Turf Dynasty Review:
Vinny Blond from @PicksByDynasty
When The Daily Gallop was asked by Turf Dynasty to do a review of their new mobile horse racing game I jumped all over the opportunity. As a 28 year old I am a huge mobile gamer and as someone who has downloaded every free horse racing game out in the App store I was beyond excited to try Turf Dynasty. Turf Dynasty is still in Beta so not all the features are available yet during my testing, but the potential of this mobile game is huge. As a horse racing fan and a gamer there are not a lot of options outside of the Gallop Racer series but trust me when I say Turf Dynasty is worth a download.
While all other racing games focus on the player controlling the jockey, Turf Dynasty has you playing as a stable manager. You start the game and you get to name your stable, obviously as one of the founders of Dynasty Picks, I named my stable Dynasty. I also downloaded the Turf Dynasty on a second device and named that stable Umm Yes. You start the game with 1 horse in your stable and 40,000 in game credits. Now don’t worry mobile gamers as Turf Dynasty currently does not have any micro transactions and is entirely FREE. You can purchase new horses that have never raced outright, or you can purchase other peoples horses that they have put for sale in the auction block which I think is a fantastic feature and is the closest thing to claiming a horse that I have ever come across in a horse racing game. For my two stables I purchased a second horse for each stable for 20,000 game credits each. I have also purchased multiple horses off the auction block and have sold a horse on the auction block. Each horse is unique and if you are the first to own a horse you also get to name the horse which is a very cool feature as you can either be creative and name them something you made up, or you can name them after one of your favorite actual horses. As expected you earn in game credits from your horses winning or placing in their respective races so the player gets rewarded by selecting the right spots for your horses which makes it a fun strategy game.
As the game is currently in Beta I do hope they add in a guide on your horses stats as there is currently no where in the game to look up which stats are which and what the stat scale is out of. Even without this though Turf Dynasty is simple enough to understand with their color grading with Green being good, Red being bad, and Blue I assume is somewhere between. Now you can enter your horses in different level of races from Maiden Special Weight to Stakes races. Even though you don’t get to play as the jockey in Turf Dynasty you can still watch your horses run which is a cool feature. The races are on a time schedule just like as real race card so you cannot just enter then run your race right away but for a mobile game this is nice, so the player is not glued to their phone. Personally, I can check and update my stable once or twice a day in a matter of minutes which makes it a very user-friendly game.
Now no game is without it flaws and Turf Dynasty is no exception, but in my opinion, they are very small ones. First the waiting does get a bit extensive. While I like that your horses have stamina and it needs to recover it does make the early stages of Turf Dynasty very grindy. It takes about two full days for your horse to regain stamina to be able to race again at 100%. When you start with only 1 horse and limited in game currency it does get frustrating, especially if your horse does not run well first time out and you get no purse money. Again, this seems like a very early game issue that even after a week of playing has already started to level itself out for my stables. The second flaw in my opinion is the amount of in game credits that transactions cost. While you can buy a horse from the auction house for as little as 2,000 everything else is expensive and combined with the early game grind is frustrating. As you can breed your horses in this game, I decided to breed two of the horses in my stable which was an expensive endeavor. First to breed two of your own horses’ costs 20,000 and then once you do get a foal, you need to pay another 100,000 to register it to race. For early game this is a huge amount of in game credits, especially without microtransaction.
Overall I would give the Beta of Turf Dynasty a 7.5/10. This game has a huge amount of potential to be one of the best horse racing games ever made but in its current state it is not there yet. I recommend that if you are a mobile game player and you enjoy horse racing to give this game a fair shot. I know I will be playing this game once it is fully released and I am very excited for it.