The Ranch of Rivershine News

The Ranch of Rivershine will release in Early Access next Friday on May 12th!

Find more information about the game's roadmap here!

Read the FAQ to learn more about the game here!

I can't wait to share The Ranch of Rivershine with all of you, and I hope you'll enjoy playing it as much as I did creating it! ❤️

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Hi ranchers! ☀️ With the beginning of May comes a lot of exciting news, starting with a new devlog about my progress toward the Early Access release of The Ranch of Rivershine!


[h2]Pine Forest[/h2]
The Pine Forest is the second trail you’ll be able to access in Rivershine! This area is filled with twisty trails, small creeks and tall dark pines. You’ll be able to visit the carpenter’s workshop and purchase upgrades for your ranch here.


[h2]Crystal Lake[/h2]
The Crystal Lake is the third area you’ll open in Rivershine! It features large, open lakes and waterfalls you’ll be able to ride around in with your horse. While no villager currently lives in this area, this is where the tailor will move in to open her boutique later on during Early Access!


[h2]Cross Country Competitions[/h2]
New competitions are now open in Rivershine Town and all the trails surrounding it! You’ll be able to unlock a total of 16 different competitions in Early Access, ranging from beginner to expert level.


[h2]Quests & Progression[/h2]
I’ve been hard at work creating new quests and stories for the game! The storyline will not be complete at the start of EA, but I’ll be adding new characters, areas and quests until the full release.

The current questline takes about a year in game to complete, and now features quests that introduce more mechanics such as training horses, renovating your ranch, farming crops, breeding horses and exploring new areas! Of course, the main storyline is always centered around winning competitions for Rivershine and learning about the mystery of your town!


[h2]New Coat Patterns[/h2]
I’ve added new horse coat colors & patterns! You’ll now be able to find appaloosa horses in the legendary tier, along with white horses in the common tier of the auction house. Some of the coat patterns that have been shown in the demo won’t be available in the initial EA release, but will come back later on when wild horses are added in Rivershine!


[h2]New Crops[/h2]
Finally, I’ve added seeds to grow all kinds of grains on your ranch! You’ll now be able to harvest corn, barley and wheat to feed your horses. These grains can be used to double your horse’s skill training for the day, so make sure to stock up on them when they're in season!

Thank you all so much for following the development of The Ranch of Rivershine! I know you all are very excited for the release… All I’ll say for now is that it’s coming very very soon!!

Hi ranchers! 🐴🌸 It’s been a little while since my last devlog, as I spent a lot of time working on the demo. Thank you to everyone who played it and shared their feedback with me! The demo will stay available to play until we get closer to the Early Access release, if you feel like going for a ride in Rivershine! Moving on from the demo, I’m now back to present one of the most anticipated features in Rivershine… raising your own foals!

[h2]Breeding Horses[/h2]

[h3]Fertility Pasture[/h3]
The first step to raise your own foals is to have at least one mare and one stallion to breed together in the fertility pasture. You’ll be able to browse between your horses in this interface to pick the pair you want to breed together. Once selected, they’ll be placed in the pasture together.

Depending on your horse’s health, care and trust level, they will have a varying percentage chance of breeding successfully every day. Once the mare is pregnant, both horses can be taken out of the fertility pasture.

[h3]Coat Genetics[/h3]
I’ve decided to create a genetic system that isn’t exactly realistic, but instead that fits Rivershine’s gameplay more uniquely. This could be changed later based on feedback but I think it’ll be a fun way to breed horses! Here’s a quick explanation of how genetics work in Rivershine.

Each unique coat color is part of a “type” of coat color. For example, the chestnut type includes multiple coats, such as the flaxen chestnut, light chestnut, red chestnut and liver chestnut. The foal will have a 50/50 chance of inheriting one of their parents' type of coat color. They will then be assigned at random a color that is part of this type.

The same is true for coat patterns, which are layered on top of the coat color. Keep in mind that if one of the parents has a pattern and the other doesn’t, the foal will have a 50/50 chance of inheriting a pattern or not. If the foal inherits the pattern type, it won’t necessarily have the exact same pattern as the parent and will instead have one of the available coat patterns of that type at random.

