Review: Muffins.exe (Creepypasta)

muffins.exe

 Today I was sitting around, expecting a creepypasta to show up in our email inbox as they usually do during this time of year, and what do you know? Some "Anonymous" person submits this game titled muffins.exe, created in GameMaker Lite and featuring a gratuitous amount of screamers (thus rendering it very NSFW).

 If you intend on playing this, I'd advise that you do so before reading below the break, as the review contains spoilers.



 Upon opening muffins.exe I was presented with options to quit (obviously for the cowards among us), start a new game or see "extras". The latter was blanked out, so I have no idea what it does, and thus I proceeded to play it with my volume lowered somewhat and without headphones. I also ran the game via windowed mode in Wine, just to ensure that my screen wouldn't get stuck on some gory Derpy picture run through a red filter.

 The player, as Roseluck, is tasked with finding Derpy's muffins and returning them to her. As is to be expected from games of this genre, the graphical style is purposefully tacky and the physics feel rather awkward. After doing this, Derpy  says that she has to tell her something very important, and then disappears for several days. Figures. You then go looking for her in the field, and surprise surprise, everything gets all red and screwed up in a completely original manner that I've never seen in a game ever before.

Wow, I never expected this.

 As Roseluck plods on through the madness, she is repeatedly subjected to jumpscares and the nasty sight of body parts lying on the floor. After a while you'd expect her to get annoyed and start demanding that Derpy stop messing around and just kill her already, but nooo. She is one of those silent types, and even if she did say anything Derpy probably wouldn't listen, because antagonists in creepypastas aren't known for complying with their victim's wishes because they are evil and stuff. Rawr.

 So why did Derpy suddenly decide to turn on her best childhood friend, as the game describes her? Perhaps she is fed up with Roseluck's slow, silent ways, and sold her soul to that shifty-eyed janitor in exchange for reality-warping powers. Then again, Roseluck could just be on a bad trip or something; I wouldn't put it beneath her to cheap out on the LSD and purchase a bad batch. I'm not entirely sure, since I'm pretty sure that I ended up with an early ending by falling on some spikes like a pleb.


 So did I like muffins.exe? The constant jumpscares got a bit ridiculous after a while, but if you like that sort of thing than maybe you'll find Muffins.exe to be a fitting diversion for this night.

Hope you all enjoy the evening! I'll be sitting around, listening to Glenn Miller and watching cartoons to calm my paranoia.

Canterlot Siege 2

Canterlot Siege 2

 Last year's Canterlot Siege was extremely popular amongst the My Little Pony fan community in general, although I wasn't all that fond of it myself due to my not being a real tower defence person. Since I am really not suited to reviewing this sort of thing I'll just wait for Arctic Lux or Enigma Sage to do it later, but needless to say most of you who liked the first entry will probably end up enjoying this one. Also, playing strategy games in general with a pounding headache is a terrible idea, and will probably make anything but the biggest pushover feel like a horrible nightmare.

In other news, my screenshot utility is working properly now that I uninstalled the proprietary Radeon drivers. Huzzah! Now, if only the open source drivers did a better job at controlling the fan speed...

Demo: Equestria Adventure

Equestria Adventure

(Download)

 For various reasons, pegasi in most fangames seem entirely unable to fly. Why is this? It would entirely ruin a platforming game if they could do so, obviously, but no satisfactory in-universe explanation has been produced yet. Equestria Adventure's Ponychan thread makes efforts to solve this conundrum by saying that it takes place in an alternate universe where pegasi cannot fly, but if that were the case then why would they even bother growing wings in the first place? Maybe pegasi are the new penguins or something, I dunno. At least she can still, you know, go fast and all of that stuff, which makes this demo somewhat worthwhile while it lasts.

Speaking of penguins...

At least penguins can use their wings for swimming, which I doubt Rainbow Dash would be very good at.

Super Derpy: Muffin Attack Preview

Download it Here!

A cloud dodger... with flash animation? And it just updated? I love you guys sometimes. Somepony's caused chaos near Discord's statue, giving him just enough power to turn muffins into muffin-zombies. He's trapped the Elements of Harmony in their homes, planning to bide his time until chaos reigns and he can rule Equestria  once more. Fortunately, he hasn't accounted for Ponyville's resident muffin expert! More after the break.

