Later Today: Gaming for Good

Gaming for Good
Edit: it's over.

 Just a reminder that the "Gaming for Good" thing we posted last week is coming up today at noon EST. They'll be playing games and stuff, which wouldn't be all that exciting if they weren't doing it for charity and interviewing the Legends of Equestria and Mane Six development teams. Still, in a way I'm honestly getting kind of sick of these podcasters interviewing the same fangame teams over and over again, and wish they would chat with some smaller developers (such as Bobby Schroeder or Donitz) for once, but since that's unlikely to happen anytime soon we might as well sit back and try not to get too upset over the lack of variety.

 Once the event is ready you can watch it at http://events.yoursiblings.org/.



In a way, I regret scribbling those beards on the header because it resulted in me missing my one chance to see Taylor today.

Gaming for Good: A Livestream Fundraiser Thing

Gaming for Good

 The kindly people in charge of Bronies for Good, along with Equestria Daily and our friends over at Derpy Hooves News (along with two of the nicer people on Everfree Network) came up with the idea to hold a "charity livestream" in which you watch people play games and throw your money at the screen to help poor African children. Yeah, I know that we don't usually post livestreams and whatnot, but it's for a good cause and they'll also be interviewing the Legends of Equestria and Mane 6 development teams about their progress so far, which is pretty neat.

If you happen to be interested, the event takes place on November 16th at noon EST, and you'll be able to watch it all at http://events.yoursibilings.org/.

Also, would it bother you folks if I posted an editorial in the near future? It won't become a regular thing, honest, but there are some things I'd like to say that I can't exactly put into a review or regular news post (but don't worry, it's still very related to fangames)...

An interview with Emil Larsen, the man behind Burning Suns

This weekend I got the chance to do an email interview with +Emil Larsen of Sun Tzu Games about Burning Suns, a tactical sci-fi board game currently up on Kickstarter.

Diceships!

Burning Suns caught my eye for a few reasons. For one I really dig 4x Sci-Fi board games. Stuff like Twilight Imperium and Eclipse. I was addicted to Masters of Orion back in the day and it's great to see that board gaming has finally really started to capture that feel. Burning Suns looks to do some new things in the genre. There's currently over 700 possible factions in the game (possibly more to come with stretch goals), that totally blows away any other game I know. There's also some really cool looking miniatures that integrate dice into their design. Emil calls them Diceships. There's also a neat alignment system worked into the game.

Personally I found this rather long but detailed review by Undead Viking to really showcase what makes this game stand out:

Anyroad, enough of other people talking about Burning Suns, lets here it from the man himself:

---

Moe: First off, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. I remember when Burning Suns was on Kickstarter the first time around and I fully remember being firmly on the fence about backing it. What I don't remember though is why exactly I decided against backing at that time. Obviously I wasn't the only one since you ended up doing a do over, which this time around has already hit your funding goal. Congratulation on that achievement.

Emil: "Thanks a lot Moe, and thanks for taking your time to interview me - I really appreciate that :)"

M: So my first question is: what's different this time around? What did you do wrong the first time, what wasn't right and what did you do to fix it this time around?

E: "It's an interesting point you raise, because I believe I did a lot of smaller errors that together made the campaign fall short of it's funding the first time around.  

To make it easy for your readers to go through, I'll just point out the things that might have kept you from pledging on my first campaign.

• Include the rules of the game (in a nice layout).
• Use pictures/illustrations of the available pledges.
• Include shipping in the pledge and streamline the amount of available pledges.
• Do an engaging trailer (that makes people want to read a bit more of your page).
• Don't put all your cool USPs (unique selling points) like minis into stretch goals, you need some initial pull on the campaign.
• Make sure to build a "substantial" fanbase before going live.
• Use your Kickstarter preview option as a correction and optimization tool, not a cheap last minute marketing tool. 

