> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.superjumpmagazine.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Alice Ruppert on the Science and Art of Video Game Horses - URL: https://www.superjumpmagazine.com/alice-ruppert-on-the-science-and-art-of-video-game-horses/ - Published: 2026-10-19T14:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T14:00:01.000Z - Description: A horse of a diferent color - Author: Jahanzeb Khan - Tags: Interview, Alice Ruppert, Game Design, Game Development, Narrative Design, Consulting **Alice Ruppert is on a mission to get video game horses right.** Whether it is gameplay mechanics, game design, or even digital ergonomics, Alice has carved out unique expertise to help game developers and designers get horses right. Her passion led to the creation of Mane Quest, a website cataloguing games featuring horses, which also serves as a resource with useful insights on how developers can incorporate horses into video games. Her work includes analysis, consulting, and even her own game development projects. SUPERJUMP interviewed Alice to discuss her work and projects. ## SUPERJUMP Tell us a little about yourself as a game developer, your passion for horses, and how you arrived at this intersection between equestrianism and video games? ### Alice Ruppert I always loved horses; I started taking riding lessons when I was eight, even though they were expensive, and that meant that I wouldn't be getting anything else for birthdays and Christmas until I was old enough to pay for them myself, basically. I always played games too, including ones about horses, such as My Horse Farm and Riding Star, but also The Sims 1+2, Tomb Raider (Legend Trilogy), and eventually Assassin's Creed and Red Dead Redemption. I ended up studying Game Design at the Zurich University of the Arts. The idea to actively start talking about that overlap only came in 2018, though, a few years after I graduated and was already working in the industry. Really, I just started talking about my opinions on horses in games on social media (mainly Twitter at the time; nowadays I'm active [on Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/malicedafirenze.bsky.social)), and I found that my passion for the topic resonated with people. On the one hand, I got fellow horse-loving players voicing sentiments like "oh finally, I'm not the only one who cares", but also a lot of my gamedev friends and colleagues found my horse chatter interesting and liked learning about horses from me despite not caring much for them initially. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c0/e7/c0e78dd7-e7af-4603-8ab9-09f05cab06f3/content/images/2026/10/AliceRuppert2025-02-websize.jpg) Alice Ruppert. Source: Alice Rupert. ### SUPERJUMP How did Mane Quest as a resource come about and how has it supported your own work as a game developer? ### Alice Ruppert So because talking about horses in games found that resonance, I decided to turn my horse-game thoughts into a proper website. I had a huge brainstorming document with potential articles to write, trends to analyse, games to review, developers to interview... that list has really only gotten longer over the years. The website is essentially a huge market research project. It's the tool through which I get to know competitors, learn from professionals in the space, keep up to date with what is happening... and that extensive market research knowledge is what I now offer to my clients as a freelance consultant, and what I apply in my work as publisher for Horses of Hoofprint Bay. By now, I also use TMQ to write down basic best practices around horses in games that I can then send to clients because the same topics keep coming up across projects \[[this article](https://www.themanequest.com/blog/2026/1/9/living-creatures-vs-meat-motorcycles-how-to-make-horses-in-games-feel-alive) is one such example\]. ### SUPERJUMP When you first started your consulting work, did you initially feel game developers were simply getting horses wrong as a gameplay system? ### Alice Ruppert I mean yes, I felt that games were getting horses wrong long before I got my first consulting opportunities. I'm not sure most mistakes happen in horses "as a gameplay system" specifically... Sure, there is a lot of untapped potential in designing actual interesting mechanics around horses. But a lot of the common mistakes \[see [here](https://www.themanequest.com/blog/2021/8/22/8-common-horse-mistakes-i-want-game-developers-to-stop-making) and [here](https://www.themanequest.com/blog/2024/7/16/adding-horses-to-your-game-tips-resources-dos-and-donts)\] are also just super basic anatomy errors, and completely forgetting about giving players the opportunity to feel any sort of emotional attachment to their horse by making it too much of a tool and not enough of a character, when it should probably be both. ### SUPERJUMP What are some common challenges you've seen game developers encounter in your own consulting work? ### Alice Ruppert I think the fact that "you don't know what you don't know" causes a lot of horse-related problems because people plan for horses to work a certain way without any awareness that they're already making wrong assumptions. That can be on a tech art level (like setting up your horse materials so they don't support multiple colors, which then makes it impossible to display a proper bay horse), or in other aspects of software architecture, but also in terms of writing and game design. If I come onto a project sooner, I can flag these issues at the concept stage before any work has been done in the "wrong" direction. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c0/e7/c0e78dd7-e7af-4603-8ab9-09f05cab06f3/content/images/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-11-3.52.48-PM.png) Making a Horse Game. Source: The Mane Quest. ### SUPERJUMP What are some great examples of video games that get horses right? Shadow of the Colossus, Metal Gear Solid V, and Red Dead Redemption 2 come to mind. ### Alice Ruppert I haven't played MGS V, but I agree that SotC and RDR2 are good examples! I don't think there's one AAA game that handles horses perfectly, but many have impressive aspects to them. Like Ghost of Tsushima does well in terms of writing/narrative (like that you choose a voice-acted name for your horse), but has awful anatomy and leg movement. RDR2 has impressive animation variety and different horse behaviors, but some really uncanny details in how the horses' eyes and ears look sometimes. The horses in Breath of the Wild have my absolute favorite stylization and animation ever, but also I wish they had anywhere near the emotional narrative importance that Epona had in Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. ### SUPERJUMP When you talk about narrative potential, do you see ways of translating different narrative styles into video game design that fall outside the usual genres of horse riding, horse management (i.e. farming), and horse racing (i.e. gambling)? ### Alice Ruppert Yeah, there's absolutely more potential there. One interesting example is [Equinox: Homecoming](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3258290/Equinox%5FHomecoming/), a game that tells an occult murder-mystery story but also includes a lot of horse-riding and horse-care elements. I see a lot of appreciation for that from players, who are glad to have a somewhat more mature, fresh setting rather than the same old "you inherit a run-down farm" premise. At the same time, the game is getting some criticism for not including its horses in the narrative enough, which I also understand. But horses and the relationships people have with them can fit into a lot of settings! Anything taking place before the invention of cars is an obvious candidate because horses just used to be so much more present as a means of transport \[some more idea on historical horse game premises in a Reddit AMA [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1r903xl/comment/o69j900/?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=web3x&utm%5Fname=web3xcss&utm%5Fterm=1&utm%5Fcontent=share%5Fbutton)\]. A post-apocalyptic setting would also work really well as an "easy" way to give the horse increased meaning beyond being a pet or expensive sports equipment. I'm mostly talking about settings rather than plot here, but that's sort of because a journey on horseback and the human/animal relationship that forms along the way can fit into a lot of narratives, including but not limited to the classical Hero's Journey. The horse as companion - as a living creature you take care of and worry about but who also carries you through hardship - is woefully underused in my opinion, though with Shadow of the Colossus and Twilight Princess being some excellent examples of that being done well. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c0/e7/c0e78dd7-e7af-4603-8ab9-09f05cab06f3/content/images/2026/10/fully-upgraded-stable.png) Horses of Hoofprint Bay. Source: Press kit. ### SUPERJUMP Tell us about some of your own game projects, past or currently in development. ### Alice Ruppert The main thing I'm working on at the moment is [Horses of Hoofprint Bay](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3727090/Horses%5Fof%5FHoofprint%5FBay/)! I'm handling the marketing and publishing for it, and the dev team consists of two people who met through my TMQ community ([full story here](https://www.themanequest.com/blog/2025/10/29/exclusive-game-announcement-horses-of-hoofprint-bay-a-2d-stable-management-game-inspired-by-my-childhood-favorite-horse-game)). The game has a very well-received demo out and will be fully released on November 4th, just a few weeks away! I'm also doing consultation work on [Barbie: Horse Ride & Rescue](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4436840/Barbie%5FHorse%5FRide%5F%5FRescue/), [Rival Stars Horse Racing](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1166860/Rival%5FStars%5FHorse%5FRacing%5FDesktop%5FEdition/), [The Legend of Khiimori](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2697000/The%5FLegend%5Fof%5FKhiimori/) and [Horse Club: Ride West](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4194080/HORSE%5FCLUB%5FRide%5FWest/). ### SUPERJUMP Thanks for chatting with us! Lastly, what are some of your favourite video games, equestrian or otherwise? ### Alice Ruppert Recently, I've been obsessed with [Vintage Story](https://www.vintagestory.at/), I put over 300 hours into it since early this year. Generally, I'm a big fan of cozy farming and life sim games (Stardew Valley, Wylde Flowers, My Time at Sandrock...), survival and exploration games (Subnautica, Pacific Drive), and I play a lot of knowledge-based puzzle games with my partner (Outer Wilds is an all-time favorite, and right now we're playing Dimhaven: The Lost Source). This is probably also a good point to mention that I would kill for a horse-focused Stardew-like game, or a game like Pacific Drive but with a horse instead of a car. My favorite horse-focused game (that I'm not personally working on) is [The Ranch of Rivershine](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1559600/The%5FRanch%5Fof%5FRivershine/)! --- Thank you to Alice Ruppert for her time and resources. You can follow her work on [The Mane Quest](https://www.themanequest.com/) \[and its [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/themanequest.com) handle\].