A Winter Village Review

This winter season in Star Stable we welcomed the return of snow all over Jorvik and the magical Winter Village with its gnome and capran denizens! There were some changes made compared to previous years so here are my opinions on some of those changes and also some of the things they decided to keep.

Things I liked:

• 'Jingle's Fast and Frosty Race' - The ice shard jumps no longer appear out of nowhere! Yay!
• New Task Board to keep track of completed daily quests and races.
• New Redeem Codes board in case we missed the text that appeared above the presents.
• 'Gingerbread followers' quest - You can now gallop at full speed and not lose them! 
• 'Aid Kits First' - We are no longer forced to watch the intro cut scene everyday. Thank you!
• No more snowflakes (like the fireflies in Hollow Woods) all over the Winter Village. I disliked what a distraction they were last year so I'm glad they were not brought back this year. 
• A central location for all of the horses for sale.

Things I disliked: 

• New 'Fishing in the Winter Village' - Inconsistent number of fish required daily. I would like this quest more if it was the same number of fish required every day so the player has a better idea of how much time it will take to complete.
• Fishing Music player? - Why even have the option to change music tracks when the only way to listen to them is while you're fishing and need to miss the objective over and over again only for the song to be ruined over and over again by the "You missed a fish!" sound??? I wanted to stop and enjoy the tracks but couldn't really enjoy it because of the need to keep missing! 😂
• All of the Winter Village races no longer reward Jorvik Shillings. Why?
• 'Decoration disaster' quest - Unclear instructions. Maybe instead of 1, 2, 3 for the very first time a player goes through this quest, set it to non-sequential numbers (ex: 3, 2, 5) to make it a little more obvious what the player needs to do? I dunno. *shrugs* Or just make it completely obvious like the 'Aid Kits First' quest and plop some yellow text on the screen that explains exactly what to do, "Pull out the number decorations The Decorator needs."
• 'Daily Dose of Easy Freezy Racing' - It needs a Star Rider only indicator on the Task Board so that free non Star Rider accounts that cannot travel outside of Moorland are aware it is not a race they can complete.
• The sound that triggers when you run into a penguin should not be the same rewarding sound that plays when you collect a hidden star. I understand they probably chose it because stars fly around the penguin's head like it's knocked out, but the player is trained to feel rewarded not penalized when that sound is heard.
• If I'm going to be totally honest, I dislike the entire existence of this race overall and wish it was replaced with something else that exists inside the Winter Village instead. The way our horses run at full speed on the ice, complete with a sped up galloping sound effect and faster gallop animation than compared to when we are on normal, non-slippery ground just feels so wrong and completely immersion-breaking. Like yeah, I get that this is all a fantasy and not real, but the entire race being on ice feels like our horse is straining so hard for waaaay too long.
• Build a Snowman - No longer has a quest for Winter Tokens. Snowy is now naked and lonely for the entire event because there is pretty much no reason to even go back there. :(
• Small gripe as a musician: While running by the New Year's party area, we get to hear a snippet of the music tracks playing and there is one song I personally just don't care for the beginning lyrics of, "Welcome to the Winter Village, where everything's cosy and nice!" The meter of the word "village" is so off-putting to me I was even tempted to record a "better" version of how it would sound if the word was simply sung with the syllables stretched out over 2 notes instead of crammed into the one. 😆 And the "where everything's cosy and nice"? I guess I am just being nitpicky about the lyricist using the word "nice."