PonyCraft Video Update #7

It seems that the developers of PonyCraft have decided to completely rewrite their game in C++, which means that development will probably take much longer than it would have before. To make up for it though they've released a brief update video showcasing Twilight Sparke's new abilities and voice acting by the talented Rina-chan. Not much, but at least it's something, right?

Anyhow, you can find the video update below the break. I was originally going to put it at the top of the article but figured that you would like to see the game's fabulous logo in all its glory.

Ponyhammer First Draft

Rules

Sadly, I'm a little lacking in Warhammer experience. Hopefully, that won't be true for long! AribanDeTyral's written up a lengthy ponified version inspired by the game, and he's looking for critique on his first draft. Find the rules above, break out the blind bags, and play some tabletop ponies!

Shattered Kingdom

Shattered Kingdom

 There are a lot of story-based games circling around the pony fandom, but not many have the strong player-influenced dynamic that Shattered Kingdom aims to provide. The project, being developed by a group known as Alicorn Games, is a turn-based strategy RPG centered around an Equestrian civil war between the Celestial Empire and the New Lunar Republic. The game will be heavily story-oriented and non-linear, with the player's actions influencing various story elements throughout the course of the game.

 The game is still early in development, and no public demo exists (at least that I can find), but a recent video of their panel at Bronycon 2014 showcases some of the team's current progress. More information can be found on the team's official blog.

Super Pony Wars Demo

Super Pony Wars

 Browsing the graveyard that is Ponychan's /collab/ board can occasionally bring up interesting stuff if you have the patience to wade through the endless corpses of once-promising projects, and Super Pony Wars appears to be one of the few which isn't quite dead yet, as a demo for it was released a couple days ago without much ado. From what I've gathered it's supposed to be some sort of strategy/RPG game based off of Super Robot Wars (which I have neither heard of nor played), featuring a cast made up of original characters, an unintuitive interface that could really use some documentation, and a bunch of placeholder RPG Maker sprites. It could probably become a pretty decent game if it were given enough love, sure, but it's been kind of overlooked on Ponychan and the creator seems to be losing interest.

Dunno if this one will ever come to anything, unfortunately, so in the meantime all we can do is watch and wait.

Nightfall Beta v3.89

Nightfall

(Download)

 It seems that Night Breeze of Silly Mares Games will be especially busy this November due to college, and since the real fourth beta for Nightfall isn't ready yet he's decided to make a relatively minor release in the meantime to pacify the masses. Enjoy, fellow pony fans, as I look into the possibility of eventually switching over to the Ghost blogging platform while listening to sludge metal and wondering why the fridge's water dispenser pours warm water instead of cold (which doesn't make any sense to me).

Release notes have been copypasted below the break.

• Collecting structures now restores half of its energy cost. 
• Added air dash. 
• Enemies' AI improved. 
• Shadowbolts and some bosses can now stun the player/mercenaries. 
• Items and structures can now be sold. 
• 'Force night' option now gives some extra money in Normal mode. 
• Creative mode now features double money gain. 
• Light Torches now show their area of effect before being built as well. 
• Shorter position cooldown for building. 
• You don't lose lives anymore by falling off the map. 
• Lower drop rate for power-ups. 
• Added 'Game speed' option (F5). 
• Game is now slightly faster by default. 
• Changed 'show/hide coordinates' key to F7. 
• Other minor changes and bug fixes.

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...

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! 

Nightfall Beta 3

Nightfall

(Download)

 Yep, Silly Mare Games has released yet another beta for their upcoming Nightfall project, and it comes with plenty of improvements such as an inventory system, along with a compass to prevent the player from getting lost while exploring the world. Of course, there are also a decent amount of balance upgrades to further polish the experience before release, along with some new night stages and whatnot for those who breezed through the original beta.

I would write more, but I'm rather tired so I'll just copy & paste the changelog below the break. Goodnight, and enjoy the game!

• Added Inventory and Items system/menu (including Frost and Flame Towers). This is huge. Items are not dropped very much, but you can search for 'Mystery Bags' around the world as well, and I'll be probably adding more and more items in later versions.
• Added Spirit system. Pretty much like MP in RPGs.
• Added Compass system. The game really needed this. Now you can wander around without worrying of losing your way back to your base.
• Added 10 more nights (new enemies, bosses, etc.): up to night 30. Still no story though, just plain old sandbox-building-and-killing-and-upgrading-and-total-chaos nights like it's always been.
• Unknown structures cannot be collected anymore. You better search for a nice spot amongst some pre-placed trees, because a strategic location is a must now. You won't be able to collect those structures you haven't unlocked yet.
• Structures can now be healed using spirit. Thanks to EggheadDash for this idea!
• Longer starting attack range. Because I don't know what I was thinking. The range was ridiculously short.
• Dirt Blocks no longer cost energy. Again, thanks to EggheadDash for the idea!
• All characters constantly regenerate energy now (slower than Applejack, though). It's small, but it's there, and makes a huge difference.
• Rainbow Dash now pierces through enemies while flying.
• Pinkamena mode now doubles up defense as well.
• Wider range for Light Torches' effect.
• Turret Towers have slightly better aim.
• Lower price for some structures.
• Shorter days and nights. 200 seconds each, instead of 250.
• Enemy spawn is now limited to a maximum number of simultaneous enemies.
• Enemies rebalanced. A lot.
• Added 'Dirt Block' hotkey (ctrl). And again, thanks to EggheadDash for this idea as well!
• Added 'order mercenary go to point' key (F). Silly Flitter kept blocking the entrances.
• Several key changes: 'Mercenaries menu' to G, 'force night' to Backspace, 'Achievements menu' to T, and 'show/hide coordinates' to F5.
• Game window is now resizable.
• Other minor changes and bug fixes. A LOT, actually.