All that's available right now is a development preview with a single level, but the game already looks very promising. After a beautiful scrolling-tapestry style intro vaguely reminiscent of Wind Waker, the game opens on the overcast skies outside Ponyville.

Mmmm, pretty textures...

Control Derpy Hooves as she soars through the skies, dodging muffin-zombies, flying pigs, and pies(?) while collecting cherries and muffins. The gameplay didn't blow my mind, yet - that is to say, it was fairly standard for a side-scrolling item dodger. However, the effort put into the animation, cutscenes, menus, and voice-acting was evident. I'm looking forward to more from this promising project!

Review: Rainbow Dash Shooter Project

Rainbow Dash Shooter Project

Ever since their release the Desktop Ponies sprites have been used in almost everything. Yes, they are good-looking retraux pony sprites but at times one likes to see developers do their own sprite work for a change. I can say from experience that the main problem seems to be that four-legged characters are rather hard to animate properly and simply using a standard set of sprites saves much time and lets the developer work on things other then character animation. The creator of the dully-titled Rainbow Dash Shooter Project claims that his game's graphical resources were created entirely by himself, and this may be either a good or bad thing depending on his artistic talents.

Of course, it is not the graphics that matter most as the gameplay, so how has this project turned out? Find out after the break.

Of all the sidescrolling shooters that I've seen come out of this fandom this one has to be the most ambitious. The player starts off controlling either Rainbow Dash or an OC created within the game itself (more on that later), and can eventually unlock Fluttershy and Derpy, the latter of which must be obtained by finding a special code either ingame or in the game's comments. Each character has their own special abilities but they can all fly, shoot magic fireballs and enter "overdose mode", which basically speeds up gameplay and enables the player to fire at an absurdly fast rate.

At times one almost wishes that the entire game could be played in Overdose mode.

Unfortunately things get worse fast. Unlike other titles such as the splendidly-made Dash the Rainbow Dash Shooter Project lacks a sense of speed and the sluggish controls make you feel like you're not flying, but swimming in a pool of mud. There is also a very small variety of enemies, and until the first boss is complete the player is stuck fighting large swarms of parasprites. Thankfully once the player reaches Cloudsdale a couple new foes are added to the lineup, although you'll still be mostly fighting parasprites throughout the entire game. To be honest it gets boring quite fast, although the addition of a couple bosses helps considerably.

The game's first boss is Trixie, who is apparently too lazy to perform a levitation spell like unicorn OCs can and is being pulled in a flying cart by Fluttershy. She starts off extremely boring, just slowly firing bullets at the player, but it's once you start to damage her that things get hectic. The game practically switches genres from a plain old shooter to a fully-fledged bullet hell game, although the execution is rather sloppy. In the final stages there is no logic as to where the bullets appear from, and the sluggish controls make dodging the high-speed magical projectiles nigh impossible. As almost everypony realizes it is far more fun to skillfully dodge bullets at high speed, not soaking up damage as possible without dying and with the grace of an overfed seal that can barely swim in it's aquarium pool without sinking.

Thankfully Cloudsdale isn't quite as dull as the stages before it.

As for the graphics...I'll just say that the Rainbow Dash Shooter Project looks quite dull. The occasional passing cloud makes things slightly more interesting, but in general the scenery which you will be flying by is completely bare. It also seems that like many people the artist has a difficult time drawing ponies, and it shows. It's nice that he made the effort of designing his own puppets in Flash, but I really wish that he had just used either the My Little Pony Flash Resource Kit or the Double Rainboom puppets instead of his own work, as it would have improved the game's look immensely. Letting the player use  OCs in the game was a nice touch, although it seems that cutie marks do not import properly  after uploading them and they come out as a garbled mess. There also seems to be a distinct lack of manes and accessories to choose from although thankfully it seems that more shall be added to the game fairly soon.


