PoniPoni Visual Novel Creator

PoniPoni

 In an attempt to encourage the creation of more pony visual novels, Taivastiuku decided to create a web-based tool for that purpose and called it PoniPoni. It's still in a fairly early state, mind you, and the average person probably won't give this more than a passing glance at the moment, but I get the impression that if this ever gets anywhere it could become a rather useful tool for folks wanting to whip together a quick VN. Perhaps more developers would be attracted to the project if the source code were to be released on GitHub or something, I dunno.

...In memory of theabriged.com being taken down some time ago and the loss of my epic work of interactive fiction, "The Drakening of the Moon", I give you this illustration.

No Guns in Canterlot

 There's a distinct lack of first person shooters in the pony fandom, and for good reason: colourful horses just aren't as fun when you can't see the ones you're playing as. However, that hasn't stopped Jach (you might be familiar with some of his previous works, such as A World You Should Not Know), who decided to switch from the Blender Game Engine to Unity3D and make a game about shooting changelings with guns, because apparently magic missiles aren't good enough for some reason. Players also have the choice of playing as Princess Celestia, Luna, Cadance and Shining Armor, each with their own weapons and magical abilities, which offers some more variety I guess.

 No word on when the project will eventually be released, although Jach claims he'll set up a blog for it in the near future with development updates.

This was the closest thing to a SFW Princess Shining Armor picture that I could find.

Choke on My Woona, YOU NASTY CHANGELINGS

Choke on My Woona
(Download)

 While taking a brief break from working on the 4th Nightfall beta, Night Breeze from Silly Mare Games decided to clone a favourite game of his, the name of which cannot be mentioned here for various reasons. Choke on My Woona was the result, a shooter involving Woona and changelings. Upon inevitably dying in the game Woona will respawn, and be assisted by the ghost of her previous self. This goes on for 10 levels although I haven't gotten nearly that far yet, given that it practically runs in slow-motion on Wine and I'm not as patient as I once was (having beaten an unstable version of SuperTux running at 5fps). If you aren't using Linux or OS X, however, the game looks pretty fun so I'd definitely give it a shot if I were you.

Meanwhile, I still haven't figured out how to get Windows 8.1 to play nicely with Linux.

 Come to think of it, for some reason those multicoloured changelings in this game remind me of Carnifex's creations. If these ever ended up making a cameo in a fangame...hoo boy. I'd probably puke rainbows.

Pony Amnesia Demo

Pony Amnesia: Love and Mysteries

(Download)

 For various reasons I don't like posting the release announcement and review of a game right next to each other, and what do you know? Some developer usually happens to conveniently release a demo or something right in between posts, so our readers don't get two articles about the same game in a row. I'm not sure as to why this always happens, but here's a thank-you to Gentlecolt Collaborations for accidentally upholding this odd tradition and treating you all to a brand-new pony visual novel at the same time.

 Since this is only a demo I'm not going to put a score on the project or anything, but I might as well put some feedback below the break. Fair enough?

 Initially I had some issues with running Pony Amnesia, as some sort of bizarre audio issue that distorted the music, driving me mad until I finally discovered that running the program through the Ren'Py launcher somehow resolved my problem (which occurred on the 64bit version of Linux Mint 15, if that helps at all). Good thing too, as the project's music is quite pleasing to the ear and definitely not something I would want to play the demo without. The only thing that could make it better would be some atmospheric sounds for the brief portions without music, but it's a bit much to expect that from a fan project.

 The protagonist (whose name you can choose, if it amuses you to introduce yourself as a certain infamous German chancellor) wakes up alone in the Everfree Forest, with no memories as to who he is or how he got there in a completely original scenario that I've never seen before. Thankfully he is relatively near a road and heads out of the woods into Ponyville; otherwise he'd probably wander around and get eaten by a forest bogeyman or something of that sort, making for a very short and unsatisfactory demo, albeit one that could potentially be rather amusing. He then bumps into Spike, meets the mane six, and stuff happens.

Yeah, thanks for reminding me.

 The plot may sound fairly generic, and it is, but Gentlecolt Collaborations manages to pull it off fairly well with excellent writing and characterization. Unlike a certain other pony VN to which this will inevitably be compared, Pony Amnesia doesn't make the player feel as if they are being dragged along with no say in the plot, and presents you with plenty of choices. It actually managed to keep my interest for the duration of the demo, and I'm looking forward to any future instalments of the project.