Yea, it's been great and we hit the goal quite fast - Which is definitely a testimony to me learning from my mistakes ;) Plus people have been very supportive and helpful all the way!"

M: I personally thought your three tiered stretch goal system is brilliant. Rewards based not only on how much money the project has raised but also the amount of social media attention it has generated and the actual number of backers. I love the fact that even someone contributing $1 is helping to unlock new things for the game and make it better for everyone. This question was also asked by one of my google plus followers: so how well is this new style stretch goal system working for you?

E: "It's working VERY well, so well I'm positive a lot of new project creators will be using the same formula.  

Burning Suns is much more established on both Facebook and BoardGameGeek after this Kickstarter, mostly due to my very loyal and helpful backers who really wanted to help. And I gave them some tools to make that help visible.

I used the amount of backers as a promo goal, since the amount of backers would determine how important my "Print'n'play" options would become. These were combined with my stretch goals that made it financial possible to upgrade many of the components in the game.

One thing I made sure was that to calculate that these goal wouldn't overlap, but instead come up as a kind of stair, since that makes a world of difference always being able to spot the next goal ahead."

M: One of my Google Plus friends +Eric Franklin was a bit worried about this stretch goal system. He asked the following:

"My only concern is that all three categories of stretch increase the cost of production and two of them add minimal money to the project. The "Viral" goals, for example, add zero money to the project but have the potential to significantly increase its cost to produce (art isn't cheap)."

Would you care to address that Emil?

E: "[He's] right, at a glance it may look like that.  

But I'm making sure that my artwork isn't "just" used for a single purpose. It can both be used on components and as high resolution wallpapers etc. So when I'm structuring the different artwork, I'm always making sure we start out with something big and have the opportunity to use it several places.

Furthermore - I don't really believe in "free", people should get something for their effort, so giving them cool stuff like artwork for spreading the word, is a worthy expense on my project - and viral always add value :)"

M: 700 empires! Sorry over 700. That seems insane. I thought Cosmic Encounters was the Space game with the most factions but you have them beat by a mile. Obviously this number comes from the very unique three part player board. Where each player gets a race, an ideology and a structure, I've got two questions in regards to this: first off how the heck did you get up to over 700 and second, how is it that you can keep that many variables balanced?

E: "Haha, yea - in that regard I got most space games in existence heavily outnumbered ;) 

The concept of the 3 part empire building provides a strong multiplication factor, and since you can find a lot of factors on each component (ideology, race and structure) that can be tweaked, it means that I'll be able to keep designing new stuff for quite a while. 

It all started out with 6 x 6 x 6 different components in the first game, and for this campaign I added 1 extra of each, since then the backers have unlocked 2 more, getting us to 9 x 9 x 9 different empires (729).

There are several answers to [keeping things balanced]. You can find some of my pointers on this topic in one of my updates (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/suntzugames/burning-suns/posts/598623) related to a talk Richard Garfield held in Copenhagen a few weeks ago.  

Another thing is how my campaign and final development phase have been structured. Together with my backers I'm going to arrange a lot of beta test activities on the game (hopefully with over 400-500 gamers), tournaments and more. Things to really polish the game before launch. I'm really using the "crowd" in crowdfunding, unlike make Kickstarter campaigns, which is more or less pre-order pages."

M: You seem to be very dedicated to making your fans and backers a part of the game. Having their impact help shape the game and it's world. You not only stress this in your video and backer levels but also in your updates. I've seen very few designers willing to let their backers vote on which artwork to use for example. Can you talk more about this, what your plans are and why you think it's so integral to the project that your fans are involved?

E: "I think it's pivotal to the concept of a crowdfunding project, that you're looking for more than just funding. Otherwise you could argue that a business angel is just as good. But with the backers of my Kickstarter project, it allows me to gain access to a lot of great minds and thoughts about the project, the stories, the mechanics - practically everything.

