heyooo wishlist milestone

I've spent my morning a) tracking down a package that the delivery company brought to the wrong house and organizing a pickup for it, b) trying to get people to fill out an actual feedback survey about something they're otherwise constantly complaining about and c) having game horse asset discourse

as a still image these don't really tickle my my horsie senses but I just looked up video of them, and tbh they look remarkably equine in terms of leg movements! Design wise it's a bit... why add two more forelegs if they're doing the exact same as the other two, but I enjoy watching them 8/10

We were struck by the random urge to try something new with some of the lamb shank stash in our freezer so we made Ghormeh Sabzi (persian herb + meat stew) I have no frame of reference to compare to re. authenticity but it was really fucking good y‘all

that's pretty decent actually!! The forelegs legs seem to do mostly what they should while reading (which is rare) and the color and tack doesn't have any glaring issues either! I guess the saddle girth is very far back, but I'll give it a 8/10

particularly pleased with myself about that one tbh

anyway

I‘m particularly peeved about fb commenters splaining to me that I shouldn’t expect realism from Palia because it‘s ✨fantasy ✨ as if I didn’t talk about what makes or breaks competent stylization at every opportunity

same for "ok maybe I need help or something but I just don't see how anything or anyone could help me, there's nothing I can do to change anything about the things that depress me" babe, that too, is the depression

📢 CALLING ALL NONBINARY GAME DEVS! 📢 i'm helping run a steam sale event to showcase games made by nonbinary devs during the week of international nonbinary day! if you fit this description, fill out the form by may 18 👉 forms.gle/cx9AqFfPqzF9... please share & send to all your nb dev friends!!

I did get that one last week already, see here: bsky.app/profile/mali...

I‘m particularly peeved about fb commenters splaining to me that I shouldn’t expect realism from Palia because it‘s ✨fantasy ✨ as if I didn’t talk about what makes or breaks competent stylization at every opportunity

I suspect that men fall for this much more easily because generally women are better able to recognize when someone is flattering them in order to manipulate and influence them

the microcosm that is "popular horse focused red dead modded server implodes due to stupid drama related to shitty community management and then five new horse focused red dead online servers pop up in response" is a niche of horse game discourse that even *I* am not caught up on

anyway

I cannot overstate how much it means to me when people who are not otherwise into horse games and don't know about my advocacy happen to discover Hoofprint Bay and talk about it on its own merits and come away with a positive impression despite not being passionate horse people themselves. More pls.

it's really funny how completely different the community sentiment about this article is turning out to be on Discord, Reddit and Facebook On Reddit and Discord, it's mostly "ugh I can't believe how bad those models look", whereas people on Fb are all "what do you mean they look fine" 😄

ok I have managed to finish an article about this, I ended up shortening it a lot rather than do a detailed breakdown, but still summarized my most important gripes, please enjoy

Please enjoy Kiano losing his mind a little about a lizard taunting him just outside on the window sill

It sounds silly but this sort of thing legit leaves me questioning my sanity and ask myself „am I too picky about how horses look in games?“ as if that wasn‘t my whole career and claim to fame at this point.

Tempted to start organizing a "Roguelite Reimaginings" Festival/Showcase on Steam for PinKeep's launch this year. Anyone wanna join?

It sounds silly but this sort of thing legit leaves me questioning my sanity and ask myself „am I too picky about how horses look in games?“ as if that wasn‘t my whole career and claim to fame at this point.

I have made a regular habit of shaming people into wanting to pay for games in TikTok comments 🥰🥰 It often works!

In a world where generative AI is forced upon us at every opportunity, it feels almost radical to make an entirely hand-drawn horse riding game where placing every line and picking every color takes hours of work and years of practice. We think it's really worth it though. Do you? 💖

I finally started writing my Palia article today and holy shit it makes me so angry because they obviously a) recognized the potential of the equestrian audience b) added traits and breeding specifically for that audience and c) paid lip service to what that audience wants in their marketing BUT

Please enjoy Kiano losing his mind a little about a lizard taunting him just outside on the window sill

Get in losers we‘re trying anti ai engagement bait with our hand drawn horse game on tiktok repost if u agree 🥰🥰🥰 www.tiktok.com/@themaneques...