 As for the art...sometimes the characters look a little off-model, leaning into "unintentionally humorous" territory, but overall it's no big deal, especially with the gorgeous, beautifully-vectored backgrounds that have a distinct lack of those nasty horizontal bars which constantly got in the way of that other visual novel. Still, if I were the character artist I would probably play around a bit more with pony faces to get them looking just right before shipping future releases, because good artwork is fairly important in a visual novel, after all.

...What, you're not satisfied with your plastic surgery?

 According to the visual novel's website, "The game has a total of four arcs, each downloadable after they have been made, with the player able to choose the gender and name for their pony", and "Each arc lasts a total of seven days, allowing the player to interact with various characters in the game and follow their own independent stories before moving on the main story. Players are encouraged to follow these sub-plots in order to increase their friendship and maybe even establish a romantic relationship further on should players desire one". I'm not all too keen on the romance bits, but despite its clunky name Pony Amnesia: Love and Mysteries should definitely be a project worth following, and I'll be more than happy to review it when the time comes.

Review: Moonstuck Part 2

Moonstuck Part 2

 So...Moonstuck. Quite possibly the fandom's most beloved webcomic, Moonstuck managed to win the hearts of many with its adorable main character and unique art style while it lasted. After it ended on November 4th in 2012, SylrePony decided to adapt the comic into a isometric fangame, the first part of which he released in March. Our reviewer Arctic Lux gave it an 8/10, and all seemed well and good, but now that the second part has been released and he's not around it seems that it is time for my take on the second entry.

Does this unofficial Moonstuck adaption live up to the charm of its namesake? Find out after the break.


 Now, it has always struck me as an extremely strange decision for SylrePony to adapt Moonstuck as a top-down game, given the puzzle-centric nature of the comic. Perhaps he was getting desperate for an excuse to make an isometric game in Flash, and this method would give him the most exposure out of all his available option, but regardless I'm still kind of weirded out.

 Moonstuck Part 2 begins with a dream sequence inside the observatory, in which the player can either go through a tutorial or a weird "dev" area. The inclusion of the latter is somewhat amusing, but probably not a very good idea since it means the player can skip the tutorial section and thus miss out on a very useful spell that will make your life much easier. After setting sail on an odd-looking boat, you wake up from your nap and things start go to downhill quite rapidly.

Dumb...rocks? Moon bubbles?

 You see, Moonstuck's gameplay consists mostly of wandering around rather bare environments with little idea as to where you are going or what is happening in relation to the plot. On rare occasions you are given a "break" from this monotony by tedious rock smashing and sphere-pushing sessions, which doesn't really help very much at all. Did I mention that in certain puzzles, messing up means walking a long ways back to the previous room, waiting for it to load, then going back and starting all over again? It transforms would-be simple problems into long, drawn-out affairs that quickly get on the player's nerves.


...There isn't much more to say, really, because there isn't much to praise or criticize Moonstuck part 2 for. It's just dull monotony for the entire ride, like taking a road trip during a drought in Saskatchewan, with nothing but dry, flat ground for hundreds of miles. The project's only saving grace is the engine, which looks fairly promising and doubtless could be used for far more interesting projects.

 To be honest, I feel kind of bad for SylrePony. He's a pretty talented person, but everybody slips up once in a while. Perhaps he'll fix up the game's issues in a future update, and then it should be well-worth revisiting.

Ponyvania Intro

Ponyvania

 So it seems that Ponyvania game we posted a while back also has a pretty sweet animated intro, probably the best we'll ever see in a fangame. Shame it'll probably add a lot to the game's filesize and hurt those of us with slower internet connections, so if I were the developers I'd probably release a version of the game with the intro stripped out. Still, I've seen far worse examples of pointless filesize inflation in a particular game I reviewed on this site a while back...you probably know of what I speak.

 And yes, I'm still working on that Moonstuck part 2 review, so be patient. Reviews take time, especially when you possibly have two of them to write in one day.

 Imagine if this intro was actually rendered in-game instead of just being a pre-rendered cinematic. It'd probably be quite hard to code, sure, but it'd be really impressive from a technical perspective. Plus, yay for drastically reduced filesizes!

