Horses of Hoofprint Bay: Free Demo Available Now on Steam

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

So as announced a few months ago, I’m publishing a video game that’s being developed by two members of the TMQ community and is inspired by my childhood favorite game that nothing ever lived up to in the past 20+ years. Read up on how Horses of Hoofprint Bay came to be right here, if you missed it.

Today, we’re launching a free public demo on Steam for everyone to try. This version of the game allows players to try the basics of horse care, riding lessons, training and competitions, as well as yard management. Its playtime is limited to 25 in-game rounds though, which means you might get around to breeding a foal and upgrading some buildings, but not yet max out your stables or improve your stock across generations. 

We’ve been playtesting this version of the game for the past few months, have received quite encouraging feedback and we’re absolutely giddy to get the demo out to more people. The Demo is not just our way to get feedback from more people, but also the next major step in finding out how many people want to play a game like this. How our demo players, playtime and wishlist numbers develop over the next week will be crucial insight for us to shape the future of the project. 

If you want to help Horses of Hoofprint Bay be the best it can be and get seen by as many people as possible, you can meaningfully support us in several ways: 

• Play the demo a lot this week, especially during Steam Horse Fest on the weekend

• Leave a review on the Demo’s dedicated Steam Store page

• Tell all your horsie friends to play the demo and leave a review

• Tell your favorite streamers or content creators to play the game on their channels

• Talk about the game on whatever social media platforms you use, help us spread the word! 

And now please excuse me as I go screaming in excitement and abusing my F5 key to see how it’s going.