Recommended Resource: Horse & Rider Sprite Pack by Onfe

Via my weekly search for “horse gamedev” on Twitter, I stumbled across a beautiful asset pack by Itch.io user Onfe.

If you’ve been following TMQ for a while, you’ll know that good horse animation is hard to find, and for those of us more gifted in game design or coding than in art, a sprite pack like this can be an incredible ressource.

As commenters in the TMQ Discord community have pointed out, what we see in the walk animation is a so-called lateral walk, i.e. a walk where the two legs on one side move almost at once. It is not an unrealistic motion so much as it is a motion that is generally undesired. If you are (like me) hearing of that for the first time today, here is a video and an article that explains why the lateral walk is an issue that should be corrected in real life horses.

In case of the asset pack, I don’t want to nitpick. I think the walk being lateral is a detail worth pointing out for enthusiasts and for those who want to learn more about animating horses, but since the motions in the asset pack look otherwise correct to me, it still gets a definitive recommendation from me.

For a donation of 3-5$, you can get access to the whole pack, which includes a variety of coat colors and front, side and back views of horse and rider. Check out the full feature list as well as technical details on the pack’s itch.io page.

I for one am very tempted to make something with this… After all, there are so many horse games that someone should be making.