Let me get this straight: the Rainbow Dash Shooter Project could have been a great game, but poor execution ruined it. Put simply, this game was boring. The game looked dull, the controls were sluggish, and fighting endless swarms of parasprites grew tedious quickly. I had high hopes for this project, but they were shot down as soon as I began to play and were so heavily damaged that they were unable to fly again. To make this game better one would have to loosen up the controls, entirely revamp the graphics, tweak a couple bosses and BAM! We'd have a must play on our hands. Thankfully the game is still under development so hope is not lost yet, so why don't you play the game for yourself and give the creator some feedback, eh?

Review: Derpy's Story

Derpy's Story

Unlike many other fandoms My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has a very large and dedicated game developer community centered around it, and they have poured out an absurd amount of fan games. One of the things that it has not seen much of in its relatively short existence are good, complete story-centered games. Video games as a storytelling medium are on the rise, although nowhere near the level of films and books, and certain games (such as Limbo and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP) have  been called art by many individuals.

Today we have come across a recently completed fangame titled Derpy's Story, and it promises to be a short but sweet tale told through the form of a video game: a rare thing in this fandom. Does it live up to expectations? Find out in our review after the break.

In Derpy's Story the titular protagonist is lost within the depths of the Everfree Forest when she becomes aware some bubbles floating through the air and decides to follow them. The player controls the bubble cluster with their mouse and guides Derpy through the forest, helping her avoid dangerous obstacles and timber wolves along the way. The reason behind the bubble's behaviour is never explained in-game, although this is probably for the better as it adds to the game's mysterious atmosphere.

Amosphere is probably the most important aspect of Derpy's Story, and for that it succeeds immensely in feeling like a real forest after dark. Screenshots alone cannot convey how beautiful this game looks; it must be seen in motion for the game's gorgeous art direction to become apparent. The bubbles slowly orbit each other, casting a circle of comforting light and subtly illuminating the dark environment around it. Each area of the forest is lovingly crafted and has a hand-painted look that is highly unlike anything I have ever seen before in a Flash game. The cutscenes, while not quite up to the rest of the game, are still quite impressive and feel quite adorable. Not entirely necessary, but still a nice addition to the product.

Even with the game's visual beauty it is the audio that really makes it truly great. With the music off the forest feels almost lifeless and cold, but when it is turned on the game becomes alive. Owls hoot in the distance, the trickle of streams can be heard when you near them, and crickets chirp. The atmospheric soundtrack enhances the feeling of being lost within the depths of a forest after nightfall, but gives off a glimmer of hope that inspires you to keep moving and follow the light. I really cannot stress enough how important it is to the overall game, but it is highly recommended that you play this game with headphones to take full advantage of the game's wonderful soundtrack.

From what has been said so far it seems like this is a perfect game, right? Not so fast. Thankfully the game has been patched to remove many of the bugs in the initial release, although these fixes are exclusive to the version on our Arcade. Unfortunately there are still a couple issues that hold this game back, one of them being the game's damage system. Upon coming into contact with something nasty such as a timber wolf Derpy will panic and begin to fly around randomly in fright, ignoring the bubble's light for a brief period of time. This can cause Derpy to run into other dangerous obstacles while the player's control is taken away and cause even more lives to be lost then is really necessary. Upon loosing all lives the player is not taken back a level, but forces the player to start all over again, which is tedious and might convince some frustrated players to quit prematurely. The game itself is also quite short, and while for the sake of the story this is probably for the better it still feels like the game could have been much, much more if only a couple more levels were added to the final product.

As you could probably tell I liked Derpy's Story very much. The atmosphere was fantastic, the gameplay was fun, and the minimalistic story made this game into what I think is one of the best fangames that I have ever come across. Sadly it was held back by some frustrating control issues and its rather short length, so as much as I would love to give it a higher score I'll have to rate this game at 8/10.

Hope you enjoy the game!

Review: Drifter

Silly Mare Games, SylrePony and others have joined forces, attempting to synthesize the best elements from several of their previous games. Drifter's a spiritual successor to Stroll and Derpy Buddy, among others, and comes from some of the same folks currently working on the Nightfall project.

Derpy Hooves must travel to the ends of the earth, and if you want to find out why, you'll have to lead her there. Find the review after the break!