ChAtGpT hAs 1 BiLLiOn uSeRs. Yea, clown, how many of them are people, and how many are agents making videos for agents to comment on for agents to use as training data for agents to deteriorate into worse slop

btw the reason I'm reposting this today is because I made a new overview post on the gamedev marketing subreddit and was reminded of that earlier one www.reddit.com/r/gameDevMar...

I'm literally giving y'all the blueprints for how to build community around ANYTHING you are interested in, all it takes is a consistent bit of effort, and I get dismissed with this implication that I somehow got lucky or like "hah, I wish I was as passionate about anything" dude that's YOUR choice

I think that response annoys me because it's never "oh wow you have really been preparing for this" but "well of course this works for you, you already have all these people listening to you" like do you people think I just popped into the world someday with horse game fans swarming around me??

some of the responses in that thread are all "well, so didn't build this from scratch, you had existing community" rather than listening to my actual point that maybe you should also try to build community for things that interest you in games & that you might want to make games about in the future

I've rendered my profile unusable in the sense that you now have to scroll through about 125 random game horse ratings to get to anything else I've ever posted, but this was fun, thank you everyone 🥰🥰

Considering how often people tell me I have to play this for the horse poop, the horse poop doesn't even look good. That horse produces 3 pieces of dung, each larger than its hooves, that's just now how horse manure works I'm sorry, 3/10

This gets a 10/10 from me simply because it shows several horses in pasture, grazing and moving around. You would no BELIEVE how weirdly rare that is in games, when it's one of the most profound joys about spending time with horses irl See also: www.themanequest.com/blog/2025/3/...

there's *some* equine joint behavior in there so I'll round up to a 2/10

entirely too MLP-coded and not nearly equine enough for my taste 2/10

the Ghost of Tsushima horses are a thoroughly mixed bag of some really cute and wonderful details mixed with a whole bunch of atrocious leg IK behavior. 6/10 deep dive here: www.themanequest.com/blog/2023/5/...

This gets a 10/10 from me simply because it shows several horses in pasture, grazing and moving around. You would no BELIEVE how weirdly rare that is in games, when it's one of the most profound joys about spending time with horses irl See also: www.themanequest.com/blog/2025/3/...

btw just in case anyone doesn't know how to view my reply for any specific image, you can click the "quote" underneath each post to get to my opinion/rating

haven't played it, but from that screenshot alone, that's a really decent looking horse, though perhaps with a bit of an exaggerated neck. 9/10

now THESE are obviously a horse person's take on a vaguely equine creature and I dig that! Looking forward to seeing more of them, but I find the creature design and animation quite convincing so far! 9/10

I'm here for creative fantasy/monster horses but I really don't like its bendy legged stance and the protrusions on its hooves 5/10

big anime protagonist vibes for the 2D art but tbh I don't hate it? Kinda silly, but mostly horsie enough for my taste. I hate their pointy noses though, that pulls them down to a 6/10

I appreciate Ixion for being a weirdo combo of animals and I definitely found it horsie enough to have fond memories of it from way back when I played this game, so let's give that a 7/10

I could spend two hours answering this so I'll instead just link to this article that covers a bunch of my faves and least faves: www.themanequest.com/blog/2019/9/...

Considering how often people tell me I have to play this for the horse poop, the horse poop doesn't even look good. That horse produces 3 pieces of dung, each larger than its hooves, that's just now how horse manure works I'm sorry, 3/10

I immediately believe it's a very cool thing to see, but their movement is too odd to be pleasant to watch for me, so 4/10

pretty decent proportions for the limited number of pixels, but lacking the frames to really look horsie enough? 5/10

equine skull on bipedal monster doesn't do it for me from a horse-loving perspective I'm afraid, though I like it in just creative horror design terms, so 3/10