Old school play-by-email horse racing

Remember VGA Planets? No? It was a great turn based play by email game that was light on bling and heavy on strategic thinking.

I've decided to try my hand at developing a play by email (PBEM) game but for horse racing. What does PBEM even mean? In this case, each horse stable manager views the important bits of their organisation and specifies "orders" to carry out. These orders don't happen in real time. They are stored in a text file and the file is given to the game host - or a commissioner. The host collects all the text files from all the players, saves them into a game folder and then uses a host program to process all the orders from all the clients (players). The host then shares the files back to each of the clients (players) who then see the results, strategies and then submit their next set of orders.

What would this look like in Horse Stable Manager?

You would own a stable - which means a company. You will buy horses from the market. Every horse will have different stats. You will spend money to train and race them. You will win races and when the horse retires from age, you'll breed new horses.

Every turn you'll place orders on how to manage your company. The host will process your results. Files can be shared by email or more commonly via something like Discord. You'll see the results of your previous orders. You'll watch replays of races. You'll review training outcomes. You'll see your bank balance move. You'll then place more orders and go again.

You can play by yourself and be your own host. You can process turns as fast as you like.

You can play with an unlimited number of real players. You'll need a host - which might be you - and the host will decide how many turns will be processed each week.

Be the first to join my Discord server to learn more and be an alpha tester.