In the last devlog we talked about Early Access, Harness Racing and Tutorials.
Roadmap
We released our development roadmap, showing the major features coming from current point till full release. While it is not in strict chronological order, this is how we plan to proceed with development.
Universal Trade & Stable Ownership
We added first version of universal trade system that lets stables trade horses, cash, shares and breeding contracts. This system is accessible from the new Trade tab in manager profiles, or can be also found directly from horse profile or stable profile. CPU stables use the same system to propose trades to the player.
Overview of Trade System
We expanded the ownership system with stable shares, allowing player to buy and sell shares of any stable. Stables can be fully taken over if majority ownership is acquired, and the player can also lose control of their own stable if they lose majority ownership. NPC investors will make share purchase offers occasionally and all share transactions can be viewed in global share trades list.
Breeding, Genetics & Birth options
We expanded the breeding system with breeding contracts for both stallions and mares, including CPU generated offers and requests. Contract valuations were rebalanced to be more reasonable and the breeding interface was improved with new visual breeding layout.
New visual layout for breeding, can also be viewed as list.
Genetics now support a full coat index that lists all available coat variations and allows reverse searching. Custom coat imports were fixed and made more reliable. Coat inheritance for foals and yearlings now matches their descried coat whenever an adult variation exists. We added hidden breeding ability as a new genetic factor, and corrected inbreeding detection logic.
Overview of Coat Index and reverse searching
We expanded breeding options with a new birth mode where horses follow natural pregnancy length while still aging on Jan 1st. Birth rules can now be changed mid-game without affecting ongoing pregnancies. We also added breeding ability directly to horse descriptions.
Medical
We improved the medical system with more consistent illness and injury handling. Recovery logic was unified after removing the old healing allocation system, and healing rate calculations were corrected to use proper specialist logic. Simulation can now pause automatically when one of horses become ill or injured, we also fixed bug so deceased horses no longer appear in future social events.
Training & Staff
We made training more efficient with new autobalance tools that distribute trainers, jockeys and stablehands evenly across the horses. Training dropdowns now refresh instantly when staff are assigned, and overall training performance was heavily optimised.
Preview of autobalance tool
Staff management became more dynamic, with the ability to give bonuses and salary increases. Staff now provide clearer explanations why they leave a stable.
Scouting was expanded to include person scouting with progress indicators, and the player can assign themselves as scout.
Bookmarks & Stable Tools
We added Bookmarks page for horses and persons. Pin functionality was expanded with racing, breeding and retired pins, and deceased horses now have their pins cleared automatically.
Overview of quick pinning horse
The quick register system became more consistent, it now only shows races where participants exist, instead of possible empty races. Distance preference filters were improved with S/M/I/L/E toggles. Bulk sales, bulk training updates and bulk pin operations were added to make large stables easier to manage.
UI & Presentation
UI Quality has seen improvement since last devlog. We introduced a redesigned auction detail page and reorganised the pause menu for clarity. Interface elements now follow theme colours more consistently.
Email handling was improved with Read All button, and an Economic Overview email that can be sent monthly, quarterly or yearly. Injury, illness and trade emails were rewritten in more neutral tone.
Performance, Engine & Database
On the last update of previous devlog, we updated our project to Godot 4.5 and since that we have implemented multiple optimisations. Save files are now roughly 50% smaller due to database cleanup and purge systems. Autosaving now runs asynchronously to remove freezes during gameplay. Heavy systems like race registration, training and world economy updates now run on weekly or monthly cycles instead of daily.
Migrations handling for older saves was improved through many updates. We optimised coat indexing, social system calculations and injury checks to improve late-game speed. We also replaced unstable audio libraries with our own native Chirp auto backend that we have been building from scratch.
Discord Server
We have member count of over 800 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 confirm the final game's release date once we've made more progress during Early Access.
Right now we are working on reworking race logic, finalising our own new audio system, succession system and bringing new features to the game.
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.