If you're familiar with Drifter's precursors, you'll know not to expect points, combo multipliers, or other forms of rapid gratification from this game. However, while Drifter's certainly centered on artsy ambiance, it swings a little more toward the goal-driven side of things. Character maintenance is relatively important: Derpy's health, happiness, and energy levels must be maintained by eating food, meeting ponies, and taking regular naps. However, these stats generally don't warrant attention, as Derpy eats when she stops moving and sleeps when her energy bar falls to zero (although you'll take a small happiness penalty.)

As in Stroll, the goal of the game is to discover the various ponies hidden throughout the landscape. However, when you come upon them, they don't just sit there - instead, they'll disappear into the night after giving you a unique perk. Although the game doesn't tell you directly how Derpy's skill set has improved, names like "Double Food Perk" and "Half Fatigue Perk" are fairly self-explanatory.

Rather than controlling Derpy directly, the player must lead her around by moving the camera and waiting for her to follow. Although this can be cumbersome early in the game, once mastered it's an efficient way of moving her around - and it prevents Derpy from falling off a cliff by accident. After loading the game, make sure to locate the dot of tinted pixels in the center of your screen. That's the center of the camera, and it can't phase through walls any more than Derpy can. If the camera won't move, the central dot is usually stuck against an obstacle.

Twilight spends many a peaceful afternoon reading in the bowels of hell.

The game would be nothing without the eerie, meditative ambiance which sold me on Stroll - and fortunately, it's there in spades. It's impossible to tell whether the game's atmosphere comes from the music, the misty graphics and particle effects, or some combination of the two. My only artistic complaint is the ground texturing near the surface, which transitions awkwardly between several patterns.

The game becomes truly creepy when Derpy approaches the lair of a hunter, a mysterious creature that inhabits the game world deep underground. When you've ticked one off, the music is saturated by heavy, ominous bass beats while shafts of glaring red light herald the beast's pursuit. Fortunately, your progress is autosaved and discovered ponies serve as respawn points.

I played Drifter expecting to fault it for a confusingly large map, incoherent story-line, and repetitive gameplay, but was happily surprised. If you need an exploration aid, it's fairly easy to locate yourself by means of the included world map (at least, until you slip past the first hunters into uncharted territory.) While the game sometimes spreads itself thinly between a variety of mysteries, there were more than enough poignant moments along the way to keep my interest.

Overall, the game continuously impressed, and takes a solid place among my personal favorites. After a lengthy debate with myself, I decided on a score that, while debatable, reflects my impressions.

Nightfall Beta

Nightfall

 Over the past few months we've been posting videos of Nightfall, a sidescrolling platformer/tower defense/whatever game by Silly Mare Games. Development went along smoothly, and now they've already released a beta build of their game (which was quickly followed by another with various balance improvements). The demo even features several bosses: a rarity for a pony fangame, which almost guarantees an appearance by our favorite swiss cheese-legged queen. Still, I am curious to see what other bosses they have in store...

 Given that the game is a beta and still in active development it's unfortunately more than a bit too early for us to review it, but you folks can still play it and perhaps give Silly Mare Games some feedback.

Review: Derpy & The Hunting of the Super Tasty Muffin (of Awesomeness)

Derpy & The Hunting of the Super Tasty Muffin (of Awesomeness)

Now if that title doesn't make you want to play this game, I don't know what will. Derpy & The Hunting of the Super Tasty Muffin (of Awesomeness) is a graphic text adventure made by PonyDreamStudios that will most likely entertain you with all its open possibilities and silly situations. The game is currently in Beta, but the main story is already completed.

The story of this game follows our main character, Derpy, as she discovers the recipe for the most delicious, most awesome muffin in existence and immediately sets off to collect the ingredients necessary to bake it, with the help of Twilight Sparkle and her friends.

The music is retro-styled and quite catchy, and the graphics are made to give you the feeling that you're playing in an old TV, which it succeeded in doing in my opinion. These settings can be turned off if you prefer, however.

The gameplay consists entirely of typing your actions, like most other games of this genre, and allows you a great deal of freedom when it comes to verbs and nouns, as well as implementing abbreviations of certain words, which is a big relief, especially when you have to write something like "Sweet Apple Acres" often (which can be replaced simply by "saa").

