Sim Horse Games Got Me My Career – Part 2
In Part 1, Sim Horse Chat I fessed up to my secret horse sim addiction that’s been around since I was a kid. While Sim Horse Chat helped my typing and descriptive skills, discovering automated Sim Horse games really opened up a new world to me. Hello Photoshop!
Automated Sim Horse Games are sites that have a sign-up, usually a fee to play, and run in a similar fashion: you buy/sell/breed virtual horses that have stats, train them to improve those stats, and show them in different classes. Unlike chat or the “draw from a hat method”, the winner of these classes is determined by software that calculates stats and various other factors to declare a winner. Examples of these sites include but aren’t limited to Horseland (this one has changed a lot over the years, used to be a lot more simple), Howrse, White Oak Stables and Virtual Horse Ranch just to name a few.
The software that drove these games took a lot of creativity (and subjectivity) out of playing, so creative horse lovers like myself reached out for the new amazing world of creating very intricate profile pictures of our horses.
Making these images taught me 60% of the Photoshop knowledge that I had today, no joke. It’s kind of amazing when you think about it, at least to me!
For Sim images, the name of the game is drama. Long flowy mane? Oh yes. Song lyrics you can barely read? Absolutely. Fire and fairy wings? Slap ’em on!
Flowy, renaissance and artistic breeds were the most popular. Mainly your Arabians, fire breathing Medieval Friesians, and Andalusians. Of course, all of those breeds excelled in grand prix jumpers… duh.
I would always end up with horse ADD because I liked making the images. When rotating through tons of fake ponies just so I could play in Photoshop got old, I would hire out my graphic services for fake horse show money.
Yes, you read that right. Fake horse show money.
In the end, I regret nothing. I learned a lot about graphics, and I had fun. I mean, I was a teenager… I could be out on the streets doing horrible things! Instead, I made fake pony pictures that were magical.
And in the end, it played a large part in my first few jobs as a graphic designer. There are certainly worse things! Last post lots of you fessed up to playing some of the games mentioned above – so who joined my quest to learn Adobe PhotoDeluxe to make fancy pony pictures?
12 thoughts on “Sim Horse Games Got Me My Career – Part 2”
Don’t forget that half the time you could sell your horse for HELLZA fake money if it had a kick ass picture
That is very true! If I had a fraction of my fake horse money that I do now, I wouldn’t be complaining about how horses are so expensive 🙂
Right there with you sister.
Though I think your Photoshop skills were much more advanced than mine! You must have turned a tidy fake money profit with those pics!
I wish it had translated more into real money!
Yup. I STILL play Howrse. Not ashamed. It’s addicting!
It issssssssssss addicting! That’s the most recent one I have played.
I’m excited for part 3, where we discuss how SIM games also helped with general office skills such as: negotiation (haggling over fake prices for fake horses can get intense), time management (do I host a show, or should I reorganize my farm’s website?) and attention to detail (does that fake Oldenburg’s name follow the real naming requirements?)
LOL!!!! I didn’t even think of all that 🙂
I think I nail almost every one of your descriptions with this one:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/LaBelle012/uh/personal%20pictures/7.png
Ha. This one cracks me up. I think it definitely fits the bill, too.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/LaBelle012/uh/personal%20pictures/Crave7.png
Lol yes! Those are stellar 🙂
I used to play Horseland too! When it was actually a good game… I rememeber when it was especially cool if you matched that god awful purple background with your picture haha Surprisingly enough, I recognize the “prufrock” name from Horseland LOL
I was a closet simmer for quite some time as well, but finally came out to some of my friends. I moved on from Horseland to the forum based games that are not as automated. I’ve made some great friends through these games and people are like “omg, you met someone in person through a game online?!”
I agree with Tracy, part 3 should be how sim games helped in real life situation. Though I wish I had the millions I had online, I still had to manage my money! Do I want to spend the money to have someone make me a nice image for my horse or do I want to breed my mare to that awesome stud?
I have met some really great people through the forum games – one girl even came to my wedding 🙂