It's of course important that you state the general directions and that you remain true towards your concept and ideas. But tweaking it to the appeal of your backers, and polishing based on their feedback is immensely important if you want your product to be more than just a flash in a pan. And that is exactly my goal with Burning Suns, I want it to last."

M: I'm a big fan of organized play programs, especially ones that reward the organizers and participants. I'm often running release events and demos at the FLGS and it's always cool to have something to show for it. Things like laser cut tokens, special dice and oversized cards seem popular this year. I see you are really hoping to have public play support for Burning Suns. What type of program do you imagine there being for Burning Suns?

E: "That's a tough question. As of now the sky is the limit. 

I'm still just dipping my toes when it comes to organized play and programs. Hopefully a lot of backers will come up with good ideas. I've also had a lot of great suggestions from backers, and a handful have already announced that they would love to promote the game and do some presentations here and there. 

I think it's important that the community develop this part, and make demands based on those needs. I shouldn't go and dictate what people should do, just like I'm not going to dictate any tournaments. I want my game to be tournament friendly and balanced, but it's the community who will ultimately make the demand. 

Hopefully it'll be high in many regards :)"

M: You seem very interested in publishing not just a game, but a world, a fiction for Burning Suns. Between the newly launched burning-wiki http://www.suntzugames.com/burning-wiki.html and things like writing contests on Board Game Geek, almost every backer update gives us another peek into the Burning Suns world. A few questions on this. What came first, the world or the game? Just exactly how big are your plans for this world, do you expect it to spill out past the board game into other games or possibly novels? As most people know I'm not just a big boardgame fan but also a huge pen and paper RPG fan and when I see someone creating a world like this I can't help but ask: will there be an RPG in this setting sometime in the future?

E: "You're not the first to ask - so as I said, maybe the demand will rise to a level were it can/must be developed. 

The game came first, and slowly developed into something almost too big to comprehend in one game. In that regard I've also been contacted about plans to maybe share the IP with other designers/creators. 

I would love the universe to expand further - which is also why I did the writer's contest on BGG and why there's going to be a couple of short-stories taking place in the Burning Suns universe. 

The idea is that the Burning Suns game will create the pillars for other great articles to stand on, inspired and developed by backers around the world :)"

M: My last question: one of the things I saw on your project page that made me cringe was this: "Money Back Guarantee" You are willing to pay people back if they don't like it and will ship the game back. Isn't this highly risky?

E: "I've been inspired by Jamey Stegmaier who has been a great support during the project, and I thought that it was a good idea to put a Money Back Guarantee like he did, simply because it's an offer I believe they are entitled too. Furthermore, I believe very strongly in my game being of great value in game play AND in components. I would be surprised if people really would want to send the game back when you take into consideration of what they are getting for their money."

M: That's all I wanted to ask, do you have anything you want to add?

E: "We're entering the last phase of our Kickstarter campaign (http://kck.st/1d2sRN6) - and there's still some cool stretch goals that I know we would all love to reach, getting more minis to the table! So when you read this - be sure to go and help us out with a pledge, and become part of the final development of Burning Suns :)"

M: Well Emil, thank you very much for your time and the opportunity for my readers and I to learn more about Burning Suns. I'm really looking forward to seeing the game and bringing it out to a Windsor Gaming Resource event and giving it a shot.

E: "Thank you so much for having me in this interview Moe, I really appreciate that! And I'm looking forward to sharing Burning Suns with you and all our backers, it's going to be awesome! :)"

---

So there you have it. It sounds pretty sweet to me. Sound good to you? Well go back it right now! The kickstarter ends on October 5th!

Luna Game Second Interview

Luna Game Interview

So, ULTRAMARIOX asked the creator of the Luna Game series a few questions about the series, and got some answers back.
You should head to the Ponychan Thread to read it.
You can scroll past the first interview and read the second if the thread dies.