Review: Innocent Luna Game

                                                     Download Link

First of all, happy Halloween/Nightmare Night everypony!

If you follow this site, I’m sure you at least know of the Luna games.  For those of you living under a rock, this series of creepypasta platform titles has become a viral sensation for its nightmare-inducing scares.  Much like Luna herself in the recent episode Luna Eclipsed, fan developer Dialgabrite wanted to prove that a good game featuring Luna doesn’t have to be terrifying with his project Innocent Luna Game.  Was he able to do it?  Let’s find out after the break. 

The game’s plot makes it clear from the start that this is a lighthearted romp.  As Luna, you’re thrust into different worlds where you must aid a diverse selection of characters, from assisting Whale Wars’ Paul Watson in taking down Japanese hunters to knocking sense into rogue Pokemon and Digimon bent on dominating Equestria.  The game is divided into numerous chapters, each consisting of a Sonic-esque act and a boss battle.

To advance, you jump around as in any typical platformer, attacking enemies with lunar bolts and collecting… Yu-Gi-Oh cards?  Sure, let’s go with that.  While these three things(collectibles, precise jumps, and attacks) are all crucial parts of the platforming experience that the developer has down, there are some issues to be found in this aspect.  First of all, your weapon only shoots in one direction: forward and diagonally down.  It would have been a lot simpler and more efficient if these projectiles had gone just straight forward a la Mega Man.  And there are no power ups or cumulative upgrades that allow you to make it stronger or change its direction.  Because of this, you must resort to jumping in order to successfully damage most enemies. 

                                                           We're whalers on the moon...

And that’s where the second problem comes in.  Unlike games such as Super Mario Bros. where the height of your jump is affected by how long you press down its respective button, Luna’s rather high jump goes the same height regardless.  This means that you’ll be moon jumping(no pun intended) everywhere you go, which can be irritating when attempting to make some jumps or avoiding enemy fire.  This is not the worst thing in the world, but it could definitely use improvement. 

Finally, the items you collect are practically worthless, as you have unlimited lives.  That said, this as well as the save feature are useful considering the lengthiness of this adventure.  It took me a good few hours to complete the game- something I can’t say for any other pony game I’ve played yet.  Sometimes the formula is changed up a bit, but not always for the better.  There are a few scrolling levels, a rail shooter level, and levels in which you transform into another character.  While I thought that last one sounded really cool, these other characters(Nightmare Moon and Princess Celestia, to be specific) do nothing unique.  Their attacks have the same size, power, and function as Luna’s, not to mention they are slower than the protagonist.  This means the only thing that stands out about the two is a larger hurtbox- something especially noticeable in the battle against Leomon.  You must fight the boss while a barrage of meteors come at you from the sky, with your only defense being a single platform, which Celestia can barely fit under.  If Leomon is under the platform, receiving damage is practically inescapable. 

This is very hit or miss in the presentation department.  On the plus side, worlds are colorful and Luna is animated very nicely.  The music selection is fun and eclectic, ranging from MLP remixes to J-Rock.  However, none of these assets are original.  The enemies are almost entirely static images, and all the pony sprites are ripped from that batch that everypony and their mother use (some are even in our current banner).  That said, it’s clear that the developer was very ambitious and had all the right intentions. 

As such, I really want to go easy on this game.  I love a good platformer, and the fandom has sorely been lacking a traditional platformer of a sizeable length.  Unfortunately, it has a number of shortcomings I can’t ignore.  With that, I’ll give this game a:

 

If you do enjoy this and are interested in checking out more of Dialgabrite’s stuff, which he’s set up Facebook pages for here:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/PokemonKindnessVersion

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Minor-Details-the-homebrew-maze-game-Contains-Ponies/152336548181312

Moonstuck the Game Part 2

Moonstuck the Game Part 2

 Two days ago SylrePony finally released a sequel to his Moonstuck game project from March 2013. It probably look so long because he's been working on Drifter alongside several other folks, but now that it's been released he probably has more time to make games and whatnot, which is kind of nice because as we've mentioned before, there's been a severe lack of My Little Pony fangames this year. Ah well, at least things seem to be picking up a little bit again, right?

Dun worry, I'll review this tomorrow after I've had some sleep. Goodnight!

