In the last devlog we talked about Alpha, new visuals, sponsorships and other new systems.
Early Access
After months of community playtesting, we are excited to finally announce that Horse Racing Manager has entered Early Access!
During the playtest period, we released over sixty builds, fixed hundreds of issues and refined systems across the game. We resulted in more stable and strong foundation, that is ready for future growth and expansion.
This moment marks a major milestone for our project. After two years of development, we are ready for our next phase where we get to share HRM with wider audience.
Harness Racing
For past couple of weeks harness racing has been online and available for testing. It brings new way to approach training, breeding and race strategy. As we move forward with this system, we want to improve the animations and expand it with new mechanics, including harness and gallop skill paths for horses, adding a choice for player to make with horses "path" to pursue.
Preview of harness racing
Tutorials
To achieve our goal making first steps into the game more clear and welcoming, we have added first wave of tutorial system covering key areas such as stable, races, breeding, staff, market, medical area, scouting, company and facilities.
We've designed tutorials to guide new players through the basics without limiting exploration. The onboarding system has been updated with a rewritten welcome mail and a follow up tutorial.
As a whole, system will see improvement, it is work in progress and we will utilise feedback to create as clear tutorial as possible.
Facilities
Facilities has been reworked visually since implementation. The horse detail backgrounds now change based on stables financial status, adding more sense of prestige and progression. We also added first set of facility graphics, it establishes new framework for more visual representation of facilities related assets added during Early Access.
Preview of facility graphics
Quality of Life Improvements
Some improvements has been added since last devlog to both playability and interface. We added quick register be available from home screen to instantly register horses for races. Date system has seen minor change, from showing dates of next events, we changed it to relative date system, so instead of date, it shows days until event.
We added locked out areas to sidebar, showcasing facilities that haven't yet been built. To make quick actions more accessible, we added feature page to Market highlighting buyable horses and upcoming auctions. Inbox feedback was heard, so we added "Read All" button as well!
Preview of Featured tab in Market and Locked out areas in side bar
Audio and Visuals
Game's presentation has seen a lot of improvements since last devlog, both audio and visuals.
On audio side, we have added first version of game's main music. We've added sound effects when purchasing horses, hiring staff, signing sponsorships or constructing facilities. (Some audios is temporarily disabled as we resolve the issue with add-on)
On the visual side, we have optimised race scene performance and refined animations, also improved lightning and transitions. We have fixed the hair and hats to render correctly across models, and we added visualisations for both auction tiers and player characters backstory.
Player's character backstory choices
Simulation and Systems
We added the first version of Racetrack Generator, which allows importing racetracks created by community! At the same time we continued developing custom World Options, where is possible to define CPU stable budgets, prize money multiplier and staff wage multiplier, the number of days simulated before your start, and even toggle illness, injury, staff poaching and career-ending injuries on and off.
Performance and optimisation has seen updates as well, such as training, economy tracking, and race registration now run on weekly or monthly cycles instead of daily, massively improving sim speed.
We also added new layers to breeding and genetics, once DNA data is unlocked, it is possible to research coat colour probabilities to better understand breeding outcomes.
And with the upgrade to Godot 4.5, with new libraries and rendering systems, game now runs smoother, loads faster and performs better in long-term sessions, but of course it is not all positives that comes with upgrade, we also now face few issues with music and sounds, we are actively working on fixing it.
Fixes and Stability
Throughout the playtest period, we've fixed hundreds of issues, many thanks to player reports and testing feedback!
CPU stables behave more reliably when bidding, hiring and reacting to player actions. On the technical side, startup times have been improved, memory usage reduces and several background processes now include better diagnostic tracking to help us identify problems faster. Also older saves now migrate correctly between versions.
Discord Server
We have member count of over 500 already. If you have suggestions, ideas or something else you want to talk about, it's a great platform and an easy way to reach us. Join the server here!
What’s next
We have planned for Early Access phase to last around six months, but as game development often goes, things tend to take longer than expected. We will share more details and confirm the final game's release date once we've made more progress during Early Access.
During this time we will bring new features and systems, polish what we currently have, improve both audio and visual aspects and expand on making game feel more lively, with social system and history feature.
Development is ongoing, and we will keep you updated on our progress. We are continuously working to enhance Horse Racing Manager, and your feedback is invaluable. Our goal is to make this franchise the most realistic horse racing simulator in the world. Your support is crucial for us and greatly appreciated.