NameShift

Horse Game 2 Devlog - Episode 04

Patron Update - July 2025

Hey there gang! I just wanted to say welcome to the newer patrons and give a big thanks to those that have continued to support my efforts! I know posts here are kinda sparse, but trust that I have been continuing to work diligently!

I felt it might be worthwhile to go over a few things.

I intended for this patreon page to mainly function as a tip jar for which people who are interested in the stuff that I make can chip in a little bit to help out, with some nice bonuses along the way. The game is still a long ways out from an Alpha stage where I would want to open it up for supporter playtesting, and thus I reserve this page for posting mainly only significant updates and of course, when I upload a new devlog to the youtube page.

That said, I have been working continuously and have even been streaming on twitch, so if you ever want to hang out live and watch the sausage get made, you can follow me there:
https://www.twitch.tv/nameshiftgames

Additionally, be sure to follow me on twitter and bluesky because I do post more granular updates as I am working on stuff. Those are also good platforms to interact with me because patreon is somewhat cumbersome.

@nameshift.bsky.social‬

@NameShiftGames

BIG IMPORTANT

Now that I have completed more of the game's central systems and components, I have finally gotten to a place where I have been writing and implementing NPC interactions and questlines, which means I can start offering one of the more significant patreon benefits!

If You, yes YOU would like to be immortalized as a horse NPC in Horse Game 2, and you are a HG2 Beta Tester tier patron or higher, PLEASE step right up. you can comment either here or in the community chat whatever you would like (as long as its not heinous / illegal / distasteful)
come up with a name, any dialogue, design your own horse OC, the sky is the limit. The more the merrier. and I will do my best to put it into the game. if you just want to say "hi" thats fine, or if you write a whole ellaborate 7000 branching dialogue questline, thats great too.

Once again, I just wanted to say thanks so much for the ongoing support, and more to come very soon!

New Devlog 2025-05-27: You Should Make An Incremental Game

hey! been a little bit. I finally finished this video I've been working on recapping a game jam I did with my friends the COOLCATS recently!

I've been working on Horse Game still and making good progress, so don't worry! I've also been streaming game dev on occasion, so be sure to pop into my twitch to see when I'm working on stuff!

[Reupload] HG2 - Old version

Hello! I didn't realize that the MEGA links for the old files were expired, so I've re-uploaded a build I had of the original Horse Game 2 project to dropbox.

This version was developed up until around 2022. it is VERY buggy and incomplete and may be borderline Unplayable

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2ekz07y3gix3o87oyjx9a/EarlyAccessDemo_OldVersion_PreRebuild.zip?rlkey=xd2e6eg5vwi4tw7joi3v41a6b&st=9tc1ifuu&dl=0

this is NOT the version of the game currently being worked on and shown in my recent devlogs. I do not recommend playing this, and is only being shared for archival purposes and die-hard fans.

Please watch my post-mortem video to understand the full story

Making A Dialogue System Is Easy | Horse Game 2 Devlog e03

Devlog : 2023-2024 Development Recap & Update

Horse Game 2 Concept Art

some recent concept art sketches for HG2

2024

Devlog - Stasis Complex - Episode 02

Devlog - Stasis Complex - Episode 01

Devlog - Horse Game 2 - Post Mortem & Future

New Projects and Horse Game plans

alright, so, I know I haven't had much content but updates, I also have 0 patrons so none of this matters, but for archival purposes, ye who should find these warnings be warned.

I have started working on a new game.

Or rather, I've been working on a new game. there's a ton already in it. Its pretty cool if I do say so myself, and you can play the free demo here:
https://covalentbonds.itch.io/robot-game-early-prototype 

But yeah, this has been taking up most of my free development time. I also worked on a game jam recently for GMTK 2023 with my friends, you can check that out here. we really knocked it out of the park:

https://thecoolcats.itch.io/ignition-point 

Lastly, what is going on with Horse Game 2? after all, that was the main reason for starting the patreon, and theres a whole tier dedicated to getting content out, and that hasn't been happening. so what gives?

Long story short, the project hit a pretty gnarly wall. There were problems that were too big to fix on my own, so I came to a crossroads. I needed to spend a lot of time mulling it over, but I think I'm getting close to pulling the trigger: We're going to start over in a new engine.

