Taking Lil’ Horses for Test Run with the Kids

TJC Media Ventures' newest iPhone/iPad game is called Lil’ Horses, and it’s designed with your own lil’ ones in mind. Following up on their last game, Thoroughbred World, Lil’ Horses is another horse-breeding simulation that allows the player to build a breeding farm and populate it with horses.
The difference is that Lil’ Horses, as the name might suggest, is geared more toward kids. The horses and graphics are more 2D and cartoonish, and the gameplay is a little bit stripped down and simplified. The horses compete in mini-games like steeplechase jumping rather than just racing.
COMPETE WITH YOUR HORSES

Much of the gameplay of Lil’ Horses revolves around the breeding of different horses together to create new horses. Depending on the color schemes of the lil’ horses you match up, your new foals (baby horses) can come out with totally new colors. To keep the kids interested, the color schemes of these lil’ horses is unlike anything you’d see outside of Dr. Kendall Hansen’s barn - plenty of blues and pinks to mix and match with the browns and blacks.
So far my kids, ages two and four, have taken a keen interest in two elements of the game: anticipating the color of the new horses and coming up with names. They were very excited to see the offspring of the horses we made for each of them, Spiderman and Happy. When the foal was born, everyone was excited to see that the mane and coat matched each of their horses. The joy the new birth brought quickly dissipated when we couldn’t agree on who would get to name the new horse. Would our yearling be called Ninja Horse or Cheese? The emotions ran high. It threatened to tear our budding stable apart, no doubt as similar disputes have torn apart stables that came before us in the real world.
I explained to my kids that often horses are named as a combination of the mother’s and father’s names. I suggested Happy Spider as a compromise. My son suggested a different kind of amalgam - Ninja Cheese. My daughter seemed content with that. And so we tapped the horse and typed it in. Ninja Cheese would surely grow into a fine jumper and make us all proud.
CARE FOR YOUR HORSES

I handed the game off to my oldest to see how he could handle the controls. He mostly did OK. He was raised on iPhones and touch screen games, so much of it was intuitive to him. He fed Ninja Cheese a carrot no problem. But he clicked on the gift icon thinking he would be able to give his new foal a present and instead gave the horse away as a gift. Ninja Cheese was gone! And for nothing! We never even had a chance to sell the horse for a profit!
This caused quite a stir among the partners, who demanded I get Ninja Cheese back. I tried and failed to undo the action or to create a new horse to stand in as Ninja Cheese a la Jinx the Cat in Meet the Parents. All I could do was tell the kids to wait until tomorrow and we’d try again. They were unhappy, but it was nothing an episode of “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” and some chocolate milk couldn’t cure. If only Steve Coburn was that easy to settle down.
I’d say there’s hope for Lil’ Horses keeping a spot on my iphone in the “Kid’s Games” folder. It has piqued their curiosity, and they already have a healthy affection for horses instilled in them from their old man. I doubt I’ll let my son take the reins again until we all master these controls a little better.
Even if you aren’t so lil’ yourself, you’ll enjoy the game if you’re into sims like Farmville or The Simpsons Tap Out. And if you find yourself looking for a neighboring farm with some generous owners, look us up. We’re just giving them away over here.