However, being an almost completely text-driven game, things that can normally be overlooked such as misspellings or grammar errors become a much bigger deal, and this game unfortunately had quite a few of those. You can still understand everything, but when you detect one it really takes you out of the immersion.

As for something a little more troublesome, during my playthrough of the game I encountered a bug that prevented me from advancing normally. Fortunately, the game includes cheat commands that the player can use, which allowed me to skip the one obstacle that was causing the crash without skipping more than a few lines of dialogue.

Also, if you get stuck or don't know what to do at any point in the game (which is very common in text adventure games), there is a full video walkthrough available. It only covers the main objective of the game, though. There are many easter eggs and secrets that you can find if you're creative.

Overall, the game is very entertaining and fun, although the problems mentioned before may hinder the experience slightly, but the good things far outweigh the bad.

By the way, hello everyone, I'm Strate and this was my first article on Equestria Gaming! I look forward to writing a lot more about the world of pony gaming. See you next time!

Friendship is Fragging Video Update

Since apparently some of you have been constantly bugging Negation Squared about another video update for Friendship is Fragging, they gave in to your whining and were forced to release one for you. So go on, watch it! And don't blame me if it's really boring, because you were the ones who clamoured for it!

Just kidding, it's not that bad of an update, although it's pretty evident that the team has been focusing most of it's attention on MLP: Rise of Vicis and not so much on Friendship is Fragging.  I'm fine with the FiF being delayed as long as they're still working on RoV, which in my eyes is a far more interesting project.

...And now for a piece of somewhat related news. Negation Squared has announced that they plan on releasing a demo for MLP:RoV in June, which I am really looking forward to. Let's just hope it doesn't fall into development hell, eh?

Review:Derpy Hooves Sweet Dream

Derpy Hooves Sweet Dream

Despite the impression you may have gotten from my previous review I do believe in the concept of "beauty in simplicity". However, some simple things are, to put it mildly, not beautiful at all. Quality, not simplicity, is paramount to a beautiful game, but what about when a game combines the two of them? Well then you get something extraordinary, although not many simple games make it that far. 

But what about Derpy Hooves Sweet Dream? Does it manage to be beautiful in its simplicity, or will it turn out to be yet another boring "catch the falling objects" game? Find out after the break.

Since Derpy is one hungry pegasus she is no doubt thrilled when she discovers that food is inexplicably falling from the sky, and decides to eat it all. Judging from the title screen and the game's title this appears to be another of Derpy's dreams, which actually gives the gameplay a fairly logical explanation (quite rare for this sort of game). The player controls Derpy via the mouse, and must move quickly to eat as many goodies as possible before the timer runs out. If however enough points are gained in under sixty seconds the timer resets and the player moves on to the next level. As the player progresses further through the game food falls faster and becomes scarcer, requiring the player to have almost superhuman reflexes and awareness in order to survive. Also, certain foods give more points than others, and buckets of frogs are occasionally dropped that reduce points and must be avoided at all costs.

Sounds simple, right? That is correct, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You see, unlike some other simple games I have reviewed, this game is fun, and that is ultimately the most important part of a game. If I walk away from a game and I didn't have fun I would consider that game a failure, even if it had the most amazing graphics and music one could ask for. Thankfully, this game also has both, although I have seen better.

You see, Derpy Hooves Sweet Dream has very smooth animation, and contains some of the best animation I have ever seen in a fangame. Derpy's wings flap smoothly, the food looks like it came straight from the show, and the background is a visually appealing image of Cloudsdale, although sadly it suffers from some ugly compression and could use some parallax scrolling (as most other games in this fandom, according to my opinion). But really, there is one thing that really makes this game great. Although fun, it's not the gameplay, nor is it the graphics. It's the music. The soundtrack's single is so wonderful, so relaxing, it actually adds a huge amount of polish to the game. Playing the game with the soundtrack off is a completely different experience. It suddenly becomes just another falling food game, and one with rather floaty controls at that (although with the music on, those same controls somehow feel dreamlike).