Here is the first interview of creator of the Luna Game series done by Claire on 7/14

1) Well first of all, congratulations on the newest Luna Game! It's terrifying as expected but it's definitely something new that I think we can safely say it was totally unexpected. Do you have any more plans for future Luna Game instalments or will number 4 be the last?
Thank you very much! I can honestly say it's been very fun making the series, and I really appreciate you liking it.
Yes, I have many plans for the Luna Game in the future, and I can honestly say it's not ending any time soon. I'm simply having too much fun making it to stop now.


2) Back to the beginning -- what gave you the idea for the first Luna game? Or was it just a random experiment?
It was more of a random experiment, I just got the sudden urge to make something creepy, and see how people would react to it.

3) What did you think when the game got so popular? Were you surprised?
Honestly, yes. I was completely surprised when it became popular. When it got posted to EqD, I honestly thought people would just shun it from then on because of what it was. I had no idea people would actually enjoy these.

4) Anypony who plays the Luna Game series can tell that they're very well made games. Apart from the Luna Game series, have you made any games before or was Luna Game your first attempt?
I've been making games for many years now, I have tons of unfinished projects, and many other things I plan on doing in the future. It's a really fun hobby I have, and I keep learning more and getting better with each game I complete. The Luna Games are some of the first games I've actually managed to fully complete, regardless of how short they are.

5) Do you have any friends who are bronies? If so, do they know who happens to be behind the Luna Game Series?
Oh yes, I have a few Brony friends. I only trust my close close ones with the knowledge that I made it, I even get some of them to test it before release! A few have complained to me about their sleep problems though, so I guess there is a down side.

6) Luna Game 3 is quite similar to an idea that somepony proposed in the Equestria Gaming comments. Was 3 inspired by that comment or was it just a coincidence?
Oh yeah, that idea was a huge inspiration for the third, I changed it up a bit, but it was what I based it on.

7) Any particular reason you chose Luna as the player's character?
Well, It was probably because the sprite sheet I used at first had pretty terrible sprites, all except for the Luna one. I guess another reason was that, believe it or not, Luna is one of my favorite characters. Yes I know I kill her in some pretty horrible ways, but I do it because I love her.

8) Do you ever plan to give the Luna Game series a story?
If you look deep enough into the series, I'm sure you can already find one. ;)

9) Were there any games that you played, fan or mainstream that you were inspired by?
For the Luna Game? Not really, at that point there weren't even many pony games out, and Equestria Gaming didn't exist! So this was one of the ways of fulfilling my inner pony gaming needs

10) Honestly; how boring was this interview? :b
Not boring at all! I've never been interviewed before, so it was actually quite fun!



Here is a second interview by ULTRAMARIOX on 8/16:

Q: On the ending of Luna Game 0, when it says "Its not over yet" Does it mean that there will be a Luna Game 5? or a Luna Game 0.5? As then ending of Luna Game 4 says "Your fate is sealed."
A: Luna Game 0 was designed to be a Prequel to the Luna Game series, so when it says "It's not over yet", It is simply referring to the other Luna Games taking place after 0 (Luna Game 1, 2, 3, and 4). The "Your Fate has already been sealed" message comes up only when you attempt to play the Luna Game 4 again. It only means that your fate has been sealed in that game, thus you cannot replay it.

Q: How much development goes between the Luna Games? Such as the time it took for Luna Game 0 took about the same length as Luna Game 2 or 3 did, so will there be the same expected time for the next Luna Game?
A: For the more recent games, a lot more time has been put into developing some kind of story and chain of events. A single Luna Game usually takes around a month to complete, though it can take more when more content is added.

Q: Are you planning on making only creepypastas? In the time it took for Luna Game 3 and 4 to complete, you could have seemingly already made a full My Little Pony game, which has not yet happened, aside from the creepypasta games and a few decent others. So is there any chance for a full game? or just creepypasta games?
A: As of now, I do not plan on creating anything else other than creepypastas. I really enjoy making these Luna Games, and if I ever make another game, it will likely be very similar in concept. Though, the possibility for a 'full game' as a part of the Luna Game series is possible. I'm not confirming it to be, but I will say that a lot of things are possible.

