White Willow

Great to just casually play, no real life money needed, if you just play a low key game... But.... if you want to become no 1 in the overall rankings, or get the hundreds of devines, join the top breeding groups, win the grand prix, well that my friends will cost you hundreds of real life pounds. Interactions can be hit and miss with other players, some are super nice respectful and interact nicely without being over the top, others bombard you with messages and it puts you off logging in, others are pretty rude, there is a friend request feature, where you can request to befriend someone, sometimes people refuse your request or ignore it, its their right to do this but it really upset me when it happened to me, I couldn't understand what I had done wrong, why the player didn't want to accept, I never sent any more requests to anyone after, as I felt very saddened by that experience. There is a karma system that gets docked for misbehaving, but I wouldn't allow children to play unattended because there is a private chat/message system, where you can talk one on one privately with another player via typing a message, this could be misused by the scores of predators that play online games, to groom a child privately, it's a very risky feature on howrse, and I don't see a need for it, the danger outweighs any possible benifits of allowing a private talking area. Surely kids can talk on their phones to their friends while playing, rather than an online stranger, who they have no clue who they actually are. There are ingame passes, so you can save up, and buy nice things. There are also ingame moderators but I'm unsure if they are police background checked, and payed as professional workers, or just long term players deemed to be okay to do moderating. All in all it's a great game, with lots to do, and loads of free gifts, I would give it 5 stars, but I'm knocking off one star for the private chat feature that is a dangerous luring catastrophe waiting to happen, and for the fact that hundreds of real life pounds need spending to get you high up the rankings, and to join the top breeding groups, or get the best gp (genetic potential ) horses. But I really love the game, and some of the art work is amazing on the golden apple coats, and backgrounds. People complain Howrse never listen to players, but in fairness it is their game to change as they feel they want to. I find Howrse much better than star stable online, as I dont have a computer to play starstable, whereas Howrse can be played on a tablet, so it suits me perfectly.