As an example, let’s breed a pair of horses together and show the possible results for the foal! Here we can see that a foal born from a black tobiano stallion and a bay roan mare might have one of these coats…



For now, the face and leg markings are not inherited from the parents and are set randomly for the foal. This might be changed to include a chance of inheriting those markings from the parents too. Later on, I’d also like to expand this system and add unique coat colors and patterns that can only be found in the game by breeding specific coats together!


[h3]Skill Inheritance[/h3]
Foals will of course inherit the skills of their parents in addition to their coat colors. While the foal's skills will be lower than their parents', they will also have full potential which will help them outperform their parents once they've been fully trained. When personality traits are added later on during Early Access, these will also have a chance to be inherited by the foal.


[h3]Life Stages[/h3]
When catching a wild horse or purchasing a horse at the auction house, they are already adults. To raise a horse through different life stages, you’ll have to breed your own horses and raise them on your ranch! Here is more information on the characteristics of each life stage.

Foal
Foals are born after 7 days of gestation. They stay foals for 14 days before becoming yearlings, and they will slowly become bigger foals throughout this stage. Foals can’t be mounted or trained, but they can still be led around the ranch and need to be cared for daily.

Yearling
Horses reach this stage after 14 in game days. Yearlings can now be mounted and trained, but they are limited only to beginner competitions. The main advantage of yearlings is that they don’t lose daily potential, so it's a good time to maximize their training before they become adults.

Adult
Horses reach this stage at 28 in game days. They will stay at this stage forever as adulthood is the last life stage of horses. They’re able to do the most amount of activities such as all levels of competition, training and breeding.

Pregnant & Nursing Mare
While it’s not exactly a life stage, mares will also be limited in the activities they can do during pregnancy. They can still be ridden and trained, but they won’t be able to participate in competitions or to be sold at the auction house. While the foal is growing up, the mare will then be nursing and won’t be able to become pregnant again until the foal becomes a yearling.


[h3]Raising Foals[/h3]
Once a foal is born, they’ll stay in their mother’s stall until they become yearlings. You’ll still need to take care of them daily by brushing them and feeding them milk. Foals can either be kept in the stable or in the pasture.

[h3]Future Additions[/h3]
Later on, I’ll add more interactions with the foals and ways to train them. As of right now, trust is the only skill that can be increased during the foal stage. I’ll add unique groundwork activities that can be done with the foals to increase their other skills such as jump, speed, endurance and flexibility before they become yearlings.

[h2]Ranch Upgrades[/h2]

[h3]Stable[/h3]
The stable is the main building you’ll want to upgrade on your ranch, as it will allow you to keep more horses on your ranch. At the start of the game, you’ll have 2 stalls available, and you’ll be able to upgrade the stables to keep 4, 8 and finally 12 horses!

[h3]Pastures[/h3]
While the main pasture will be available from the start of the game, you’ll be able to repair two additional pastures later on. This will allow you to separate your herd into different pastures, or leave all the gates open to give your horses more space to roam!


[h3]Indoor Arena[/h3]
The indoor arena can be found at the back of the ranch. I plan on adding a bonus to training indoors instead of outdoors during certain weather conditions, such as while it’s raining, at nighttime or during winter!

[h3]Round Pen[/h3]
The round pen will be used to do unique training activities with the foal such as lunging and groundwork. This won’t be available from the start of Early Access but will be added later on along with the foal training!


[h2]Four Seasons[/h2]
As we’re approaching the Early Access release, I decided to create a seasonal loop, with each new season bringing its own features. Here’s what I’ve implemented for now:

• Music that changes with the seasons on the ranch. You can already listen to some of the tracks you’ll hear throughout the seasons here!
• Different foliage and environments to fit each season’s color palette!
  
• New forage to gather around the trails as the seasons change.
  
• Different crops that can be grown on your ranch.

Throughout the development in Early Access, I’d like to give each season more personality with unique seasonal elements, for example:

• Seasonal events such as an easter egg hunt in spring and halloween in fall.
  
• Unique interactions such as snowballs to roll and piles of leaves to run through.
  
• Different weather such as foggy days in fall, storms in summer and snow in winter.