Ponyvania Demo

Ponyvania

 Back in 2012 some Texans decided that the My Little Pony fandom needed a Castlevania-type game and began to create one themselves in Game Maker, with the splendidly original title "Ponyvania". The project seemed to progress smoothly, with the latest demo being released in July '13, but I remained entirely unaware of Ponyvania until some Anon posted about it on /mlp/ last Saturday, bemoaning the overall lack of attention that it has seen (aside from an Equestria Daily post about a pre-demo trailer). The Anon also mentioned Legacy of the Pony, which I shall hopefully cover later now that I have a working dual-boot setup, but in the meantime I shall focus on this sadly neglected fangame.

My thoughts on the project can be found below the break, as usual.


 Ponyvania managed to give off a good first-impression when I first started to play around with it. After beginning a new game I was nifty little pony creation utility with which I promptly attempted to recreate Taylor's OC, but unfortunately I failed and instead ended up with a Berry Punch recolor. Then the game began, and I was impressed by the quality of the backgrounds/scenery sprites until I got a taste of the weird jumping physics, which took some getting used to. Ah well, so far so good, but then I decided to head outside...

...And things promptly went downhill from there. It seems that the developer's idea of difficulty involves plopping down a bunch of enemies and spawning monsters directly underneath the player, killing them in short order even if escape or combat is attempted. This, compounded with a bizarre decision to reverse the standard actions of the Z and X keys made the game much harder than it should have been, and changing this in the pause menu was more difficult than it should have been due to some rather confusing default key bindings (even after reading the Readme).

Borrowing this screenshot from Anon.

 After much annoyance and little progression I discovered the skill system, helpfully buried in the menu and requiring manual keybindings. The ability to shoot laser beams and dark energy balls seemed pretty cool, but alas, enemies in standard mode still spawned too quickly for me to effectively use my fancy stuff. Perhaps things would have gone better on the Easy difficulty level, I dunno, but I still consider Ponyvania's difficulty to be more due to poor design and balancing rather than presenting a real challenge to the player.

Since Ponyvania is still a demo I'm not going to give it a score or anything, but it's going to need some pretty huge balance adjustments to be considered "fun" (unless you're playing on Easy or in the multiplayer mode, which I wasn't able to test). Maybe I'll revisit it once some work has been done, but until then I'll just sporadically get back to redesigning Equestria Gaming's theme.

Sun and Moon (Strategy Game)

Sun and Moon

Now, this isn't a video game. It's a strategy board game for two players (like chess), created by Dave Bryant. You can find the game's rules, as well as printable game boards and pieces at the link above, so you too can engage in the epic struggle between celestial and lunar. It's simple to learn, but offers many strategic intricacies that could make matches of Sun and Moon true battles of wits. You can find a bit more info after the break...

Sun and Moon shares similarities with chess-like games like xiangqi or shogi. It itself, however, is rather unique in design. The gameboard features 12 circles rotated about the center point, and 5 concentric circles to form the paths of travel for each player's soldiers, with representations of the sun, moon, and earth forming the "heavenly bodies."

The Gameboard (with Notation Markings)

A player takes the side of one of the two royal pony sisters to determine whether sun or moon will rise victorious. Each side has 13 soldiers - 4 earth ponies, 4 pegasi, 4 unicorns, and 1 princess. Each of these unit types has it's own way of moving and capturing pieces. To win the match, a player must force their opponent's princess into a position where she may not make a legal move to escape being captured. This is called "banishment" (akin to checkmate in chess), and the winning princess prevails.

Sun and Moon is very interesting in concept, and provides many opportunities for the employment of strategy. It's still being tweaked at the moment, but I can definitely see this game eventually becoming a niche staple. Pretty soon, we'll have to establish a governing body to rank the various grandmaster-caliber players which are sure to appear! 

Lunar Defense Force

Lunar Defense Force

Man, what's up with you guys and best princess blasting aliens recently? It seems the Shroobs do have a use beyond comprising the low point in Nintendo's excellent series of Mario RPGs, anyway. FearlessPie over on DeviantArt's come out with another flash, this one dedicated to purging mycological aliens from the surface of Woona's moon. It's not very complex, but it has a nice degree of challenge, and it's a nice way to cap off a Saturday evening.