Q: The plot is Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon on her quest, killed Pinkie Pie, Had nightmares and visions, killed herself, and escaped the darkness in hell. IS that correct?
A: Well, if you want to view that as the story, I'm not stopping you.
I'm leaving the story open to interpretation.

MLP:Online Prepares for Pon-E3

MLP:Online's Announcement

With Pon-E3 coming up within a few short days our friends have been making preparations for their part in the event. However according to this thread it caught the MLP:Online team somewhat off-guard, as they just released the beta version of Episode 1 and didn't have too much for new content to show. In their desperate scramble to find something to do somepony suggested that they have a Q&Neigh session, as well as a discussion about interesting topics somewhat related to the game. This might sound kind of boring, but the thing is that all questions will be from the community and you can submit one yourself! Just go onto Twitter, ask @MLPOnline something and your question could be answered on their Livestream (I dunno where that is yet, they still have yet to announce that bit).

For some copypasta from their original announcement with more detailed information, continue on after the break!

PART 1: Q&NeighWe're gonna be setting up our very own livestream where we answer your questions about anything and everything, be it the game, the way our team works, whether we like cereal at breakfast-time. Go ahead and ask! Get on twitter, write your question down with @MLPOnline somewhere in your tweet, and we'll be able to see everyone's questions. You have all week to come up with some great ones!PART 2: DiscussionWe'd also like to have a nice, in depth discussion for all of you to sink your teeth into. It could be the pros versus the cons of including a combat system in games, Designing games that stick to the show or deter from it in varying degrees, Specific difficulties when it comes to making pony games, whatever you want--make sure it's well thought out, and something you'd like to talk about. Let's hear from you! In the comments below, give us your discussion topics. Are there two different sides to your topic? if so, list some pros and cons. Feel free to address other topics posted, whether or not they seem interesting to you and what you have to say. We want to know what interests you!

As a final note, I of course have to tell you that our livesteam is all in good fun. In the discussion portion especially, anything that is brought up will not necessarily be a part of our game. We just want to spend some time with our fans and share our thoughts. Can't wait to hear from you!

Pon-E3 Promo Video!

Yes folks, we just went though the trouble of putting together another of those trailers just to reveal who is attending Pon-E3. Why didn't we just put it in text like the other announcements? Because videos have been scientifically proven by totally reliable sources to be 20% cooler then plain text when used for announcements, that's why! And if you disagree with us, you can take it up with my cat (he's quite smart you know).

Anyhow, the event will start at 6:00am, PST on July 13, and end at 6:00pm, PST on the 14th. The entire thing will take place online and it won't cost you a cent to drop in. And in case you want a detailed schedule of the event you can find it at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TlIHQqEOlpF_y5LGVekI8LizpRcU5Gq3NMgwnV8WcAE/edit?pli=1.

See you there!

Game Developer's Panel at BroNYCon

Edit: And it's over. Hope you enjoyed the stream!

In a little under half an hour the Pony Game Developer's panel will be airing, featuring various developers of fangames talking about their projects and exhibiting them. I'm really excited for this particular panel and what it promises to reveal to us, and after it's done we will post a summary of new and interesting things from it for all you that can't watch for some reason. If you can we would highly advise to put away whatever you're doing, sit down and watch the stream.

Enjoy!

Welcome to Ponyville at Bronycon + Interview

Filly Gamez

A little while back Filly Gamez (the developers of that visual novel Welcome to Ponyville) announced that a couple of their team members are attending BroNYCon. Specifically Raish Dash and Writers Block are going, and they will be on the game developer's panel in the tail hall at 2:00pm. Apparently they're answering questions about the game (most of which will probably be on the romance feature) and will present a playable demo for everypony to check (which most of you will presumably use to test romance). They also said they will be handing out free vinyls to fans of the game, although I'm guessing that they will have a limited supply so try and get a hold of one as quick as possible.

