Hello everyone, Today I will share with you a bunch of very interesting information about an unreleased NDS game entitled “Equiamo”. It is a horse breeding simulation that was meant to be released on the Nintendo DS. A prototype of this game was sold recently on ebay. Unfortunately I was not able to snag it on time... Luckily however I was able to get in touch with a person who worked on this project for the now defunct Hungarian video game studio Most Wanted Entertainment. This person wants to remain anonymous but agreed to share some insights about the game. I am insisting on this point and I’m asking all of you to respect this. Please find below an interview that I made with this person about Equiamo. After the interview, I added a section with screenshots. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Skarpo01: Let’s start with the basics: What was your role on the project? Obviously for this question I am not expecting very detailed information for the sake of anonymity X ANSWER: I worked in the management of Most Wanted, so I did not take part in the development of “Equiamo” directly but I know its story. Skarpo01: Could you tell us what is the main concept behind the game? X ANSWER: The game was meant to be the DS adaptation of a successful German online PC game. The original developer/publisher wanted a game with a deep horse breeding part (many horse attributes) and a strong, 3D riding (casual riding + many different races where you can win prizes with the horses you “created”). It also features a less heavyweight stable management part + some more “DS-friendly”, casual features like nurturing/feeding minigames. Overall, it’s a very good but quite complex game, which – in my personal opinion – would have struggled a bit to find its target audience if it had been released. Skarpo01: Is it an original concept from MWE studio or is it a game commissioned? X ANSWER: I think the answer above already addresses this topic Skarpo01: Who is the target for this game in terms of audience/customer? X ANSWER: Like I wrote earlier, the target audience was a bit vague. The publisher wanted to address as broad an audience as possible but such a plan often leads to a flop. On the one had, they wanted to address players who like complex horse breeding features. At the same time, they also wanted to address the DS’s dominant (young) female customer base with the nurturing minigames. Skarpo01: What is the goal of the game? X ANSWER: To breed your superhorse Also to build your stable, earn money, tahe care of your horses, etc. Skarpo01: Did the game evolve and drift away from the original idea during the development process? X ANSWER: No. Like I said, we got the core mechanics, our task was to adjust it to the limitations of the target platform and the target audience. Everything was done in collaboration with the original developer though, so they had the final say on every design feature. Skarpo01: At what stage of the development did the game get canned? X ANSWER: Well...if it was a PC game, I’d say “Gold Master”. The game was ready to be sent to Nintendo for approval. I’m sure Nintendo would have found some issues though but it was still very close to a final version when it was cancelled. Cancelled is not really the best word in this case because we were not working on the game when we got wors about its fate. We prepared the submission version earlier and sent it to the publisher. But the submission version never reached Nintendo... Skarpo01: Why has the game been canned? X ANSWER: As far as I know, the publisher had a publishing/distribution agreement in place with a large French publisher. However, this publisher terminated the deal days before the submission saying that the DS makret has changed and they no longer saw the potential. Skarpo01: What is your biggest regret about this project? X ANSWER: That it wasn’t released We worked a lot on this game and though it’s not a game hardocre gamers would take seriously, I think it’d have got some good reviews. Skarpo01: If there is ONE thing that should have been done differently for the game to be potentially released, what would it be? X ANSWER: Nothing. We had no control over the publishing of the game. We tried to convince the publisher to find another partner or self-publish it but they had other, more important things to do, so they rather buried the game (and lots of thousands of Euros) forever... A few years later we had an idea to self-publish the game on Dsiware but the IP-owner asked so much money for the license that there was no way to do it. Skarpo01: Once again thank you for answering these questions! Any final words you would like to add to this interview? X ANSWER: Not much, I think I was pretty verbal already Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Here are some screenshots about the game. *** Please note that I added an invisible watermark to the screenshots, so ask for permission before using on any other websites. *** ---------------------------------------------------------------- This is it for today! Let me know what you think of this post and if you like it I will be doing more interviews with videogame industry insiders in the near future
I have played and definitely enjoy the game for what it is. I love Horse racing and equestrian themed games, and this one is definitely more in depth than I expected. There's a link up capability, and I do look forward to seeing what that's all about. I'm more than willing to do a very in depth review later. I know that equestrian games aren't exactly on the top of everyone's gaming lists, but if you do happen to enjoy this kind of game I don't think you'd be disappointed in it.
only horse game i have played was pippa funnell for the ds i thought the game was ok i liked it probably because the school i used to go to only had 20 or so students and we used to look after and ride horses it was like a high school for people who has learning difficulties or special needs eg adhd aspergers ect