Speaking of Woona, I'm off to go mash f5 on the Moonstuck homepage - good night!

Luna's Quest Help Needed!

Luna's Quest

Surprisingly enough adventure games are a rarity in this fandom, and until recently the only existing MLP adventure game was the stunning Cutie Mark Crusade: A Dash of Adventure (which has sadly been put on hold). Thankfully this one bloke and his sister decided to do something about it and created an adventure game titled Luna's Quest with the Adventure Game Studio engine. Together they managed to complete a decent portion of the game along with some rather impressive pixel art for the cutscenes, but it turns out that the workload is too great and apparently they could use a couple pixel artists to help with the level backgrounds and field sprites. If you are interested in helping then send  them an email over at mariobud@gmail.com.

Part of me wanted to include this in the last Lyra's List, but then I realized that it was far enough into development to warrant its own post. Have an outdated gameplay video after the break!

The very first ingame room. Note the changes in the character sprite from the most recent version.

Luna Game End (CREEPYPASTA)

Luna Game End

One year and a week after the release of Luna Game 0, the creator of the Luna Game series has finally given us another game; the final game of the series: Luna Game End. The name is short but sweet; at long last the true end to the series has been released, but is it all that we could hope for? That’s up to you to decide.

Luna Game End (Luna Game 5) is the direct sequel to Luna Game 4. If you haven’t already played Luna Game, Luna Game 2, Luna Game 3, Luna Game 4, and Luna Game 0, you might want to familiarize yourself with those game now.


DOWNLOAD GAME HERE

WARNING: SPOILERS - IF YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME, CLICK THE LINK ABOVE




The game starts you off as the well-known Princess Luna, standing on a flat strip of grass at night with happy music playing in the background. After a short amount of walking, you’re greeted with an oh so familiar cliff. Though this time when you jump off it you safely land on the ground. After a bit more walking Luna begins to slow down, and eventually the text “I’m really tired” appears over her head. She collapses a moment later, stating “I’ll just rest for a moment…”. The screen slowly fades to black afterwards.

After the music stops, you suddenly appear in a completely white world with only a single black line as the ground below you. Walk to the right some and you’ll spot an 8-bit limbo sprite from Luna Game 4 going nuts in the air. Touching it will cause strange background sounds to start and the ground below you to disappear, but fear not, you don’t fall long before hitting some kind of invisible ground. After walking to the right more, you start to notice sky blocks and ground blocks appearing in a random order, eventually building an entire sky behind you. After another few moments, a strange screech sound in the same style as the odd background sounds will play, and the floor will disappear again. This time when you fall, the blue sky turns into an empty, dark red sky as a different creepy soundtrack plays.

After you hit the ground again, you’re greeted with ground blocks with a similar line design to that in Luna Game 4’s hell stage. Continuing to walk right will reveal a smaller cliff (one from which you can see the bottom too), and jumping of that will trigger the ground blocks to randomly start turning into the 8-bit limbo blocks from Luna Game 4, the second soundtrack in the 8-bit limbo world (Incoming Darkness) to play, and the dark shadow to start eating up the screen to your left. If you don’t hurry up, the shadow will immediately eat you up and take you to the next map. If you manage to outrun it, you’re greeted with several obstacle courses, but the result in the end is the same. (Though how do you does affect the Game’s ending).

After the darkness takes you to the next room, you find Luna lying back down on the ground from the first scene where she took a nap. Really low, creepy music starts slowly playing, and after a moment she stands up (or if you press a key) and holding shift is disabled. Walking to the right will reveal some shadow ponies, the silhouettes of Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack can all be found, as well as an unknown filly. Walking next to some of the ponies triggers text above their heads. At random moments static will flash across the screen, as well as playing white noise. When this happens, the text above the ponies’ heads will change, and the silhouettes of all the ponies except for the filly will change back into their original sprites, though lacking any pupils. The static only lasts a moment, and after walking all the way to the right of the screen, the static does not happen again and you’re able to run. After walking a while back to the left, you’re greeted by Nightmare Moon, where you lose control over Luna. Another creepy song starts playing at this point, accompanied by a heartbeat. As Luna walks towards Nightmare Moon, loud static plays once, flashing fan art of the previous Luna Games. This happens one more time before you reach Nightmare Moon, and when you do the screen goes black.

