I certainly didn’t appreciate this event. Boring, prizes were pretty depressing as I don’t go for most of the coats, was surprised to find that I did manage to get the Ow’s Apple for free in the end. And I agree with most others that the artwork is lame. Also with this game geared towards younger children, I find it to be rather inappropriate to have half naked kids that you have to dress. Disturbing, in my books.
Rider’s Store title denotes a storefront where riders can go to get things they need for riding: helmets, gloves, saddles, boots (human and horse), etc. Not a visual where you have to dress a half naked child, for Pete’s sake!

I am beyond angry! I had over 1500 points for prizes and now that the event is over, I cannot claim those points for "prizes" as is usual in other similar events.
If that were to be the case, it should have been noted while the game was active.
Ugh..... I'd like to say how I really feel but that would only get me in trouble!!!

The prize store is available until the 31st - it's link is in the banner.

haffyfan . . . yes, I need to recant my comment as I just saw the link to the store so that I can use my saved points. Thank you

I appreciated new artwork for the outfits: I remember having the same costumes years in a row. It was definitely possible to get the jackpot Ow's Apple for free if you were careful, and I was also able to pick up a couple nice prizes.

As far as Oyster, I opened a crown from inventory at the beginning for a daily and ended up winning him so I wasn't gunning for him during the event (not that I would have been anyway). I managed to get half the fragments for a second so if he shows up in Ascent I might pick up another.

I thought this was one of the better events held with lots of different prizes to choose from yourself. I was pleased with everything I got and even managed to get Ow’s apple as well and didn’t spend any passes.

The prizes I got were 1 Golden Fleece, 2 bewitched pumpkins, 1 double-sided medallion, 1 cat-sith, 1 witch potion and a companion, seeds and tack with the spare coins.

Although a bit slow, especially at the start, with not being able to have all of the costume pieces ready as it seemed there were multiple wanting the same and using BMIs to make one item of clothing wasn’t amazing but I think overall it was a good event.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied.


Time:

It might not be the most entertaining event, but it is very time friendly. I've got a busy life and more important things to do than ruin my sleep by waking up in the middle of the night just because I want a fair chance at getting the event's end prize. So I like that this event is laid back. Just need to keep tabs on event start, event end, and if your arriving Riders will get you to the next level (since you do want to get on that asap if they'll drop down the time for next Rider). It's also nice to be able to ignore a Rider until a later time if we want/ need to.

Prizes:

The prizes this time around seem more geared towards horse personalization. While I see that this isn't great for everyone, seeing as it's a Halloween event, I find it thematically on point. And honestly... it's just great getting free stuff. I think people forget that they don't have to give us stuff for free. But maybe I'm letting my game-age show (BM items and passes come much easier nowadays). On that note, I also understand some folks may feel flooded by BM items. But me... I just like free stuff. I was able to get the Ow's Apple without spending passes. So thank you!

Entertainment: It's nothing new besides being a slight redesign of the same old event that we've had many times before. But I don't really expect it to be entertaining, you know? And honestly, it makes the event easier to play. A few missions and some rides and you're good to go. By making equipment, I was able to properly dress every single Rider the way they wanted (which I rarely am able to do - so maybe I got really lucky this time). In the end, very little work was needed to get multiple un-buyable BM items.

My only suggestion would be a way to utilize the extra leftover equipment. I can think of a couple ways.

1) In the end, the leftover equip could translate into some more points. Doesn't have to be anything crazy. If a Rider gave 30 points for a single piece that matched what they wanted the leftover of that same piece of equipment could just be 2 points. It might sound pointless (pun not intended, haha) but every little bit adds up.

Or we could have a trade system going on where you can exchange it for something you need. Like trading a red dragon head piece for green dragon head piece (but costing 50,000e to do so). Lower grade costing less to trade and trades being limited to just 1 piece per day. Probably a bad idea since we have the ability to craft equipment. But just a thought all the same.

I really enjoyed both the prizes and the idea. I don't agree with the above "half-naked children" comment; the thought didn't even cross my mind even vaguely while playing. It's a simple idea that's been done several times before by several other developers.

Nevertheless, I would have enjoyed a method of crafting costumes without sacrificing several BM items (like using x1 Artemis Arrow per costume piece that only returns 12-21 tokens). Although I don't work in the same genre/style of game, I contract N.Design work for studios, and I was thinking to myself that perhaps it would have been a more user-friendly experience to have a method of converting certain costume pieces into others.

This idea comes to mind due to the spread of costume pieces I had left by the final day. I had built up 12 unserved customers, and 9 of them were only Skeleton and Pirate costumes. I had 0 pieces for either costume, but I had, for example, 11 Witch shirts, 6 Complete Dragon sets, 2 complete jungle sets, and 6 sets of hats and boots only for the rider outfit. This spread leads me to believe that the % margin for Pirate and Skeleton customers is set to a higher instance while their costume pieces are set to a lower % margin. This happened because of one of three possibilities: a) it was a complete and severe case of poor luck, b) it was an unfortunate oversight, or c) was done to purposefully force crafting/pass purchases.

37% of players finished the task. The prizes were fine, given the Ascent of Olympus is still ongoing as well, and well-oriented for the current holiday fever. There wasn't a need for very much effort on the player's part either. If the design was fine and the general mechanics solid, I can only suspect that the low engagement/turnover rate was a misjudgment of the cost-to-reward ratio. Sacrificing a 100~ pass BM item for a clothing item that could, at most, reward you with a low-value pet or, at worst, two saddles you can buy from the store, is not a balanced mechanic. Neither is paying 12 passes for a clothing item that grants tokens equal to 1 store saddle.

