Pro Show Jumping is out now! Developer Insight and First Impressions

Pro Show Jumping is a 3D horse sports simulation game, now available on Steam. In light of its launch today, I’ve given the game a first try and received some behind-the-scenes info from its solo developer, Sebastián Leguizamón. 

making Pro Show Jumping 

Sebastián’s goal with Pro Show Jumping is realism: “My focus was to an accurate simulation of what it feels like to ride a course,” Sebastián tells TMQ. “show jumping is all about placing the horse at the ideal take-off distance with the best balance possible; after that it is all on the horse. These mechanics are well captured by the game.”

The developer’s interest in this particular discipline comes from personal experience: Growing up in Colombia, Sebastián has been a Show Jumper for about fifteen years, before a move to Europe - and the higher costs of riding there - forced him to put the hobby on hold. “That is part of the reason why I developed this game actually, not to completely lose contact with the world of show jumping,” Sebastián explains.

Sebastián found himself not quite satisfied by what the existing competition offered: 

“In many games, you only have to aim at the center of the fence and press the spacebar to jump,” Sebastián says. “In Pro Show Jumping, you have to smoothly control the canter to ensure that you reach the fence at an appropriate take-off distance and balance.” 

Whether or not Pro Show Jumping will receive further updates after its launch remains to be seen: “I do have some ideas of future development,” says Sebastián, “including a couple of external arenas, reworking some of the animations, and including a jump-off system.” He does not yet want to promise these additions though, adding “We will see what the future holds.”

For Sebastián himself, the game delivers exactly what it’s supposed to: “I developed this game for myself, and I am enjoying it every day.”

First Impressions

Sebastián was kind enough to provide The Mane Quest with a key and a chance to try the game before its release. 

Pro Show Jumping is somewhat rudimentary in its approach to onboarding and tutorialization: Selecting things like the game’s difficulty and your character’s gender are simple settings in the Options menu, which you’ll need to return to in order to play more advanced courses. Not all of the controls are entirely intuitive, so looking at the tutorial is advised in order to get the most out of the experience. 

That being said, I found the actual riding relatively easy to get into, and was motivated to restart courses and fix my previous errors. It’s always a good sign when the player immediately knows what they did wrong and wants to try again, rather than being confused or frustrated by ingame failure. 

I know that some players will hugely appreciate features such as being able to “walk the course” (it’s more of a first person camera fly-through, but still) before starting a ride, which is not just a realistic detail but a necessity if you don’t want to start a course over repeatedly in order to learn the best path. 

The ingame controls took a moment to get used to, since Pro Show Jumping lets you adjust your forward trajectory, more than it gives you direct and quick control over your horse. Course-correcting right before an obstacle is not always possible, but fortunately the option to restart the course and choose a better path next time is quick and simple. 

An interesting consequence of the somewhat “indirect” controls is that you can play from a far-off “Tribune” perspective in addition to the first or third person camera.

Since my own show jumping experience is limited to about cavaletti height, I’ll leave the verdict on how well the game simulates this particular experience to those of you more familiar with the real life discipline. But I do believe that PSJ brings something new to the table as a small, but solidly executed and self-contained passion project. 

Pro Show Jumping lets you design and share your own jumping courses

Two interesting features that I can imagine have a chance to increase the game’s lifespan are its leaderboards and its Steam Workshop support. Even playing pre-release, I already recognized a name or two from the horse game community among the high scores, and I imagine that some dedicated players will have optimizing their times, both on the default courses as well as on player-made challenges created and shared with the game’s course editor. 

As a solo project, Pro Show Jumping has obvious limitations in its scope and visual fidelity. The UI in particular is functional, but not exactly pretty. And yet, self-contained games with well executed core mechanics can serve as crucial points of reference for players and developers alike. We’ve also seen various examples in this genre of how a dedicated player base can grow up even around smaller titles.

While TMQ has received a review copy of PSJ for free, the game is now available for purchase in a price category somewhere between Rival Stars Horse Racing, Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch and The Ranch of Rivershine - all games with significantly more content and polish. This decision will no doubt limit the game’s reach, but I remain curious to see if it’ll find its audience.

Pro Show Jumping is now available on Steam for PC. The Mane Quest has received a free game key for review purposes.