If you died before reaching the end with the darkness, the game will end for you at this point, otherwise you are taken to another place.

The background is completely black, but as you move, cracks start appearing in the ground below you, and it disappears after being completely cracked. Your only option is to go right at this point, and when the ground below you is gone, you’re shown another path just below where you were that continues right. From this point on, you just go as far right as you can, but in the end you will always fall. Once you fall, Luna is replaced with Nightmare moon for a split second as static and white noise play, and after another moment you hear a splat and the screen goes black. Slowly the screen fades back in and you see the same dead Luna from Luna Game 3, except instead of another screamer, the game just closes itself.

There is also another ending, a 'good end'. You can achieve this by completing both Luna Game 4 and Luna Game 0, getting the good end in 4 is necessary.

HERE is a youtube playthrough of the game.

HERE is a youtube playthrough of the Good End.

Luna Game 0 (CREEPYPASTA)

Luna Game 0

After a long, long wait, the prequel to the Luna Game series has finally been released! If you haven't already played Luna Game, Luna Game 2, Luna Game 3, and Luna Game 4 I suggest you go do that now.


YOU CAN ONLY PLAY THIS GAME ONE TIME NORMALLY.
I have received a program that allows you to play it again.
You can download that program here
Some files got mixed up before, and I accidently linked the game twice. This is the actual file. Blame me for that, not the creator :P

It's just like the fourth one, you can only play it one time normally.


DOWNLOAD GAME HERE

WARNING: SPOILERS - IF YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME, CLICK THE LINK ABOVE




You start the game as Princess Luna in Princess Celestia's castle. When you talk to Celestia, she tells you that it would be nice for you to make some friends after so long. After you exit on the right, you move to a grassy area with nice music playing. All six of the mane cast can be found on the map, and each one has their own problem that you can help with.


Depending on who you return the lost item back to, you can play one of six different levels, each with a different item (Twilight Sparkle's item is a book). After you collect 49 of the items on the map, you care able to collect the 50th, which is black and white. When you touch it, the music stops to a loud thump. After that, the only thing you can do is continue on, where the ground suddenly disappears from underneath you and some creepy music starts playing as the screen fades to black.


The screen flashes white, and an image of Nightmare Moon appears, after another flash, Nightmare Moon's eye opens. The screen goes back to where you stopped almost immediately, but everything is tinted red. After you continue back to the area with everypony, another creepy song begins to play, and everypony you talk to says that Pinkie Pie is looking for you.


When you talk to Pinkie Pie, she explains to you that she wants to throw you another party, but shortly after the screen turns black, and the dark item you got from before appears while you hear whispering in the background. After the screen goes back Pinkie Pie is going on about what the party will be like, and the screen turns black again with more whispering and the text 'Kill Her' at the very bottom. The screen goes back to Pinkie Pie continuing to talk, and then turns black one last time with longer whispering and large words saying 'Kill Her Now'. After the screen goes back, you see Pinkie Pie asking if you're feeling okay, and the screen goes black again.


This time, nothing else appears, but the music stops and you hear some sound effects and cutting noises. When the screen fades back in, you see yourself standing alone with Pinkie Pie with a red sky behind you. Pinkie Pie has a slash going through her, and the words 'B... But... Why...?' are at the bottom of the screen. After a few moments, the top half of her body begins sliding off, and the game shuts off. A few seconds later, the game opens again and a loud noise plays with a disturbing image of Pinkie Pie and text that says 'This Isn't Over Yet'. The game closes shortly after.
This is the image that was used at the end.

If you try to reopen the game, it says 'You cannot change the past...' and closes out.


Unlike the demo, the game does not stay open after it closes the final time.

HERE is a youtube playthrough of the game.

(HOAX) Luna Game 5 trailer.mov

Luna Game

Update: Apparently this trailer was a hoax. Ah well, at least the 5th Luna Game should come someday...right?

This appears to be some kind of trailer for an official 5th Luna Game that was sent to us in an email. Mysterious, eh? Time to speculate!

Board Game: Randleshackle (Playtesting Version)

Download Randleshackle Rules

Seems Sun and Moon inspired a little more interest in pony board gaming! I'll bite. This game was actually sent in a while back, but I've got quite the backlog to get through.

