Spanish walk and a little introduction to dressage aids (Patreon)

A glimpse into one of the dressage movements in walk - spanish walk, where the horse takes exaggerated steps especially with its front legs. This movement could also be considered extended walk as there won't be a separate extended walk movement like in irl dressage.

Now a short introduction to how the dressage system in Tales of Rein Ravine works!

To perform a dressage movement, the horse first needs to be "on the bit", or in other words; engaged, through, or round (there appears to be a ton of terms for this same thing in the English language so I haven't yet figured which one would be the best to use in game). The horse icon in the bottom left corner fills up with green as the horse becomes more engaged. You also see the horse rounding its neck, turning its ears towards the rider, and walking more collected.

To get the horse on the bit, you need to do halt-halts (quick taps with the S button) in the rhythm of the horses gait. For example in walk the halts need to happen each time the front hooves hit the ground, so two times per walk stride. If the timing of the half-halts is not right, the horse will not become engaged.

When the horse is fully rounded, it can start performing dressage movements. Essentially it has now entered "dressage mode".

The spanish walk aids are - tap of forward (W button) and both legs (mouse buttons) in the rhythm of the front legs. So there is a total of 3 buttons you need to press at once while maintaining the rhythm - if you miss, the horse will end the movement. The button taps also need to be quick, because if you press the legs for too long your horse might switch to trot. To prevent this from happening too easily, the walk to trot transition was modified to require a longer press of legs than  in the demo. Other aids like canter transitions have also gone through changes, more about that later.

During dressage movements, the roundness meter will not go down. However after you stop doing the dressage move, you cannot "stop riding" - you need to keep doing half-halts actively to keep the horse engaged. The easiest dressage competitions start from simply maintaining your horse on the bit while doing basic gait transitions or riding along simple shapes.

Edit: Forgot to mention. Did you think you can cheat in dressage by rapidly tapping the aids? Your horse will not have it.