Unicorn change

Howrse has introduced a change to the Unicorns. It's not a major one but will increase your chances of breeding one of these little cuties. Here's what Howrse tells us:

From now on, when you breed your Unicorns you have a little more chance to get a baby Unicorn !

You must however still breed them at the right time and have both parents Unicorns of the same breed to get a chance at having a lovely little baby Unicorn !

We wish you luck for your future Unicorn babies!

The Howrse Team

Now what they don't say is exactly what that increase is. Well, we've done a little digging and discovered that you now have a 1 in 5 chance of breeding a Unicorn instead of the previous 1 in 6 chance. You can find this info in the 'bonus' tab of your Uni. Of course you still have to ensure both parents are Unicorns and that you breed at exactly 6.23am or 6.23pm game time.

So now you have a slighty greater chance of breeding a lovely Unicorn, like my Wilbur - pictured above.

Good luck!


Patsy

Gypse

We've written about the Gypse divine horse before but we've never written about what a Gypse is and what makes it different from other Divines and Specials. So, the Gypse (or 'sand' horse) first appeared in the summer of 2010 Beach Competition, when they could be bought with 'sand' which you earned by winning competitions, buying passes, training horses etc. After the competition, Howrse then gave players the chance to win one in a Horn of Plenty (HoP). And I was lucky enough to get one.

Now the Gypse is very unusual in that the skills it had when you got it could vary hugely. Gypse's that were won in the Beach Competition came with zero skills. Players had to use the 'sand' they had left to give the horse skills. However, players who won Gypse's in the HoP's found that they came with 10,000 grains of sand which meant that these Gypse's effectively had around 1300 skills!

Like most Divines, they are male and cannot breed. However they can be sold. What makes them different from all other Divines is the fact that players can add skills to their Gypse every day and they can decide which skills the horse gains. Howrse states that you have to 'rebuild' Gypse's each day but this is a little bit misleading. In fact, you simply get given a certain amount of 'sand' each day which can then allocate to whichever skill you wish.

The best way to explain this is to show you. Click on one of the links below to see what happens when you activate your Gypse horse each day.

Ultimate Howrse video guide - Rebuilding Gypse (Standard definition)

Ultimate Howrse video guide - Rebuilding Gypse (High definition)

So that's all you need to know about the Gypse.

Patsy

The Fountain

With the Wandering Horses competition there was a great deal of discussion in the forums about the Grand Prix element. To win the 'Shy' horse, you needed to enter the Grand Prix. And the best way of getting enough points for this was to get a Fountain because you were awarded 50 points towards your'Shy'. Neither LucyLou or I had ever won a Fountain as they are only awarded to players who come in the top 100 of the Grand Prix each week.

Well, last week I managed to come 36th in the Grand Prix and so was awarded a Fountain (along with a Falabella, but I'll talk about that later!) which you can see in the picture above. As you can see it replaces the icon for water above the 'Drink' label. So what does it do? Well, with a normal water, your horse gets +2 energy and +1 morale. With the Fountain, your horse get +6 energy and +3 morale. This is really useful, especially when you are training/blupping your horse.

Now the Fountain only lasts a week. After that it disappears and you have to come in the top 100 of the Grand Prix again to get another one. However, a really good thing about the Fountain is that in the week that you have it - it appears on all your horses, which is fabulous.

So that's the Fountain.

Patsy

Ultimate Howrse videos

We're big fans of technology (as well as Howrse of course) here at Ultimate Howrse, and we thought it would be a rather great idea to try a new way of helping all of our lovely readers. So we decided to try our hand at video guides. Whilst we love writing about all of our hints, tips and news, sometimes it 's just so much easier if we can actually show you instead. As from today, we will, from time to time, be using video to help you learn about Howrse, its features, gameplay and much more.

As you'll see, we've added a new tag (called 'Video' obviously!) to help you search for anything we've posted to our YouTube channel. Below is our first video, so please be patient as it's out first attempt. Practice makes perfect remember!

This first video is really just a test and is intended for people who are brand new to Howrse. We shall be producing videos ona whole range of topics, so if you have any requests, just drop us an email to ultimatehowrse@me.com and we'll do our best to help.

Ultimate Howrse video - The Menus

Ultimate Howrse video - The Menus (High Definition)

Enjoy,

Patsy

Howrse foal games from April 2011

UPDATE: Following the changes made by Howrse in July 2012, these foal games will no longer work. See the ALL NEW foal games here.