Derpy Hooves Sweet Dream is an interesting game, and it owes a lot of it's sheer goodness to the amazing music. With the music on, it's a wonderful, dreamlike experience that could suck up hours of your time, while with the music off you'll quickly grow tired of Derpy Hooves Sweet Dream and go find something else to play. So both for the game's successes and shortcomings I rate this game:

I would have given this game a higher score, but despite it's beauty Derpy Hooves Sweet Dream cannot warrant anything higher then this. Also, sorry for how long I took to get around to writing this review. Hope you found it an interesting read!

Derpy Delivery

Derpy Delivery by Grit
(Broken link, guess it'a an abandoned project.)
(I'll try to find an older file for you guys)

Derpy Delivery is a Platformer by Grit where you play as Derpy Hooves.

The controls for the game are Arrow Keys to move, Spacebar to skip scene/restart level, Esc opens up the menu, 'X' picks up items and 'Z' to give letters to other ponies and continue chatting.

The game currently has only two levels, and a mysterious third 'Twilight Zone' level. The first level opens up with a cut scene, where Derpy manages to accidenly scatter a bunch of letters, the goal of the level is to collect said letters, and return them to the other mail pony. The game itself features some very nice movement, mostly smooth and working collisions, and pretty great controls. After returning the three letters to the other mail pony, another cut scene plays and then you enter Ponyville. This time, your task is to deliver letters to the ponies who need them, but mainly to find the mail bag. The second level is VERY large, and you can go pretty much everywhere. There are many things that make the level fun to just roam around in, and many things you can mess up for other ponies.

Did I win?!

After completing the second level, you are taken to a mysterious level known as 'The Twilight Zone' (As of version 0.02.00), the background is all weird and there is a large image of Twilight and a few boxes just lying around. You cannot actually win this level, it is the end of the game.

The plot for this game is pretty well thought out. Derpy Hooves is a mail pony, and you're supposed to go about on a regular mail delivering day as the clumsy pegasus. You start out by knocking the mail your partner mail pony is brining to you everywhere, along with the mail bag, and have to retrieve and deliver all of it. The game is still in its early stages, so not much more of a plot is present, but for the little that's there, it's pretty good.

The game is currently at version 0.02.00, and there is a thread for it here on Ponychan. Or you can visit the Derpy Delivery site here.

Here's a Playthrough of the game so far on youtube, made by SirTapTap

The well thought out plot, fun gameplay, and great graphics give this game:

Review:Derp till Dawn

Derp till Dawn

 Despite not being nearly as famous as the big name fangame developers, Donitz has had a pretty good run so far with his line of creepy fangames. Story of the Blanks is undoubtedly his most famous creation, while Twilight vs Walking is more remembered for its difficulty than its Twilight Zone-inspired twist at the end. Since according to him "everyone, their mother, their dog and evil clone" had already made a Slender clone he decided to make one himself, and the results can be seen in his newest game "Derp till Dawn".

 Dous the humorously unfittingly-titled Derp till Dawn live up to Donitz's other respectable fangames? To find out, head below the break to read our review on it.

 As with most Slender clones, Derp till Dawn takes place inside a dark forest centered around finding several pages and trying to avoid the dreaded Slenderman (or in this case, a Slenderpony). Unlike most of its peers it does tell a story, although it is kept quite vague and mainly told through the pages you collect throughout the game. It also takes place mainly from a top-down perspective, but upon going indoors the game switches to a first person viewpoint that would have reminded me fondly of Doom if it wasn't for Derpy's mane getting in the way of my vision and breaking the immersion.

If you think the house is nerve-wracking, just wait till you reach the well...

 In a horror-centric game, having a scary atmosphere is key. A forest at night is spooky enough without elderitch abominations mucking about, but unfortunately both Slender and Derp till Dawn slipped up in these areas and made it feel more like walking through a vast, flat field of telephone poles, with the occasional bathhouse or camper lying about. In your average forest one would expect to at least find some little streams, hills and whatnot: in here you can't even find a single stinking bush! The game's first portion also had a distinct lack of dark purple which would have contrasted well with the green and given it an aura of mystery: unfortunately the caves below the well utterly abuse the most garish shade of it and feel more like something out of a cheesy "Barney's Dungeon" WAD than a horror game by one as talented as Donitz.