Tl;dr: the game was fun, simple, and well-designed visually. It would have been made better, however, if the potential sacrifices felt more rewarding than punishing.

I've thought this as well. The ungrateful children don't appeal to me.

I suggest HORSES stopping by to be dressed up for Halloween. Horses would be more appealing than ill mannered children. It is a game about horses after all.

For the mobile version - the image of the piece of costume they wanted was so tiny I could hardly tell what it was. This could be improved. Make the costume piece asked for larger.

I do appreciate what I received as prizes. I liked selecting the items I wanted.

Thanks for the contest. It was shorter than usual. It should have ran until October 31st and would have made more players happy.

Happy Halloween everyone!

I am super pleased with the prizes I got! I managed to get the Ow's Apple and super pleased with that! The one thing I would like to see more of is useful items and such, instead of all of the coat items. While it's cool to have the special coats they aren't very beneficial to your horses.

I would like to be able to not have the snobby kids next time, as carlaz84 said, it would be more interesting to dress up horses for Halloween.

Other than some minor issues I enjoyed the event and got some nice prizes, in all I would give this event a 7/10, there are a lot of things you could possibly improve

Love these contests! Thank you!

I feel there was a definite issue with the randomization aspect of it. I wanted to get as much coins out of it as I could by giving the customers the items they requested, but ended up getting like 16 mage pants (which a customer requested ONCE) while I received pharaoh pants like twice, while they were in high demand with the customers. The prices for buying new clothing using black market items were ridiculous, and there definitely should've been some kind of converter to change 1 clothing item into another.
I was also stressing for a while because I had assumed that there were a number of slots for customers to show up, so I was trying to get them out of the way as quickly as possible, but that didn't turn out to be the case luckily. It'd have been nice if that was clearer though.

^ adding on to that, I did like the prizes I got and the artstyle is lovely! I didn't mean to sound all-negative, but there were some definite issues I had to get off my chest

It Was Fun And Everything But It Was Getting Kinda Of Annoying When The Children Would Wants The Same Outfit Instead Of Getting Different Outfits And Could Please Bring The Other Game Ascent Of Olympus To End Because It Is Boring And Really Don't Care For Ascent Of Olympus

I enjoyed it. I won great prizes: tack,seeds, manure, companions, Greek creatures wandering, money, and a Athena’s medal. I am probably forgetting about other prizes but I was shooting for the Apple and got it so it help me find other coats that weren’t expensive. As these are very expensive coats to find.

Ascent is a game feature, a game feature that has its own tab and section in the game manual. A feature that the developers likely spent a lot of time and effort developing for us to give us something to do. It's not going to be removed just because a few keep complaining about it, especially when they have the option to just ignore it.

Liked the costumes for the kids. I did feel that I only had one set of each costume, or at least way more than the other. For example, more of the deck hand pirate vs the captain. I don't think I saw the masked mummy come to my shop once, or the red dragon. Just seemed like the randomizer there was a bit off for me. I've never been a fan of using BMIs, even low cost/value ones, for making costume pieces. I love being able to choose prizes, but also don't because there are so many options that I want. Makes it tough to prioritize. I didn't feel that shortening the event changed the progression. I actually find it kindof nice to have a shorter event. Would love to see the events spaced out just little, so maybe there is a week off no events to focus on my game. Two higher participation events back to back no break is kind of rough on me, personally.

I liked it a lot and it was easy to get the Ow's Apple without having to pay any real money to get riders to come to the store, but I also am up at all hours of the night with my 4 month old son so that probably helped me

Average score: 1.5 stars...
Boring old stuff, lousy gifts for the amount of points, and the kids... Well, let's say there is a reason I don't have any in real life.

The repetitive designs all.. get over it. There are so many talented artists in the community, reach out and actually CONNECT to your players, they are a valuable source (not that nonsense "Ambassador program - which is worthless)

Can someone please post the link to the Halloween store? i can not find what banner that someone mentioned. Thank you so much

This event was a little frustrating for me this time, while in then end i did get some okay prizes (i do like collecting the special coats) there was one day where all 8 of my riders requested the same outfit set and most where asking for 2-3 pieces of tack. This was really upsetting as obviously i can only make 3 pieces a day i ran out very quickly. I understand this may have just been bad luck but it was still very annoying.

I didn't get anywhere near getting the Ows Apple which was a little disappointing usually these kind of events are pretty accessible for someone like me who only has time to log in once a day.

Liked this one better than the Blasts. The prizes were better (I prefer coats to dozens and dozens of pinata companions...) the theme was actually on-season and refreshed with new art, and it was easier to finish.

I do agree the shortened time is too unforgiving even if it's *technically* possible to finish for free, and that the prices for a single costume item was too steep. 400 carrots for 9 coins is WAY too high. I don't mind a little bit of sacrifice, but some of those were too much.

https://www.howrse.com/operation/dash/shop

Here you go!

While i enjoyed the contest. These Events are getting Way to short. Making it hard to advance to the better prizes most of the time. This event could have lasted to Halloween.
I do agree with someone above, mentioned dressing horses for halloween instead of riders/children.

This was my first time playing the game and I really enjoyed it. Halloween is my favorite holiday and I loved dressing up the kids, though I wish there was more variety- I dressed the same four costumes several times. I liked the prizes that were offered, though I wish there were previews of the coats for the Haunted Hiking Journal and other specialty coats available so you could have a better idea of what you were getting. But overall, I had a great time!