Join me - video game producer, hobby horse game critic, and creator of The Mane Quest - for a closer look at what Horse Girl Canon-worthy games are, what they are lacking, and how passionate gamers and creators are finding their own fun where the industry doesn’t provide for them. And to every horse game enthusiast’s dismay, the genre has not really evolved from there.
What followed was a long list of knock-offs and copycats, cash grabs, and shovelware that only the most passionate and desperate horse fans would tolerate. The horse game genre has been around since the early 2000s, when the unexpected success of titles like The Legacy of Rosemond Hill, Mary King’s Riding Star, and My Horse Farm proved to kids’ games publishers that there was money to be made off of young girls who wanted to spend more time with horses than their real-life circumstances allowed them to. You know how we sometimes discover niche game genres and just go “Huh, of course that’s a thing”? You might very well feel this way about the concept of horse games: video games where the primary mechanics are focused on riding, breeding, or taking care of horses. The Horse Girl Canon is Polygon's celebration and exploration of the books, films, TV, toys, and games that have become essential to the cross-generational 'Horse Girl' life.