Ponymon Dawn/Dusk 0.3 Alpha Release

Download it Here!

At long last, my favorite fan project returns! Yesterday, Flutteryay's team released the 0.3 alpha update of Ponymon Dawn/Dusk, allowing you to catch more of your favorite ponies than ever before! Here's a refresher on the project, for those of you who missed the last post:

Ponymon Dawn/Dusk is a fan project dedicated to producing ROM hacks of Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green. Battle, train, and evolve 151 ponies with custom move sets and their own type trump chart. More information can be found on their handy wiki, which also contains an faq for those unfamiliar with using emulators or concerned with updating their save files to the new version. The new version includes a ton of new ponies and new areas, and I really can't recommend it highly enough to Pokemon fans. Happy hunting!

Updates: Ponyplace/Nightfall Beta 2

Scootaloo's bringing the news! That, or I needed an excuse to use this vector.

Important updates from the Ponyplace and Nightfall projects after the break!

Ponyplace

After a long hiatus, Ponyplace is back! The layout of rooms and character selection is much the same, but accounts are now handled through your gmail via Mozilla Persona. 

When I logged on, the site seemed much better regulated than its former incarnation, with several mods patrolling the chat rooms. Whether you'd care to try out the new classroom minigame or just shoot the breeze, it's worth a look!

---

Nightfall Release Post

Hot on the heels of the original, Nightfall's second beta release is here! It's always nice to see frequent updates of a game incorporating gamer feedback, and bodes well for the project's success in the future. Notable upgrades include ten more nights, doubling the original number, and a new mercenary system. Also added are some new keyboard controls and several balancing measures.

For more screenshots and a full list of new stuff, check out the release post and give the game a whirl!

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.

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.

Alternate MEW Stream

The original stream seems to have hit the limit, so have an alternate one!

Yet Another Nightfall Gameplay Video

Nightfall

 Silly Mare Games continues to make excellent progress in their upcoming Nightfall game, and managed to release an update video a mere week after the last one. This video showcases the mane six, who are now in a somewhat playable state and have their own special abilities. There's also a main menu now, although that is mainly just for the extra polish.

 Coming up later today: the results from the last My Little Game Dev marathon if Wishdream's internet is up to the task. Apparently there are some pretty impressive games in there...

Review: Princess Civilization

Download Princess Civilization Here!
Mirror #1 (Czech site) Mirror #2 Mirror #3

Some reviews take little to no time out of my day. Others take forever, because I get hooked and spend more time than I care to admit beating the game in its entirety. Princess Civilization falls into the latter category.

Playing as Twilight Sparkle, it's up to you to send your scouts across Equestria, spreading peace and harmony as you go! The land is threatened with more than its share of grave danger, but the situation is salvageable with some old-fashioned 4X strategy.

Review below the break!


The game begins with an urgent message from Princess Celestia. Luna has gone missing, and Twilight Sparkle is left to control the expansion of harmony across the land of Equestria. Starting from Ponyville, the player must earn bits, collect elements, and sway local governments tile by tile.

Fortunately, the game contains a full tutorial and plenty of hints for those of you unfamiliar with Civilization or other 4X games. However, while Spike's assistance is helpful, but you'll probably want to mute your volume: the voice acting is more than a little grating.

The game hearkens back to developer Oracion's previous My Little Game Dev entry Everwinter, but unlike Everwinter, the game is fully functional and contains plenty of features to keep gameplay lively. Quests pop up every few turns, and the friendship levels of different towns must be regulated with constant gifts of elements from their more well-supplied neighbors. Internal building and foraging for elements in the wilderness also help to regulate element levels.

Every last tile! Equestria is mine!

Of course, as the exalted arbiter of friendship, you're required to settle disputes between ponies from time to time - answer correctly and you receive various rewards. Your power level as princess increases over time based on a combination of factors, gradually giving you access to prestige-related feats to improve Equestria's infrastructure.

Princess Civilization benefits from a clear, intuitive infrastructure and the addition of all the little things that keep a game running smoothly (for instance, notices keeping track of idle ponies, towns and build queues.) The game's shortcomings are mostly aesthetic: to be frank, it needs an experienced spriter or two to gussy up the landscape.