 Even if it looks and feels right, a horror game will fall flat if the audio was only an afterthought. Derp till Dawn has its fair share of unnerving music and scare chords, and like the original Slender you will be met with a scare chord and some static when you stumble across your well-dressed stalker. Some forest ambience sounds such as the ones used in Derpy's Story would have greatly increased immersion, but the place already feels dead anyways so there isn't really much of a point to it anyways. Ah well, at least the music is quite effective.

Some ominous circles of doom.

 I've said a lot about the graphics and audio already, so how about the gameplay? Pretty much it's just Slender in 16-bit and viewed from an isometric perspective, or at least until you head indoors and things go all first person. It's a unique twist on the experience, sure, but the problem is that the indoor portions are infinitely more scary than wandering around in the "forest". Some might find it scary for a while, but given the game's over-reliance on jump scares it just becomes annoying after several deaths. A couple puzzles would have been a very welcome addition and helped with breaking up the overall monotony.

 My original hopes for Derp till Dawn were quite high, although after playing the game I must say that it did not quite live up to my expectations. As technically impressive as it may be for a Flash game it lacks polish, and if only Donitz had delayed release for a little bit, gotten some feedback from playtesters and made some relatively simple changes it would have been an incredible experience. At least it's fun for the first while, and if you're looking for some jump scares then this might keep you entertained for a couple minutes.

Adventure of the Lunarbolts Video Update

Another video update of the Adventure of the Lunarbolts RPG has been released, and it's looking better then ever before. I'm no fan of it's combat system (somewhat bland in it's current state) and the tiles could really use a slight adjustment for an isometric perspective, but Adventure of the Lunarbolts is still shaping up to be a great MLP RPG.

Anyways, so the video is split into two parts, and you can find the second part after the break.

Hope you found the updates interesting. Xtux, out!

Review:Where's Derpy?

Where's Derpy?

Derpy Hooves, undoubtedly the most famous background pony of all time (sorry Lyra!) finally has her very own fangame, and this one really fits her in-show status as a "Where's Waldo" -type challenge for the fans to find in every episode. Disregarding the fact that having Derpy in something makes it automatically awesome, just how good is the game? Find out after the break!

Where's Derpy? is a very simple game. In it, upon starting a level you are shown a scene from the show and instructed to find Derpy before the time runs out. You'll receive a higher score by finding muffins, and upon completing the level you move on to another, more challenging level. The game comes with sixteen levels and is rather short if you have a sharp eye, although most of us will spend quite some time trying to find all of the delicious but well-hidden muffins.

Can you find Derpy?

The included levels vary greatly in difficulty, with some being fairly easy and others that are quite challenging. In some of them you'll really have to strain your eyes just to spot our favourite blonde pegasus, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, I found the game's overall difficulty to be just right, with a good balance between easy and hard. If the player wishes for an extra challenge, there are hidden Lyras in 10 of the levels, locating all of which will earn them a nice achievement to brag about. There really isn't much incentive for replaying Where's Derpy? once you've completed the game and collected all the achievements (which was a nice touch, by the way), although it should take you a fair amount of time to collect all those muffins.

The achievements are a nice touch.

Overall, Where's Derpy? is a good game. It's fun, has Derpy, contains a fair amount of levels, and should keep you occupied for a couple minutes. However, once it's completed it doesn't have that much replayability, and even though content updates may provide more amusement it's not something you'll be coming back to. Still, while it lasts Where's Derpy? is a lot of good, simple fun, and for that I give it a 6.

Xtux, out!

Where's Derpy? 3

Where's Derpy? 3

 Effectively a gamification of the fandom's favourite pastime (aside from participating in drama), Where's Derpy? 3's title practically explains itself, and in an entirely unsurprising manner it's pretty much exactly the same as its predecessors except with new screenshots to examine. Not that this is a bad thing, of course: there isn't really much that one could add to the formula anyways aside from recreating each scene from scratch in Flash and animating it (which would probably make things even more difficult).

Where's Derpy? 2

Play Where's Derpy? 2

In honor of Derpy Day, pepperpunk has released Where's Derpy 2, the sequel to the original point-and-click Derpy-finding adventure. The mechanics are almost exactly the same as the first time around - in each panel, find Derpy, 3 muffins, and Lyra (if she appears). However, there are a few more achievements this time around. Have at it!