Uma Musume: Pretty Derby is a Japanese mobile game developed by the game developer Cygames, Inc. for Android and iOS platforms. The game takes place in an alternate universe where actual real-life horses are replaced by girls known as uma musume (lit. “horse girl”) with horse ears and tails. Within the context of the game, the horse girls are based on real-life Japanese racehorses, and the player takes on the role of their trainer to train them for races that are also based on real-life Japanese horseracing events. Website

The Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

The core mechanic of Uma Musume: Pretty Derby consists of selecting a horse girl you have and entering her into a training “scenario” or run. Each training run lasts for a total of 72 turns. During each turn, the player can choose to train one of their horse girl’s core attributes, participate her in a race, let her rest, go on an outing with her, or send her to the infirmary (only if inflicted with a negative status). Training and racing use up the horse girl’s energy which can be recovered by resting or going on an outing. Training and racing can also reward skills points which can be spent to acquire skills that temporarily boost speed, acceleration, stamina recovery etc. when triggered in the middle of a race.

As for the core attributes, each horse girl has the following:

• Speed – how fast the horse girl can run in a race, training this gives a small bonus in power
• Stamina – how long the horse girl can maintain her top speed before slowing down, training this gives a small bonus in guts
• Power – how fast the horse girl can reach her top speed, training this gives a small bonus in stamina
• Guts – how fast the horse girl drains her stamina, training this gives a small bonus in power and speed
• Wisdom – how likely the horse girl will trigger her skills mid-race, training this gives a small bonus in speed

These are barely scratching the surface of the complex system of mechanics that this game has, but they already provide an engaging experience during each training run. Often, I find myself in situations such as debating whether to let my horse girl rest up and forgo a training with incredibly high stats bonus but high failure rate (if her energy is too low the training may fail and inflict a negative status), or to take the risk and possibly gain a huge increase in stats. This is not even going into the support cards and inheritance system, all of which provide different synergies with different horse girls during each run and heavily engages the player as they figure out how to best complete each training run.

Story

The main story arc linearly follows the player as the trainer of Team Sirius, one of the racing teams in Tracen Academy (horse girl training academy based on a real-life Japanese racehorse training centre). On top of the main story, each horse girl has their own unique storyline on how they met the player character, and regular game events also each has their own accompanying storylines. Despite being limited by my N4 Japanese ability, I always find myself engaged by the stories enough to spend the time to slowly go through each scene, trying to understand the dialogue with what little Japanese I know, before plugging them into a translator. With many horse girls yet to be implemented and many more game events to come, the game has way more than enough story content to keep the players engaged for a long time.

One thing I love about the game story is that apart from the horse girls having designs heavily based on their real-life counterparts, the story also accurately portrays them going through the exact same experiences their real-life counterparts went through. For players who are already followers of Japanese horseracing and its history, this is a nice touch. As for those who didn’t follow Japanese horseracing, well I have to say after starting this game I found myself reading up a lot more about it.

Aesthetics

When it comes to aesthetics of Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, I can find no better words to describe it other than phenomenal. From the character designs, voice lines and music to the 3D assets used in story scenes and races, everything just seems so passionately crafted on the part of the designers. Character designs are often so well done that non-fans who have years of horse racing experience can correctly guess which horse girl is based on which racehorse. Fully-voiced, 3D animated story scenes make the stories come alive. Race events during training runs are 3D animated and shown in real-time with actual horseracing camera angles. Additionally, after each race the player has the option to view a “winning live”, where the horse girls carry out idol-like performances of specific songs, reflecting the “winning run” in real life that jockeys often do with their horses after winning a race. I believe all these contribute to a fully immersive game experience of playing as the trainer for the horse girls.

Technology

The game was developed in Unity for Android and iOS, but a desktop version is also available through the DMMGamePlayer. Accounts can be synced between the mobile and desktop versions, allowing the player to access their game almost anytime and anywhere. Full-body motion capture was also used for the 3D character models, giving them natural and realistic body movements and thus providing an immersive game experience.

The Lenses of Game Design

Lens 1: The Lens of Emotions

Uma Musume: Pretty Derby certainly is a game that plays with the players’ emotions, especially during race events in a training run. As a race progresses, the player gets slowly pushed to the edge of their seat as their horse girl tries to position herself in the race. Depending on how the race unfolds, the player may either feel a sense of relief and achievement as their horse girl overcomes a bad start and breaks through the leaders to cross the finish line first, or a sense of defeat as she runs out of stamina and slows down before the finish, allowing others to take the win.

Lens 38: The Lens of Challenge

The greatest challenge of Uma Musume: Pretty Derby is perhaps to attain the highest possible training rank in the game. After each training run ends, the run is evaluated and given a score based on the horse girl’s final stats, skills acquired and number of races won. From this score, a letter rank is given.

However, due to the unpredictability of each training run, it can be very difficult for a player to break through a certain range of evaluation score. The challenge then lies in trying to improve the synergies between support cards even better for subsequent training runs to increase the chances of breaking their record.

Lens 79: The Lens of Freedom

The player is given plenty of freedom on how to carry out a training run. Depending on how they pick the support cards, they can focus their run on training a horse girl specialising in preferred stats.

The game also includes a special section called the Live Theatre, where unlocked song performances from winning races can be viewed again. Here, the player is free to choose which horse girls in their team to perform the song. With over 60 different horse girls and more to be implemented, the same performance can be viewed multiple times each with a different experience.

Lens 85: The Lens of Avatar

In Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, the player plays as a trainer for the horse girls. The player is free to choose any name for their player character, along with their desired gender. Other than that, the player character has no other defining traits. I believe this can be appealing to many players as the player character can take on any form that the players desire them to be, even projecting their real self into them to make the game experience more immersive. One small detail worth noting is that some of the horse girls address the player character differently depending on the chosen gender, such as calling the player “onee-chan” (Japanese for “sister”) instead of “onii-chan” (Japanese for “brother”) if the player chooses female. This can be a nice departure from other games with the run-of-the-mill “one male surrounded by many females” setting.