Horse girls rejoice! Horse aficionados will no longer need to rely on mods to make games like Red Redemption 2 and Sims 3 into horse girl games. Now, an upcoming game called The Ranch of Rivershine will allow you to play through the ins and outs of ranch ownership, from grooming your horses to participating in competitions.
We have horse girls and more in Cool WIP, Polygon’s weekly roundup of eye-catching clips and screenshots of works in progress. Each week, the Polygon staff scours the internet for the most interesting games still under construction, to give you a sampler of the coolest up-and-coming projects.
This week we also have a game where you build homes out of mushrooms, a chicken that rides a pan like a snowboard, an adventure on a frog-filled island, and a creepy-crawly horror game.
Raise horses and run your own ranch
Here are a few pics of the new environments in The Ranch of Rivershine!
It was a big decision to change the game art style but I’m really happy with the results and excited to share them!!
Let me know what you all think of this new look! ❤️#gamedev #UE4 #Horses pic.twitter.com/ABIEF2Ewyl
— ❤️Éloïse (@EloiseGameDev) February 4, 2022
Ranch of Rivershine is a horse simulator game in the works from Éloïse Laroche and Cozy Bee Games. The game doesn’t have a release date, but a new trailer showed off plenty of gameplay. Players will be able to groom, ride, and even compete with their horses. There’s no release window yet, but players can check out progress on this game, and the studio’s other work on Laroche’s Twitter account.
Build a mushroom home and take photos
Shroomchitect is an adorable building game where you get to design mushroom-themed homes for forest spirits, from developer Punkcake Délicieux. The game sports an adorable, chunky pixelated art style along with a lo-fi soundtrack. In the home editor, you can build houses block-by-block and it looks like a laidback time. The game is available now on Itch.io for Windows PC, and you can check out more work from the studio on its Patreon.
Go on an adventure with frogs
It seems like I manage to find a new frog game every other week. Frogs just seem to be a popular trend with a lot of smaller indie developers. This game is called Time on Frog Island and it allows you to go on an adventure with frogs. In a video, we see a character exploring the overworld, as a gaggle of tadpoles follow behind. We don’t know how the tadpoles survive out of the water, but it sure looks cute. According to the developer, Half Past Yellow, the game is coming “soon” to Windows PC via Steam.
Alpine chicken? Alpine chicken
No, this isn’t some name for a chicken recipe. It’s a game where you shred the slopes as a chicken. The game is called Slopecrashers and it’s being developed by the studio Byteparrot. In a new gameplay video, we see a chicken cruising down a mountain as it pulls up tricks like multiple 360-degree front flips. According to the Steam page, the game is scheduled to be released in winter 2022 and you can check out occasional updates from the developer on their Twitter account.
Escape the creeping tendrils of your own room
Although there’s a trend of horror games inspired by the 3D polygonal style of the PlayStation 1 era, not every developer is following those trends. Atelier QDB’s Decarnation manages to capture horror in a 2D pixelated style. What stood out to me were the ways the bodily tendrils of the room seemed to creep up on the main character. Described by the developer as a “retro mindfuck horror adventure,” Decarnation will supposedly be a “story rich” horror game. The game has a release window of 2022, and you can check out updates on the game’s Twitter account.