ROAM: Wild Horse Simulator

I left a pretty harsh review before, it is still a smaller game and I'd love to have much more features. But to the dev's credit, they did address the performance issues. The scenery now can look pretty for me without making my computer heat up to jet engine temp. The pop in is a bit jarring but I'd much rather have that then everything being loaded like before. For the price it is now, I'd recommend this game! I don't mind just running sim games and if you like just running around a map as a horse with some silly things happening, this is the game for it.

exactly as described this is literally a horse walking simulator, not much to do except run around as a horse. a bit buggy but pleasantly surprised that even for low poly, the horse anatomy & movements is leagues better than some other more notable horse games.

You get exactly what was advertized, it's a game where you're a horse and you roam around. The movement is good, the visuals are simple and easy to look at. There's not a lot to the game, but what's there is quite well done. I haven't encountered any huge bugs, just that the horses sometimes get stuck on stuff. Definitely worth the money.

Such a cute little game! It's so fun to run around stealing horses from humans lol.

not worth it, i dont think its being updated anymore

so disappointing. there is almost nothing to do and the graphics aren't pretty enough to just "roam" around for relaxation but BY FAR THE MOST FRUSTRATING THING OF ALL is that turning is almost impossible. you can ONLY turn in a big wide slow arc which means if you're in a small space, you have to just bounce off the fence for several minutes and by the time you are turned in the direction you want, your horse has passed the target and has to turn the other direction now and do it all over again. and then WHAT does the game do???? PUTS. YOU. IN. A. FREAKING. *MAZE* WITH A ***TIME LIMIT***!!!!!!! my god i don't know how it is even possible to get out of the fence maze, i eventually had to just give up and restart the game. it is not fun at all. as an adult player i typically enjoy games where you just roam around as an animal and eat grass and look at the scenery, but the landscape and horses are just ugly, and there's large areas where you can't eat/drink but if you gallop to get across them faster your energy goes down, so there is never a sense of calm and relaxation. when you do find a grassy spot, it's tiny and boring AND YOU CAN'T TURN AROUND IN IT so camping next to resources isn't fun and "roaming" isn't fun because of the constant pressure to find resources. you can't control how long your horse sleeps or eats so you can't just nap in the nice breeze or take a quick bite. it has some realistic elements in the way the horses move (EXCEPT FOR TURNING) like walk/trot/canter/gallop and kicking/bucking and rearing and jumping and head-tossing and stomping, but just when i start to feel some sense of immersion, suddenly my horse gets struck by lightning and goes sailing dramatically through the air like a cartoon. animals/people that i bump into crumple instantly in very disturbing ways, necks broken, legs flailing around, it's actually rather jarring and violent. any object i slightly touch goes flying away and bouncing around no matter how big it is, the landscape is littered with hidden cliffs that are annoying to avoid because of the inability to turn so you fall off and have your nice relaxing canter suddenly interrupted by the disturbing death animation. you can breed the horses but there is no realistic genetic inheritance or even an attempt to look like a mix of the parents, and even though the mare looks pregnant and the new horse starts as a foal and grows up, the entire process happens in like one minute. it blows by so fast it might as well just be "click, click, here's a new horse" but then there isn't really anything to do with it, there's no pedigree/lineage, you don't protect it from predators/people/anything, and when you "lead" the other horses they only follow you for a while then wander off on their own --- AFTER the ridiculous work it takes to get near enough to use that feature because YOU CANNOT TURN. you start out with a full herd to begin with so growing your numbers isn't a goal. there's a reputation stat but it has nothing to do with befriending new horses and just goes down when you attack people and has a counter for how many humans you've attacked. there's no explanation for it, or for the random lightning bolt symbols floating around that look very "video game-y" but do nothing when i find them. there is definitely absolutely NO education value whatsoever, you don't learn or experience anything about how wild horses live or interact with each other, and the realistic movements are completely wasted when they turn into cartoon nonsense on a whim. if you want to relieve stress by slaughtering people there are way better battle/action games for that, and if you want to relieve stress by just "roaming" there are too many interruptions for that either. this is such a weird game, it started out with some decent elements for a realistic wild horse simulator where you just relax and roam around, eat grass, make babies, chill, etc (maybe battle rivals/predators but the ability to turn around absolutely HAS to be fixed first) but then i guess they thought nobody wants to actually do that? so it goes all ADHD with random cartoon crap that destroys the immersion and challenges out of nowhere that destroy the relaxation. but if you ARE playing specifically for the kiddy crap stuff and can't go two minutes without something happening, there is not much to do and you will definitely get bored quickly. i am so frustrated and disappointed. i just want an escape from people and social anxiety and bills and adult stuff and horses are very relaxing to watch so you'd think a game literally called "ROAM" would be the perfect place to do that.

