I was laid off from my previous job two weeks before Christmas last year. Someone returned from maternity leave and someone else had to go. That person was me.
I’d thought it was a normal day, but mySpider-Man-like senses tingled when my manager wasn’t around and instead texted me to meet her in a conference room. An hour later I was home on the couch, crying and not knowing what my wife and I were going to do to make ends meet.
Here’s the thing that nobody tells you about the process of going from having a job, to being let go, and to having one all over again. There’s a lot of downtime in between. Only so many job applications can be filled out in a day, so the rest of your time is defined by white noise in between rejections.
There was also the matter of our family finances, now much tighter. And no room for gaming, which as you’re able to imagine was a difficult transition when I’ve spent 15 years of my life writing on the topic.
It wasn’t until a moment of boredom that I opened up the Google Play store and took a look around, realizing the wealth of options before me. And it was there thatUmamusume: Pretty Derbygreeted me; waifus, running shoes, and big dreams awaited me as their trainer.
Yes, I am saying that the anime horse girl gambling game kept me sane while unemployed. Come with me on a journey – a horse girl journey.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby And The Gacha Mobile Gaming Machine
Nothing is free. I know that, you know that. Anyone that’s played a video game in the last ten years definitely knows that. The rise of free-to-play gaming as the predominant way a majority of people experience the medium isn’t a shock.
It would be smug of me as a video games writer to not acknowledge the real reasons behind why mobile gaming got so big. Traditional games (and hardware) aren’t getting any cheaper, especially now that we live with Sword of Damocles-like tariffs looming overhead at all times.
That makes it difficult to keep up with the gaming zeitgeist if you’re broke. Ask me how I know.
I’m used to being on the ground level of the new hotness, But then I suddenly found myself seeing others have fun like I’m Squidward watching Spongebob and Patrick frolic around outside. Occasionally, I would catch a break like a friend giving me an extra copy ofClair Obscur.
But that’s where mobile games really saved my sense of self and sanity. It sounds like such a dumb thing: defining your self-worth by what you may and cannot play. I acknowledge that. Even still, when you can no longer do the things that are normal to your daily life it immediately makes you feel like you’re the problem.
And maybe that’s why I gravitated towardsUmamusume: Pretty Derbyin a sea of gacha mobile games. First and foremost, let’s be real: I love waifus. Give me all your cute anime girls. And the horse girls of Umamusume are especially fantastic. Though, on a hilarious note: My wife is turned off by the game because, in her words, “The horse girls aren’t weird enough. I was expecting centaurs and instead they’re just teenagers with tails.”
She has not been playing Umamusume: Pretty Derby with me. Which is her loss, because this game bangs.
Why? Numbers, that’s why. Give me all the numbers.
Return To Tokimeki Memorial High School
Let’s talk about the dating sim genre. No, I don’t mean recent pseudo entries such as Doki Doki Literature Club,Date Everything!, or thatKFC tie-in game where you date Colonel Sanders. The honest-to-god dating sim genre is one that we’ve rarely gotten a full taste of here in America, but once ruled all of Japan.
Specifically, the Tokimeki Memorial series which began on the PlayStation One and would dominate the sales charts across Japan throughout the 1990s is by far the biggest inspiration on Umamusume: Pretty Derby.
The gameplay loop of the genre is simple: You roleplay a character with various options for girls (or boys, in later entries) to build relationships with. Each day is a type of currency, along with a stamina bar. During any given day you can perform a number of actions, whether it’s studying, hanging out with a specific girl, or after school activities.
At the end of the day, however, the games are all about making the lines go up. Maybe it’s the min-maxing RPG nerd in me, or maybe my ADHD kicking in, but my brain especially loves when the numbers of Umamusume go brrrrr.
The game put me on a schedule. Servers refresh at 11 a.m. EST. Dailies need done. I need to run a new career. Oh, I got enough free currency for a gacha pull? Should I hold it? The game created structure for me where no structure existed outside of my material reality of applying for jobs and waiting. In a lot of ways, it gave me something to focus my anxious energy upon, all without needing to give the game any money.
And it’s not like I’m against giving games my hard-earned cash. I give Overwatch money for skins on a monthly basis. However, when in the position to not use that money because it would be irresponsible, mobile games like Umamusume: Pretty Derby gave me small moments of feeling normal. Sometimes normal is all you can hope for when you’re broke and sad.
Keep Running Onward, Dear Horse Girls
I may not have cleared the URA Finale yet, but I’m surprised as anyone that I fell in love with a gacha game. And no, it isn’t just because it’s free and there. In reality, there’s an earnestness and happiness in Umamusume: Pretty Derby that feels liberating.
At a time when gaming can feel pretty dour, both in stories and in the reality of their creation, Umamusume has an aura to it that makes me feel like things will be okay. We don’t always need to be the fastest, or the strongest, or the best. We’re going to lose.In the case of best girl Haru, we’re going to lose a lot.
But that’s fine. We keep on running. Stand up, tell yourself you did your best, and that you’re going to try again tomorrow. And so I did. Again. And again. It paid off. While I don’t want to fully say that things are back to normal now because of horse girls, yes I do. Things are back to normal now because of horse girls.
Now, if my wife would only give it a shot. She seems like a Gold Ship kind of gal.