In addition to the spriting, if the cutscenes and dialogue were strengthened (polish on top of an already solid engine) Princess Civilization could be a very impressive game. In the turn-based strategy genre, however, function always trumps form. For this reason, Princess Civilization deserves an 8/10.

More Nightfall Stuff

Nightfall

 It seems that more progress has been made with Nightfall, as can be seen in the new gameplay video. Several new features have been implemented, such as a rudimentary Day/Night cycle. It's not nearly as nice as the one in Pony Wings, but at least it should do well enough for now. One of the developers also told us that the game will have bosses, which should be rather...interesting. Frankly, there aren't enough fangames with bosses these days, and this disappoints me.

I would write more, but I have a headache. Instead of writing more interesting stuff, I shoved some copypasta from Silly Mare Games below the break. Enjoy?

Hello there! 

I'm Night Breeze from Silly Mare Games, creator of a few previous games like Stroll, My Little Rhythm and Harmony PCG, and I'm glad to announce my new project: Nightfall. 

Nightfall is a 2D platforming game featuring Pinkie Pie, but it's not the usual idea of a platformer. You can think about it as a mix of Terraria or Minecraft and a tower defense game, if you may, but it's still not quite like that either. 

I'll give you a quick description (and I excuse myself beforehand, as English isn't my main language). 

In this game, the main objective so far is to survive. You play as Pinkie in a huge randomly generated world, and along the day you may explore, collect items and build yourself a fortress with many different type of blocks, being dirt, stone, different kinds of turrets, trees, and the like. After 5 real-life minutes, the night comes, and the peaceful ambience of the game goes away. A swarm of enemies will try to get you, destroying everything along the way. You'll have to survive until the sun rises again, by killing the enemies, strategically building your fortress and using the different blocks, collecting money to upgrade your stats, and more. Each night that comes, the enemies will be harder and more frequent, featuring even bosses along the way, and you'll have to strategically develop your character and building stats along it to survive. 

Anyway, that's mainly it! The game is still under development, everything is subject to change, and I'd love to know what you think. 

Be sure to check out the embed video if you haven't yet to see the game yourself, and stay tuned for more updates! 

Over and out!

Nightfall Gameplay Footage

Nightfall

 A couple days ago the folks over at Silly Mare Games (creators of Stroll and Harmony PCG) started working on another fangame they call "Nightfall", and from the released gameplay footage it appears to be some kind of sidescrolling strategy game. As this game is still in early development the final product is probably going to be quite different from the preview here, which is probably a good thing because in my opinion it looked a tad dull. The stock sprites probably have something to do with it, and the background looked a bit too bright for a game of this sort. After all, shouldn't a game called "Nightfall" look sort of dark? Not dark as in "the forces of darkness", mind you (although the team certainly could go in that direction), but more "it was a dark and stormy night".

 Also, Zeeraw still hasn't released the Cloudsdale developer portal. Get to it, man! It's really going to come in handy with this redesign of the Arcade...

Princess Civilization

Princess Civilization

 So far this month has been rather slow for fangame-related news, as most of us have been busy preparing for our final exams and whatnot. Thankfully it appears that a few developers have been able to sneak in some time for development; for example, some guy named Petr Hudecek is getting close to completing his Princess Civilization game, but needs voice actors for Spike and Princess Celestia before he can do so. In my opinion he could probably use some better spriters too, because frankly the terrain looks awful. Gameplay should come before graphics, yes, but your average gamer tends to notice a game's art first and will make their decision on whether to play it or not based on how appealing its graphics are.

 Interested in helping Petr out with his project? Check out his design document over at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PEARgE6fq206J_9PI9NmxRx1qJ6VePRwuJ6rs4M1xY8/edit, and then you can send him an email over at petrhudecek2010@gmail.com.

Little Pony Big War

Little Pony Big War

Man, when May assessment season hits the fandom, it hits hard. This time of year, a lot of game developers (and us blogponies, too) are completely pinned down, but things should pick up speed as summer approaches.

Baejongkim's Little Pony Big War is part strategy, part tower defense. In battle, the player must manage his resources, building mining bunnies and sending out troops to counter an onslaught of Diamond Dogs. Stylistically similar to the Flash classic Age of War, the goal is to build up enough troops to successfully destroy your enemy's base. The handy mini-map displays an overview of units on the screen and the status of the midfield turret.

Although the basic premise is simple, Little Pony Big War has more than enough late-game content to keep you playing. Extra hero units (members of the mane 6) and infantry can be bought and upgraded outside of battle, and are a huge help during the later levels. Overall, it's one of the better flash games I've played recently - Enjoy!

Pony Emblem Survey

A short while ago the Pony Emblem team decided to make a survey on the fandom's opinion on a few aspects of their game. Partaking in this short survey will help them decide how to develop some very important features of the game, and would be a huge help to them.

So if you're interested in taking their survey, you can find it at http://ponyemblem.com/survey/index.php/survey/index/sid/978353/lang/en