[h2]Future Updates[/h2]
I’ll now be continuing to work on new content that I want to include in The Ranch of Rivershine EA release. This includes new villagers, new trails, quests and general improvement based on the feedback I’ve received from the demo. Thank you for reading about my progress on The Ranch of Rivershine!🍀

The Ranch of Rivershine 0.1.2.2

This update provides some more quality of life improvements, bug fixes and balance changes for the demo version of The Ranch of Rivershine!

Competition Update

• Added a menu accessible with Escape during competitions that allows the player to pause, restart or abandon their current competition.
  
• Added a notification after the competition to show clearly how much money was earned from the competition reward and the daily first place reward.
  
• Fixed a bug where the daily first place reward could be won multiple times.
  
• Fixed a bug where the active camera mode didn’t persist at the start and end of the competitions.
  

Balance Update

• Changed the day length to be a bit longer.
  
• Increased the rate at which horses gain trust from brushing, riding, winning competitions and eating treats.
  
• Removed the trust loss penalty from brushing a horse’s head.
  
• Changed the time requirements in “River’s Challenge” to be easier.
  
• Added the black coat color to the “Wild Horses” category in the auction house.
  

General Update

• Added the ability to push the horses and the villagers out of the player’s path.
  
• Added a small +1 notification when horses gain a skill point during training.
  
• Fixed a bug where endurance could be trained during competitions.
  
• Fixed a bug where the horse controls would always be set to “Free Camera” when leaving the stables.
  
• Fixed a bug where obstacles could disappear while you were inside an arena.
  
• Added the ability to input a specific number in the villagers shop when purchasing or selling items.
  
• Fixed a bug where “Madelaine Beauchamp” could be stuck in the competition interface when trying to talk to her.
  
• Lowered the camera movement vertical sensitivity.
  
• Reviewed the horse’s turn speed in both camera modes to be more equivalent.
  
• Added more information about the demo content in the main menu.
  
• Updated how horse skill points are rounded for clarity.
  
• Fixed a bug where the energy bar wouldn’t instantly update after giving a treat.
  
• Fixed bugs where pressing Escape during map transitions, villager goodbyes and competition overviews would disable the main interface or cause a black screen.
  
• Fixed a bug where the player’s horse could stay stuck in the auction house.
  
• Clarified some of the quest descriptions.
  
• Reduced the chance for the player to get stuck next to a horse. (This might have been completely fixed but since it occurs rarely it’s hard for me to be 100% certain. If you still get stuck next to your horse please let me know!)
  

There will be at least one more patch in February to polish the demo a bit more. However for now I’ll get back to work on developing new features for Early Access, and I’m really excited to share some sneak peeks of the development of Rivershine!

The Ranch of Rivershine 0.1.2.1

Controls Update

• Fixed a bug where pressing Escape to close interfaces would hide the main interface.
  
• Changed the camera mode feature so that it persists when changing map, dismounting and stabling a horse.
  
• Added the ability to see the horse information from horseback.
  
• Renamed the information option to horse information or player information for clarity.
  
• Raised the height of the horse’s camera.
  
• Increased the speed of the free camera movement.
  
• Increased the speed of the vertical camera movement.
  
• Fixed a bug where you couldn’t turn using the keyboard controls if the horse was facing a collision.
  
• Fixed a bug that didn’t allow you to start turning with the keyboard right after a jump.
  
• Increased the horse’s turning speed when using the keyboard to match the mouse’s turning speed.
  

General Update

• Fixed a bug where you could fall in a hole next to the highest bridge in town.
  
• Fixed a bug where villagers could spawn inside the town center fountain.
  
• Changed the “Quest” button to be green when a quest is complete.
  
• Reduced the size of the collisions at the entrance of arenas.
  
• Changed the “Go To Entrance” button on the map to be visible by default.
  
• Increased the training speed of all skills, but especially jump.
  
• Added gates between the stable and the pasture.
  
• Removed a pebble on one of the ranch’s roads.
  

There are additional things that I want to fix for the demo, such as the character customization not always saving correctly, but I just wanted to quickly release an update to fix the biggest problems that have been reported. Please let me know if you encounter other issues in the demo and thank you for playing The Ranch of Rivershine! :)