Game Release: Tales of Rein Ravine is Now Available on Steam For Free

Tales of Rein Ravine is a new horse game now available in Steam Early Access at no cost. The game has been in development for a bit over four years by solo developer “Maia the Horsegirl”. Initially known as “horsegame.exe”, the project has garnered significant attention on TikTok and Instagram over the years, and received funding and support from fans via Patreon. The Patreon remains a crucial part of the game’s release strategy – the free Steam version does not contain any in-game purchases or other forms of monetization, relying exclusively on its ongoing crowdfunding.

While “an intriguing story - more mature than typical in its genre” is planned for the future, the Early Access version of ToRR doesn’t have much narrative content yet, but lets you take riding lessons and explore.

Since the game is free, I recommend taking a look for yourself right here on Steam!

Impressions

What sets Tales of Rein Ravine apart from much of its competition is a more complex approach to riding controls: instead of complete direct control over your horse’s movement, your A and D keys and your left and right mouse buttons represent a rein or leg each, and are used both for steering as well as for accelerating. While the game doesn’t represent these aids entirely realistically – I’d object to statements like “the reins are your primary turning aid” or “you need to slow your walk down and eventually you’ll halt” in a real riding lesson – it definitely aims for something a bit more in-depth and lifelike than your average game horse.

It’s worth noting that the game has a handful of user experience issues at the moment: movement on foot is made award by a lack of option to go backward and making one mistake in a lesson exercise means you have to redo the whole thing but first finish the one you already messed up, which is annoying. The game’s first few minutes also lack instructions and aren’t entirely intuitive, so if you want to get to your first riding lesson quickly, I highly recommend checking out this guide that an expedient TMQ community member has already put together on the Horse Game Database.

The current version offers three detailed and voice acted riding lessons to start with, which then unlocks Free Riding on two lesson horses with different handling and characteristics. I haven’t played any cross country and jumping courses yet myself, but players looking for realism will appreciate that this is a game where correct striding matters for jumping. (For the non-equestrian readers, that means you’ll have to adjust your speed in order to get to the obstacle in the right phase of your canter, essentially.)

Something to appreciate for me is that Tales of Rein Ravine oozes “this was made by an equestrian” at every level. From the chatty instructor and the exercises she gives you, to the in-game guide to riding with its lovingly made illustrations of tack, to the characteristics that the different horses have, ToRR is undeniably a labor of love and made by someone with more than a superficial knowledge of horses and riding – a feat that remains rare in our niche, even though we nowadays have a handful of indie passion projects to compare it with.

Further playing around in the riding arena also appears to let you try your hand at lateral gaits – since those aren’t properly tutorialized yet, you’ll have to experiment a bit yourself or get some help from other players through the community. Edit: turns out they actually are tutorialized in the Grand Prix guide once you complete your lessons!

Outlook

Although Tales of Rein Ravine doesn’t currently offer any detailed roadmap, we can expect the game to receive further updates in the coming months, including the promised storyline. It’s always worth remembering that the game is a debut project by a solo creator however, and to adjust expectations of the dev timeline accordingly. I wouldn’t be surprised if the game’s narrative takes quite a while to come together.

In any case, I’m happy to see this project enter the market properly with its Steam release, and I look forward to seeing it get developed further. If you like what you see and want to support the game financially, remember that you can become a patron and benefit from exclusive preview material as well as voting rights on new features.