful game dev friends keep being impressed by. Over seventy thousand people have added the game to their Steam wishlist at this time. 

With the full release today, players will finally be able to play for unlimited days, while the Demo limited progression to the first 25 in-game days/turns. Alongside the full game, players can also purchase a Supporter Pack consisting of an art book and coloring pages, as well as a bundle of the full game, supporter pack and soundtrack. 

Rather than recap what you’ll do in the game otherwise, I’ll just refer you all to the Steam page and recent News Posts there! I write those too, after all.

Horse care: Work in progress sketches from the Hoofprint Bay Art Book

Horse care in the final game

Future Plans Or Lack Thereof

Unlike many of the games we see in the horse game space, Horses of Hoofprint Bay is releasing as a complete product without an Early Access label, a content roadmap or other major update plans. We’ll absolutely keep an eye on feedback and bug reports and tackle those as needed, but we’re not promising any future feature or content additions at this point. 

I’ll let Anna and Theresa explain their own reasons for this in the Q&A section, but for me personally, I am thrilled to work on a game that knows its scope and dares to say “that’s it” sooner rather than later. I’m absolutely here for well-made Early Access periods — The Ranch of Rivershine being an excellent example of how it’s done — but I’ve also seen one too many examples of horse games promising the world and then just fizzling out into obscurity over the years. If you’ve read this site for a while, you’ll know that I’m a big proponent of people making tiny games to start with and then growing from there as creators. And I’m infinitely grateful to work with people like Anna and Theresa, who share that attitude and have been putting their incredibly fitting and valuable expertise into it. 

I could write a novel about Horses of Hoofprint Bay, what it means to me and what I’ve learned from this project — and by the way, I highly recommend you buy our Supporter Pack and read the sappy introduction page I wrote for our artbook! — But I have a game to release and I’ll let the two incredible craftswomen who’ve been making this happen get a word in.

Training your horse in Horses of Hoofprint Bay

This humble rusty trailer serves as your home as a start of the game. In time, you can build it into a proper mansion!

Developer Q&A

TMQ: For any new readers: who are you and what did you do on Horses of Hoofprint Bay? 

Left to right: Programmer and Game Designer Theresa Thoma, Honorary Studio Member Balu, and Illustrator and Animator Anna Glinsmann

Anna Glinsmann: I’m an illustrator and drew all the 2D game art and frame by frame animations for this game, so everything including the horses, human characters, backgrounds, icons, GUI and whatever else you can see (except the horse coat patterns which Theresa made with shader magic).

Theresa Thoma: I’m a software engineer and I did all the engineering and programming for the game. That means I took Anna’s illustrations and our ideas and made them “do” stuff. I made sure the right things happen when you press a button, horses behave like they should and you can progress through the game.

TMQ: I’ve added my perspective above already, but what is your reasoning for wanting to release this as a finished product without future update plans? 

Anna: We have a long list of ideas for this game, and you can endlessly add to a project like this. But from my experience, this would most likely lead to creative burnout, and a half baked product with lots of promises rather than a smaller but polished one. From the start, our goal wasn‘t to make the perfect horse game (as tempting as that is, it’s also highly unrealistic), but rather to make and release a finished game in a reasonable timeframe, that we can realistically deliver (with little funding, mind you).

Theresa: I know that I need a clear goal to work towards, otherwise I’ll get distracted and motivation will fizzle out without the project reaching any kind of finished state. Also I don’t want to be tied to this project forever. As much as I enjoy working on this specific horse game, I know my brain will get bored of it at some point. I want to finish it before that happens and then be able to move on to other things.

TMQ: What was your favorite thing about making HoHB?

Anna: My inner child (who made up stories about her favourite toy horses and crafted accessories for them) is just as happy as my adult self (who's trying to set foot in an unstable industry and now has an entire game in her portfolio). I loved animating the horses, drawing the backgrounds (specifically the run-down early stages and nature) but also the flexibility and variety that I got from switching to different scenery, e.g. the town screen or the harbour, as I love the sea and boats as well! 