These foal games have been devised since the major changes by Howrse in April 2011. With the removal of the saltstone, the removal of the two-carrot bonus and the increase in gains from the 'double lesson' the whole way foals are trained has changed. So it's great news that StaciMM has come up with these foal games to allow for these changes. So a big thanks to her, and here is her guide. We've tested it and it works perfectly:


This will work for any size horse/pony and should NOT result in a seriously overweight/unhealthy horse.
Board your foal in a centre with carrots & clean, fertile meadows, and make sure morale is 100% when you put the foal to bed at 6 months old.


Put your horse to bed in the meadow each night. If the temperature is under 10C put your horse to bed in the box.


NOTE: Your horse will now need a companion to be able to do these games.


8 months
Groom/1 Hr Pasture/1 Hr Games/Turnip/Feed 4 pounds/7 Hrs Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water


10 months
Groom/1 Hr Pasture/1 Hr Games/Turnip/Feed 4 Pounds/1 Hr Games/1.5 Hrs Pasture/7 Hrs Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water


12 months
Groom/1 Hr Pasture/1 Hr Games/Turnip/Feed 4 Pounds/8 Hrs Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water


1 year 2 months
Groom/1 Hr Pasture/1 Hr Games/Turnip/9 Hrs Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water/Feed **Feed 2-3 pounds less than it recommends**


1 year 4 months
Groom/30 Minutes Pasture/1 Hr Games/Turnip/Feed 4 pounds/10 Hrs Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water


1 year 6 months
Groom/30 Minutes Pasture/2 Hr Games/Turnip/Feed 14 Pounds/10 Hrs Games/1 Hr Games/Stroke/Carrot/Water


At most ages you are feeding a little less than recommended so as to get ready to overfeed at 18 mos. You MUST feed 14 pounds at 18 months to be able to put your horse to bed with 20% energy. Do not feed more than 4 pounds on each day when it says to feed just 4 pounds. The horse is eating a little in the pasture, and will be at a good/healthy weight when games are done. A pony (or small horse) may need to be underfed slightly at 20 months.So good luck with your foal games. As long as you follow these instructions carefully, you will be rewarded with a perfect 1.2 GP gain on your horse.

Check out our post on Training Methods to find out what to do next.


Patsy

Wandering Horses madness!

Looking for the April 2012 Wandering Horses? Then click here.

Well we've never seen anything like it. Howrse has gone crazy. We're all going mad for Fortunes', Pioneers' and Shy's. And as a result of the competition frenzy, prices for passes and HoP's have gone through the roof. Now aside from the controversy that has been raging in the forums about the 'Shy' part of the competition (we'll talk about that another time), this has to be the most popular competition ever on Howrse.

And so, in the frantic scramble to complete the objectives in order to win (for 5 days only, remember) these special horses, people are desperate to get hold of Horns of Plenty in order to get thet elusive 'Champion' horse. And I have to confess, I've been happy to sell pass horses for the going rate. And it's a record for me. 81,000 equus for a pass horse? Yes it's true. Three times! And when I got my Pioneer horse, I sold the HoP that is awarded with it, for 150,000 equus!

Crazy times and crazy prices. I just hope everyone gets what they want and enjoys the madcap mayhem that is the Wandering Horses competition.

Good luck everyone.

Patsy

Wandering Horses and NEW features

Looking for the April 2012 Wandering Horses? Then click here.

We've already seen that showers are coming to the international game but it looks like plenty more new things as well as some changes are on the way. Now all of these things are currently (5th April) only applicable to some of the non-international sites. We got our info from UK Howrse. So here's what we've found:

Wandering Horses feature

For two weeks UK Howrse is running a 'competition' wherby you collect a variety of UFO's or achieve certain objectives. These UFO's and objectives give you points and when you reach 100 points you get to have one of the 'wandering horses' for 5 days. Each of the 6 horses requires you to do things such as log on to the game, buy HoP's, enter races etc. When you 'win' your horse for the 5 days you also get an "awesome gift' when you take care of it. So it looks like HoP sales are going to be busy!

New features

Again, on UK Howrse, there are some changes coming.:
Apples can only be given to other players' horses. This is a strange one and we're not sure why it's been introduced. Maybe Howrse have something planned for the weeks ahead.
Also, the Salt Block is disappearing. No! We love our Salt Blocks. Apparently you will now get more energy when feeding, to compensate.
The double-carrot advantage is now being replaced by a single carrot and single turnip which will just provide more energy. Hmmm. Turnips cost 50e don't they...?
The two lessons are combined into one. So now lessons will take twice as long, use up twice as much energy but give 2.5 times more money and 2.5 times more skills. They will also provide 4% morale. The exisitng benefit of the third lesson will be replaced by additional equus earnings and skill gains in the remaining lesson.

So we shall wait to see if the international game gets all these new features and changes. There's certainly a lot to think about. Let us know your thoughts as we always love to hear from you.

Patsy

UPDATE: See info on the NEW Wandering horses contest