Amy Raby

This little lady finished her UKI "IND" title and is moving up to the big girl courses in her next trial! I enjoy UKI courses a lot and am super looking forward to running the tougher ones.

I'm using Unreal Engine 5.6. I'm a novice with it, so this is going to be a long learning process for me, but at least the scripting is done in C++, my preferred language. And I think I've kept the scope of my game reasonable. UE is extremely cool; I'm amazed by some of the things it can do.

You buy and sell horses, hire trainers, build facilities, assign horses to them. Eventually you can breed horses and train them for specific disciplines. The game has an isometric view and you never directly control a horse or trainer; you just make assignments and watch what happens.

I started making a videogame. It's just for fun--a passion project, as they say. The game I want to play doesn't exist, so I'm going to attempt to make it myself. It's a management game where you run a horse ranch. Think Rollercoaster Tycoon, except horse ranch instead of theme park.

more and more elements of the games industry are going to align themselves with gambling in the coming years, in a normalization of market failure. it is crucial to build a new paradigm for games and it must be ideologically opposed to this one. restructuring around gambling is anti-culture.

In short, it's an interesting problem to solve, and with the RNG element I'll have to modify my breeding program in each generation to account for what foals I actually got and what I'll have to work with in the next generation. Great fun.

I'm working on an achievement now to breed a foal with a certain coat coloration, and it's going to require a multi-generational breeding program. Some of the genes I need I don't have in my stable, so I'll have to acquire them. And then there's RNG in what genes the foals get.

You can buy horses at auction, but I preferred to capture wild horses (this is extremely fun and probably the best part of the game) or breed my own foals. Breeding is also pretty great.

There are lots of styles of play that work in this game. The one I settled into was acquiring horses, training them, campaigning them to increase their value, and selling them to buy various upgrades (if I didn't need them as breeding stock).

I found a horse game I really like! It's called Ranch of Rivershine. The basic gameplay is you acquire horses, care for them, train them, compete with them in cross-country races, and breed them. The graphics aren't as fancy as in some other games but the gameplay is excellent.

YouTube video by pokeypig22 Crazy Three Jump Drill

On the agility front, I've been searching for 3-jump drills since 3 jumps is what my truck can comfortably carry (with dogs). I found this one and set it up at a local field and it was pretty fun. I may try it again going the other direction, but space the jumps out more. youtu.be/3XgOPH9PVAs?...

Add me to the list of people who were blown away by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. What a masterpiece of a game! Story, art direction, soundtrack, all A+++, among the best of all time. Gameplay was a little out of my comfort zone but I managed, and it grew on me.

I got an in impromptu race with another player today. She started to pass me up and I was like "hell no," and sprinted ahead. There is no combat that I'm aware of. You're just riding around the island doing quests and story stuff and enjoying the scenery.

The gameplay is a bit MMO-like. You're on an island with your starter horse (it looks like you can buy more later?) and you ride around doing quests and progressing a story which is some kind of mystery. You're on a server with other people so you'll see other people riding too.

Video game screenshot of riding horse on forest path

Good horse games are rare, they're kind of niche. I've started playing Equinox: Homecoming. It's brand new, just entered Early Access. So far I like it a lot. They used motion capture on an actual horse to do the animations and it shows. The horses move in a realistic, true-to-life way.

I ran Rogue in a UKI trial yesterday--a first for both of us! I liked it and plan to run more of them. The courses were difficult but dog-friendly, with generous space between obstacles and opportunities to run fast. Felt like the 20" class was over half the trial. "Oops! All border collies!"

This watch has Pong and Missile Command instead of apps Retro gaming on your wrist.

This watch has Pong and Missile Command instead of apps

Back on the trail! I hike with the dog(s) almost every day but our average hike is only about 45 minutes (2-2.5 miles). I think it's healthier both for me and for the dogs to spend a little time in nature every day, rather than go out only once a week for like 4 hours or something.

Oh no, Rogue, photographic evidence!

She does get a bit worried, so we only do one trial day per weekend right now. And she's still having some errors in the weaves that don't happen in training, which indicates she has some "tabs open" and doesn't feel able to fully focus on the weaves. Should improve with time. (3/3)

I've trialed Rogue sparingly so far. Each trial revealed some issues for us to work on, so we'd take a couple months to work on those and then enter another trial. Now I think she is finally ready to trial a bit more frequently. (2/3)

Rogue had a nice agility weekend. Q'd in both her classes, Open Jumpers and Novice Standard. That finishes her NA title so next trial she can be entirely in Open, which will make our day a little easier. Got her 2nd measurement done too. (1/3)

"Sports Car" by Tate McRae is so good! I don't normally like songs where the lyrics are "whispered" (it's not exactly whispering; I don't know how else to describe it) but this one works. I bet it's amazing to dance to.

The US is pretty much unassailable militarily. The only way to bring down the US is to destroy it from within. Putin knows this, and now his plans are coming to fruition.

I was extremely happy with her work at the trial today. She's still very green, and we had a couple of broken start lines last trial, so we took a couple months off trialing to really work on those start lines and some other things. Today both of her start lines held. (2/2)

Agility trial today! Rogue Q'd in Open Jumpers and she may have Q'd in Novice Standard, I'm just not sure about her A-frame contact so we'll have to wait and see. If she did get the Novice Standard leg that will finish her title. Should have photos soon. (1/2)

Same trail as yesterday and almost the same shot, except this time I have both dogs. As you can probably imagine, this trail looks very different in the summertime when all those trees are leafed out!

dog on hiking trail

When I'm walking on a flat trail, every step is pretty much the same. But on a trail like this, every footfall lands at a different angle, and sometimes I step over roots and streams. I think there little unnamed stabilizing muscles that get a workout from this kind of trail. (2/2)

Today's trail is more challenging than most of the trails I hike. Hills, roots, rocks, mud. It's quite wild; we use our bear bells here. I think trails like this are a better workout than flat ones because in addition to requiring more fitness, they work a wider variety of muscles. (1/2)

Addendum: I'm no exception, so as a way of trying to protect myself, I try to get outdoors in nature every single day. Didn't feel great today, but I was functional so I was able to go about 2 miles. Photo isn't the best but Rogue is shaking off after taking a dip in this little swampy area.