Mutant centipedes, muscle-car ducks, multi-legged dogs and giraffe-headed alligators are all part of Horsey Game. In this neon, low-poly world, almost anything you encounter can be classified as a “horse” — at least by the game’s wonderfully unscientific rules.
That classification drives the whole experience. Capture a creature, take it back to the laboratory and alter its DNA. If the result still counts as a horse, it can enter a race. With enough experimentation, an alligator-duck hybrid might become your fastest competitor.
What is Horsey Game?
Developed by Captain Games, Horsey Game released for Windows PC on February 18. It combines horse collecting, breeding, racing and elaborate genetic modification, wrapped around an unexpectedly bleak objective.
At the start, you learn that your partner, Sweetie, has a serious case of horse flu. The required treatment costs exactly $62,375, and you do not have the money. Your solution is to explore the surrounding countryside, capture wild horses and build a racing-and-breeding operation capable of raising the funds.
Ordinary horses will only take you so far, so exploration soon leads to an abandoned laboratory. There, you can investigate ways to improve your animals — or whatever your latest creation happens to be.
Five places to find early
The game keeps its opening discoveries fairly approachable. Without giving away anything beyond the first 10 minutes, these locations are worth seeking out:
- The power plant: Look for the facility with the enormous hamster wheel.
- The swamp: This is where the alligators live, making it an important stop for breeding.
- Hacienda Picante: Its hot sauce becomes an important part of your strategy.
- A suburban house: It is exactly what it appears to be — an ordinary home.
- The sumo ring: Another bizarre venue in a game supposedly centred on horse betting.
Movement blends point-and-click interaction with WASD or arrow-key controls, making the low-poly map easy to navigate. The limited puzzles, including restoring power to the CRISPR laboratory, are straightforward. That leaves the main focus on imaginative gene editing and tense races.
Race science gets surprisingly serious
Players have taken the breeding system far beyond casual experimentation. Community members are charting alien-bug-vehicle combinations, testing ways to reduce race times and discussing how nucleotide bases can be rearranged. Others study hundreds of races, comparing leg angles, body proportions and how top-heavy each horse appears before choosing a likely winner.
For practical help, the Horsey Game subreddit is worth bookmarking, along with this Steam genome-mapping guide. Both can help make sense of the game’s more involved genetic systems.
The result is an unusual simulation that rewards both absurd creativity and careful observation. One moment you are searching a swamp for breeding material; the next, you are analysing a creature’s anatomy to gain a few seconds on the track.
If you are comparing unusual games for a home setup, RETROCADE’s Arcade Blog covers more gaming and arcade news, while the Arcade Machine Buying Guide can help when choosing dedicated hardware. For compact spaces, browse the bartop arcade range.
Horsey Game is out now on Windows PC. Good luck at the races — and remember that Sweetie still needs $62,375 for treatment.
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