Well, a new version of the same engine. See, Horse Game 2 was built using Godot v3.2.3 which is really old at this point. A lot of the progress made on the engine fixes many of the bugs that rendered the game borderline unplayable. But thats not all. When I started working on horse game, I had always intended for it to be a learning experience. It was my way of diving into Godot with the intent of learning the engine inside and out, and mastering it. To that end, I really honestly do consider it a success. I feel like a godot master. But I had to learn a lot. the hard way. A lot of my early systems and designs for how the game would be structured were attempts to be more clever than I needed to be (or actually was) and resulted in a lot of really bad, clunky overhead that made managing the game and its components a nightmare.

But, we're not giving up. I came to far, and I still believe a lot in what that game can be. But now that I have a couple more years of experience under my belt, I feel like I could redesign the game to function much better, cleaner, faster, more reliably, and I bet I could get it put together quicker too. Because all the assets are there. I know now what it needs to be and look like, so doing it a second time should be a cakewalk now that I literally have a blueprint to follow.

I plan on doing proper game development logs, starting with a post-mortem (though I'm reluctant to use the phrase since i'm still planning on continuing the project) video essay. I've already started writing that, so things will be happening soon.

in the meantime, you can still continue to play the free demo on my itch page:
https://covalentbonds.itch.io/horse-game-2-demo 

see you soon!

An Update

Hey there. Its been while since I posted an update here. Things in life can change, and it can take time to adapt and readjust to new schedules and patterns.

I needed to take a break from focusing on my art while getting used to a new career. Though I wasn't able to work on Horse Game 2 to the extent that I wanted to, I have been working on it and lately I've been making a ton of progress.

I've been starting to get back into the swing of things and hope to have more full fledged updates soon.

There was a recent update as part of the AGDG Demo Day 47 game jam on itch.io, featuring bug fixes and some new content.

A ton of work has been on adding new stuff to the full version of the game, but I opted not to post that update to patreon at that time because the full version was still not in a state where I wanted to share yet.

but if you're interested, you can download the free demo there and see some of the newish stuff.

https://covalentbonds.itch.io/horse-game-2-demo 

(there is also a devlog there which is just my ToDo list of stuff I've been working on, stuff that has been finished, and stuff that is still in progress.)

Anyway, just wanted to make it clear, I'm not dead, I'm still working on the game, and there will be major update soon.

Thanks for your support!

Horse Game 2 (Early Access) - v 0.2.4

Thank you for supporting the development of Horse Game 2

If there are any issues, please comment them here along with a debug log.

Please read the devlog here for details on changes and updates:

https://covalentbonds.itch.io/horse-game-2-demo/devlog/365005/devlog-2022-4-02-v024

Sketches

Horse Game 2 (Early Access) - v 0.2.1

Thank you for supporting the development of Horse Game 2

If there are any issues, please comment them here along with a debug log.

Bug fixes & changes:

New Content

>Added Gallery for collectible tracking. Players can now view the paintings they've collected in the Journal menu.
Fixes & Changes

>Increased mouse wheel scrolling when turning wheels. Wheel cranks turn much more readily now with mouse.

>Fixed a number of issues involving the gondola including collisions and motion calculations.

Concept Art

Horse Game 2 (Early Access) - v 0.2.0

Thank you for supporting the development of Horse Game 2

If there are any issues, please comment them here along with a debug log.

Bug fixes & changes:

> Corrected safety collision walls surrounding outside of Gondola. Should no longer be possible be very difficult to jump out
> Fixed bug with saving and loading where items get deleted when loaded. Incompatible with older save files.
> Changed  the order in which the first couple areas are loaded, should improve  lag and  startup times when starting a new game. Possibly introduced  issues regarding locale (discrepancies in calculating global transforms  vs local local) so there may be some unexpected behavior. we're still  testing.

New Content:

> water cooler and AC unit added to ranger station

> Added Quest Journal, can be accessed by pressing [J] on mouse & keyboard or (Select / Back) on controller

> Added butcher shop to Furlong & more traders

> added rangers station to Furlong Park

> Secretarianne will sell building blueprints in the park now

Horse Game 2 (Early Access) - v 0.1.1

Thank you for supporting the development of Horse Game 2

If there are any issues, please comment them here along with a debug log.

Concept art

Early Access Coming Soon

In light of the demo & beta testing opening up as of January 10th, there are some extremely worrisome bugs that are preventing me from being confident in the distribution of the game currently.

The full version will be uploaded here in the coming days as the last of the catastrophic kinks get worked out.

Day 25 - Splat

this was as far as I got this year. Had to stop cause I felt like this irl.

Day 24 - Extinct

Day 23 - Leak

Day 22 - Open

Day 21 - Fuzzy

Day 20 - Sprout

Day 19 - Loop

Day 18 - Moon

Day 17 - Collide

Day 16 - Compass