Theresa: The whole project is a combination of two of my passions, horses and coding. I just always wanted to work on it, I was happy when I had no other obligations so I could tinker with HoHB. When working on the game, I enjoyed prototyping the most. It’s the time where you see the most progress and it’s super fun to experiment with ideas. For actual features, the patterns were probably my favourite (more on that below).

The town of Hoofprint Bay is where players can buy tack and feed, compete in Show Jumping and Cross Country…

…and of course buy and sell horses!

TMQ: What was your least favorite thing about making HoHB?

Anna: As fun as the actual animating was, the file management involved in all the frames, parts and layers that make up the horses drove me up the wall. I could also do without the (German!) bureaucracy that comes with creating a business – I still see myself as an artist rather than an entrepreneur. And sometimes it’s hard to force creativity after 2 years of working on the same thing.

Theresa: For me it’s also the bureaucracy that comes with your own business. Setting up the company meant doing a lot of paperwork for each other, and then for the trade registration office, the tax office, the tax advisor, the bank, and so on. 

As far as the actual game is concerned: Tutorials are really hard to get right. What info do players need? When do they need it? What not to tell the players? How much text can I present at any one time? How do I make the game mechanic easy to understand without breaking immersion too much? 

Top Left: Another Teaser page from the Art Book, showing animation frames and rig. Top Right: Short video explaining the basics of Theresa’s shader magic for colors and patterns.

TMQ: Horses of Hoofprint Bay is unique in that everyone making it is a "horse person" and has both their professional craftsmanship knowledge AND horse knowledge. How did that influence your work?

Anna: While for some things I could pull directly from my knowledge and experience, I still studied references and learned new things about how horses actually move and such! I‘m a horse girl but not an expert, as at the moment I can‘t actually spend as much time with horses as I would like. But as I have always been obsessed with horses and drawing them, so the research was really fun. Making art is deeply tied to your emotions and I believe that how much you enjoy and “feel” a drawing influences the outcome a lot. 

Theresa: A good example is the shader I wrote for the horse patterns. (see here!) It starts with the research before actually making anything. For research you need a keyword. I already knew that “Tobiano” is the most common white pattern in horses, so I could dive straight into the deep end. I searched for pictures of horses with a Tobiano pattern. With my existing horse knowledge I immediately noticed that this one horse labeled as a Tobiano is in fact a Frame Overo. Someone without prior knowledge about horse patterns might have included it in their references resulting in a mixed pattern that doesn’t feel very natural. I then tried to create rules from my knowledge and research in a way that allowed for a maximum of variations with a minimum of effort, so I can put them in a shader. The result might not be scientifically accurate in every aspect, but I have seen enough horses in my life that I can see at a glance if something is too far off here. Not having to run stuff like this past a fact check by someone else (and then having to adjust it again) is an immense time saver here. You see, even for such a small example there’s a ton to consider! And there are many many more similar situations like that when making a game.

Theresa, Anna and myself exhibiting their game at GG Bavaria in March 2026 – which was also the first time all three of us actually met in person!

TMQ: What are you looking forward to after release?

Anna: I usually keep expectations low and prefer to get surprised positively but I’m looking forward to seeing what people think! Also to less pressure and to free up time and headspace for drawing something else again. And to be quite honest, the financial side would help as well, as we have been working full time on Hoofprint Bay for an entire year with only a few months of prototype funding to live off (Horses of Hoofprint Bay is financially supported by FFF Bayern and the budgetary funds of the Free State of Bavaria).

Theresa: As much as I love working on HoHB there is a certain pressure to "get it done", I'm looking forward to not having that sit in the back of my head all the time. And of course I’m very excited to see what people think of our game!

TMQ: What can we expect next from Thogli Studios?

Theresa: We're not sure yet! thogli studios was founded specifically with the goal of making and releasing HoHB. And we've been focusing so much on this game that we haven't really thought about the future. Just that we didn't want to commit to anything yet. Up until now it has worked very well to just let things happen and see where it would take us next.

Horses of Hoofprint Bay is out now on Steam for PC!