the last game update was Tue, December 24, 2024 the dev seems to be working on another game after i checked the discord. i was looking foward to this game after seeing it on tiktok a few months back, but unfortunaly it doesnt seem to run well on my pc. the game lags after lowering the graphics (and looks really badon high/medium) and the gpu/ram usage was very high. just didnt seem worth it to keep trying. for the amount of 7 minutes i got to play, the horse customization was actually really nice - and the movement/controls were nice as well. when i hit tab to see the controls the map pops up, it was really glitchy. ive refunded the game - i hope in the future maybe i can return if the dev revisits it as it seems like it could be a very fun and chill game

Unfinished and abandoned, don't waste your money.

i bought this to bully my former-horse-girl best friend and it was worth the 5 bucks

I love the ragdoll effect. [i]I love it.[/i] Don't ever remove it. The graphics are charming. I love how simple & chunky these horses are. This game is exactly what it advertises and nothing more or less. ROAM appeals very specifically to the young horse boy in me that watched Spirit over and over again. It is also an absolute mess that is in no way a finished game, and [b]you should not expect a finished game if you buy it[/b]. I got this game on sale for $2.50, and I'd say that's a fair price point for where the game is currently. [u]Big Con: Bugs[/u] As someone who spends a lot of time playing Bethesda games, weird bugs don't usually bother me. I preface this with Bethesda because ROAM has many more. I found the majority annoying but tolerable. I did have to reset more than a few saves from things like death loops and controls getting stuck or straight up breaking. [list] [*]The breeding system is interesting but broken. You can get maybe two foals before it thinks unrelated horses are related and locks the whole thing. [*]When entering the edit herd or horse menu, it will reset things like the horse's names even if you don't select them to edit. That being said: The variety of customization options offer a lot of variety without being overwhelming. [*]The horse AI isn't as bad as I thought it would be given how rough the reviews were. Lots of pushing some of them down hills, leading and unleading. This system seems very unfinished, the eat and rest mechanics aren't mirrored by horses you're leading. If they eat or rest when following you, they drop off the group with no warning and are stuck in place until you go back and unlead then relead them. [*]The herd interactions have so much potential! I would love to see the herd aspect of ROAM expanded on more considering it's one of the main mechanics. I don't really see how they impact any game play so far despite the reputation bar. [*][u]Overall UI is rough. It looks janky and it is janky.[/u] The menus can be temperamental, some buttons to close menus just populate more menus... behind the one you're looking at. And you just have to button mash until it realizes you're trying to leave, and then wait for it to close all those windows it just opened. [*]The map serves its purpose, but the markers and your horse's orientation are unclear, and the scaling for the map vs the rate at which you move through the world don't make sense. There are also areas that are just completely off the map despite having no boundaries otherwise.[/list] ROAM is unfinished and buggy but very charming in what it offers. It is exactly what it advertises and the attention to different gaits and how they affect movement are something you don't usually see in open world horse games. It seems like a good foundation for a unique game that you could sink hours into. I enjoyed the hours I've played and will likely go back to it. Unfortunately the 'unfinished' aspect cannot be understated. I still think it deserves more attention. I hope the devs still plan on working on this and it isn't dead.