Oh yeah, they also had an interview with The Lighting Round podcast. Find it after the break!

Interview with Filly Gamez

Filly Gamez

Y'all remember Filly Games, right? Well if you don't, they're the developers of "Welcome to Ponyville" which you have probably heard of. If you haven't, well then you don't appear to have been paying much attention to either us or Equestria Daily that much within the past couple months.

Anyhow, this guy who goes by the username of mrrandomlulz recently interviewed those blokes and posted his interview over at the Devil May Cry forums. It doesn't tell us much that we didn't already know before, but in case you're interested in reading it you can find it at http://devilmaycry.org/community/threads/mrrandomlulz-gets-an-interview-with-fillygamez.11217/.

Goodnight everypony!

If you are a fantasy gaming geek you should really check out Standard Action

Like the title says, if you dig fantasy gaming and aren't already caught up on Standard Action you really should be. Standard Action is a live action fantasy RPG web series that started back in 2011 (actually the teaser episode was out in 2010). Unlike another rather popular RPG gaming series, The Guild this one is based on Pen and Paper RPGs instead of MMORPGs.

The series first introduces and then follows the adventures of a pretty typical adventuring party. There's the Elf Barbarian Edda played by +Joanna Gaskell, who is also the creative mind behind the project. Along with Edda we have Fernando the Half-Halfling Bard, Martin the Druid ("I'm not a healer") with his badger familiar and Gwenevere (don't call her Wendy) the Sorcerer. A myriad of other characters, villains and NPCs are added through the series with some guest appearances as well.

Overall I found the series to be very well produced. A step above most web series I've seen. This isn't just a filmed amateur LARP here but rather a real production. The costuming is great, the effects are decent and best of all the story is engaging and often time hilarious.

You can check out the series here, this is Episode 0 the teaser released in 2010 (which atually fits in at episode 6.5):

The Gamerati himself, +Ed Healy  recently hooked me up with Joanna and I was able to ask her a few questions about the series:

---

So how the heck did you get involved in a live action fantasy RPG web series?

Well, I wrote the scripts just for a lark, really - character studies with their roots in gaming humour. We never really thought we'd be able to make the show - fantasy is just too expensive! But we met Edwin (Fernando the Bard) on the set of a feature film we were making back in 2010, and we found out that not only was he a great actor, he was also a gamer, and he made costumes! So I showed him the scripts, and we were pretty much off to the races. We shot the teaser for Episode 1, and with that online we started to draw in a bunch more talented people who saw and were interested in Standard Action, and pretty soon we were holding auditions and scouting locations!

I have to assume the cast are gamers, am I right? If so what's your gaming history?

Actually - Edwin and I are gamers; we play and DM our own games, and have played D&D, as well as a variety of other roleplaying games - Pathfinder, Cthulhu, Shadowrun - for a very long time. But our other cast members - Tara and Daniel - are not gamers! Tara is a Star Trek: TNG geek, and Daniel dabbled in some Magic: the Gathering, but they are nerds of a different kind, for sure.

Watching Standard Action I can't help be reminded of The Guild. Was The Guild an inspiration for your series? What other inspirations did you have?

The Guild was certainly inspiring in that it was groundbreaking in the web world. I would say that it was one of the very first truly successful webseries, and it made the rest of us out here with great ideas believe that we might just be able to pull it off. I'm very grateful to Felicia Day and her team for that. :) However, my and Rob's real inspiration in the webseries world was "The Show" with Ze Frank, which was the first webseries we ever watched. It was incredibly fan-interactive, incredibly funny, and very intelligent, and it had a huge following.

In terms of my writing, I draw a lot of my inspiration from British comedy, such as The Mighty Bouche, Discworld, Red Dwarf and Monty Python. I love the slightly tongue-in-cheek, quirky, intelligently weird humour, that never underestimates the intelligence of the audience.