In the style of its predecessor, Randleshackle is a chess-like game played between two players marshaling the forces of Celestia and Luna. The goal of the game is to amass points by capturing the opponents mules, unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, and ends when the opponent's alicorn is captured. A 3-player mode is in development, but it looks like it has a way to go at the moment.

On their turns, players can empower their ponies to use special racial powers: resilience for earth ponies, flight for pegasi, and magic for earth ponies. The powers function as a roshambo mechanic - unicorns have the advantage against pegasi, who trump earth ponies, who in turn stymie unicorns.

The best thing about the game? It's still in play-testing, so your feedback determines how the final project comes out! Enjoy.

Simple Othello

 

Simple Othello

 We don't seem to have an official policy on board game clients, so I figured that I might as well post this Reversi implimentation. It doesn't have way too much pony aside from the game icon and background, but why not? The Brony fandom could use some more presence on the Windows Store anyways. Spread the love!

I was going to blab about news being slow, but maybe I should shut up and get back to work on my visual novel. Wonder how much production will cost in paper and crayons consumed...

Luna Game 0 Demo

Luna Game 0 Demo

So the next game in the Luna Game series is underway, but this time it seems we're going backwards! Based on the name, and the things that go on in game, I'd say the next game is going to be a prequel to the series, and may explain a few things about the story behind the series. If you aren't familiar with the series, you can play all the games HERE.


You can download the game in the following link:
Download Game Here


Below the Break is a bunch of spoilers.

The game starts out with you playing as Princess Luna again, but this time with much more improved graphics,  along with other NPCs, something that hasn't been done in a Luna Game before. All 6 of the Mane Cast can be found throughout the map, and each say their own unique phrases.

The goal of this demo is to talk with the ponies, and certain ponies will tell you who you need to talk to next. Basically  you end up gathering all the ponies together for a second party to celebrate your return (I believe that's what the party is for). After the screen fades out and back in, Luna thanks the ponies for the party, and then it fades to the familiar background of Luna Game 4, with Luna saying she will never forget them, even now.

The screen fades to black, and the text 'I miss you guys' appears. After it fades again, it goes to a screen that says Luna Game in blood red letters while playing creepy music. The Number 0 appears underneath with a splatter sound, and the game soon closes afterwards.
NOTE: If you play the game between 11 PM and 5 AM, after an hour creepy music will begin to play. This is the only game that does this.

You can watch the playthrough video here

The NPCs add a more game type feel to this Luna Game, but it is only a demo, so I have no idea what the actual game is going to be like. I'm holding back on rating this until the actual game comes out.

Luna Game 4 (Creepypasta)

Luna Game 4 (Creepypasta)

Alright, after a long wait, the fourth addition to the Luna Game series has been released! If you haven't already played Luna Game, Luna Game 2, and Luna Game 3, I suggest you go do that now.


YOU CAN ONLY PLAY THIS GAME ONE TIME NORMALLY.
Though thanks to a user who emailed me, a program was created that allowed you to replay the game.
You can download that program here


Yes, I'm being completely serious, I couldn't even grab a screenshot on my own because I didn't realize this until AFTER I had played through it (Stole this one from Ponychan). This game is by far the best of the four, so I suggest you play it. I'll throw the link before the break this time, making it easier to play it without spoilers.



DOWNLOAD GAME HERE

WARNING: SPOILERS - IF YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME, CLICK THE LINK ABOVE




Once again, you start out as Princess Luna, standing on a lice grassy cliff with a blue sky, and some kind of cheerful music playing. Though there is only one place you're able to go; off the cliff. After you jump down, you hit the ground at a high speed, and hear a splat as the screen turns black. The text "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" appears on the screen, and after a few moments, the game closes.

Trying to re-open the game is pointless, it won't do anything. After a few seconds, the game re-opens on it's own (It probably just turned into a background task for a few moments) with the words "It didn't have to turn out like this", after a few moments, "You didn't have to die". After this text appears, a few seconds pass by and blood splatters appear on the screen, with the text "BUT NOW YOU'RE IN MY WORLD" shaking madly while a roar plays.