I can't help but wonder if some of the content is based on actual play at the table?

The humour for sure comes from the gaming table, but it's more the feel that's translated than the actual events. Some of the D&D gaming rules just lend themselves to great comedy when they're applied in weird situations, so I would often just take those quirks to their natural conclusions, and see what happened. We tried very hard to make our series accessible, though. You don't have to be a gamer to get the humour - we made sure to make it funny for anyone who's a fan of quirky comedy or comedy-fantasy. If you're a gamer, you'll just catch on to those extra jokes. And some of our "easter eggs" and extra jokes aren't for tabletop gamers - we have stuff in the show for Star Wars fans, Tolkein addicts, Browncoats, Trekkies, MMORPG'ers, video gamers, or even fans of great cult movies like Space Balls or The Princess Bride.

I see you are kickstarting a new season, two questions regarding this:
1) How is it you managed to produce such a professional looking series up to this point?

Our first season was entirely self-funded - so basically out of my own pocket, as the producer. For second season we ran an IndieGoGo fundraiser, which is similar to Kickstarter. That got us about half of our funds, and then the other half I supplied.

2) What led you to kickstarter to continue it?

Our hope for Season 3 is to have it almost completely fan-funded - I'm running out of spare cash. :) The reason we chose Kickstarter over IndieGoGo for this season is because of the visibility - Kickstarter is becoming so well known, and we decided to try to tap into the high-profile nature of the site. The functionality is also a lot nicer than IndieGoGo; it's easier to interact with your backers, and easier for your backers to manage their contributions.

What's your plan for the future of Standard Action, will you be doing another kickstarter for each future season?

The third season will wrap up many of the elements of this particular story arc. After that... I'm not sure. We may, if the support is there, continue into a Season 4, or we may branch off into a spinoff series. We also have plans for an Edda Backstory feature film, so there's that. It would be ideal for us to find another way to fund what we do, at least partially. I'm exploring options for corporate partnerships, and we're expanding our library of merchandise. Crowdsource fundraising is amazing, but I would love to not have to go back to the fans and ask for our entire budget every time we want to make something. Having a bit of income from another source would be ideal, and we're working on that.

So I see you are offering a card game as one of the backer rewards can you tell me a bit about the game?

For sure! But it's actually easier for you to watch this video that I just made. It'll give you the basics, ;)

---

So there you have it geeks and gamers. Everything I wanted to know about Standard Action. The series really is great and you really should check it out. As mentioned in the interview Joanna and her crew are currently looking for funds to support season 3. This is going on right now on kickstarter and the project has already hit it's goal. If you've checked out the series and enjoyed it, why not jump over there now and help them hit some stretch goals.

Round Stable Interview with Manestream Games

Apparently the fellows who run The Round Stable have recently interviewed Manestream Games, the developers of Cutie Mark Crusade: A Dash of Adventure. The interview is rather short and thankfully doesn't spoil much, but it does reveal some of the developer's inspirations, their intentions for the game and various other random stuff. In case you're interested you can read it at http://www.mlponies.com/2012/04/11/interview-manestream-games/.

BREAKING NEWS: Gabe Newell is a Brony!

As of now, Gabe Newell is now confirmed to be a Brony. Go on and celebrate, everypony!

Ponies Live Now Presents: The Elements of Charity

Our friends over at Ponies Live Now! are having an event on Sunday which they have called the "Elements of Charity". It's a 24 hour NES/SNES marathon to benefit the Humble Brony Bundle, and they have over $300 dollars in giveaway prizes for random viewers! They will also have various Brony celebrities attending the event (I was invited, but unfortunately won't be able to attend), and if you donate enough to them during the livestream, you will be able to request a game for them to play.

If you want more detailed information about the event, please go here. The livestream will take place over at http://www.twitch.tv/ponyslivenow, and on March 11-12, starting at 12pm PST.