When the roar stops, you see Princess Luna shoot from the sky, and hit the ground. The world is all red, almost appearing as if you're in Pony Hell. At this point, you have to quickly go right, if you're too slow, the darkness from the left will catch up to you, and likely kill you. Though if you DO manage to get past all the crazy terrain, and jump off the cliff (Pretty sure you can't make that jump), you get sent to the next part.

This part is the craziest, it starts with zalgofied text, that seems to be glitching out, and when that goes away, some sort of messed up 8-bit music plays in the background, while bugged up looking block start appearing on the screen. The blocks will randomly change appearance, even if you don't do anything. All the way to the right is a large wall that you cannot get over, the only choice is to head for higher ground. The higher you get, the darker the screen gets, making it very hard to navigate above the blocks to get on top of where you started. When you go back all the way left on the top layer, and jump over the pillar, a creepy pinkie pie is standing there, but disappears very quickly. Continue going right, and the music suddenly gets faster and the blocks start to fade away. Avoiding the terrain is difficult here, but if you reach the end, you run right into the same creepy pinkie pie, and the screen goes black.

You hear a heartbeat fade in, and see a picture of Pinkie Pie from Party of one, as the heartbeat gets louder, the image gets lighter, until it suddenly switches to a disturbing version of the picture with static. The picture goes back and starts fading out again, and you hear Pinkie Pie laughing in the background. The image and heartbeat fade and the game ends. For good this time.

If you try to reopen the game, it simply says "Your fate is already sealed" and doesn't let you open it.

This is a one time play through, so be careful!

HERE is a youtube playthrough of the game.

My Little Game Dev Marathon Reviews: Pink Pone Action / The Unknown / Luna Wander

Time for another dive into the My Little Game Dev Marathon submissions! Again, they've been reviewed and graded relative to the other games in the competition.

Find Pink Pone Action, The Unknown, and Luna Wander below the break!

Download Pink Pone Action

This one's a bit of a head-scratcher. Playing as the long-nosed, unintelligible Pinkepone, the player must traverse a candy-coated level that looks like Super Mario meets Sugar Rush.

However, things are not as they seem. A la Cat Mario (perhaps its closest relative) and other unfair platformers, the world of Pinke Pone Action will kill you by any means necessary. As you fall before inexplicably exploding turtles, collapsing ceilings, and invisible blocks, your amount of lives remaining dips into the negative numbers.

Like many of its counterparts, Pink Pone Action appears to be a demo for a full-length game - and worlds of frustration - to come. I'll look forward to it.

Grade: 7/10

---

Download The Unknown

I'm not sure exactly what to make of this creepy little survival-horror game. The player awakens in the middle of a darkened, snowy, evergreen forest with nothing but his wits and a few flares for protection. Unfortunately, you're quickly surrounded by strange stone ponies with glowing red eyes.

The Unknown takes advantage of the first person medium to add creepiness to your mysterious assailants - they only advance when the player turns away, freezing  the instant you sweep your view back to them. Luckily, they're vulnerable to your dwindling supply of flares.

The object of the game appears to be to survive for as long as possible, limited to the resources you can scavenge from the ground. Until it gets a plot, The Unknown is certainly good for a scare, but not much else.

Grade: 5/10

---

Download Luna Wander (Win x32) | (Win x64)

Among the submissions, Luna Wander takes the cake for world size and perhaps also hours of gameplay (although the latter is tricky to measure). While neither of these can guarantee a game's success, those of you into open-world sandbox games will find a lot to love here.

Playing as the recently exiled Princess Luna, the player must traverse the vast three-dimensional surface of the moon and find enough food and water to survive. These demands are met easily enough (especially if one plays in creative mode,) so what's left to do? Check out the mysterious objects scattered far and wide, that's what.

Located sparsely across the moon's surface are power-ups to help your exploration, materials with which to build crude shelters, and many other strange objects (which I won't spoil.) Even if you cheat using the included map, exploration will take a very long time - so play if you're ready to submerge yourself in the meditative world of the game for a while.

This one's a little hard to grade. At times, I felt lost in the wasteland with little sense of direction and few to no reference points - but I get the feeling that was part of the intended experience. It's not the right game for everyone, but what Luna Wander attempted, it confidently achieves.

Grade: 8/10

---

Update: seems like we've overtaxed MLGD's Dropbox. Here are alternate download links for Luna Wander and The Unknown - Thanks, Jach Marsdonpone!