Magic Duel Episode Minigame Compilation Post

Sweet mother of Celestia, that was quite an episode last weekend. In just a few days, it's spawned loads of fan content - including games, of course. Astounded? Don't thank me, thank sparklepeep, FearlessPie, and SylrePony! More after the break.

Thrack-It Trixie

Working on a rock farm? Sounds like a great central mechanic for a game. Relive Trixie Lulamoon's time in poverty, and earn a million bits to purchase the alicorn amulet and defeat that no-good Twilight Sparkle. Avoid the treacherous wheels! After a few levels of frantic teleporation, this game actually gets fairly hard - prepare to spend a little more time than you expect.

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Animal Juggling

Fluttershy will mess you up if you drop her animal friends. Seriously, don't even think about it. However, this may prove difficult, as they just keep falling from the sky. Master the art of magical animal aerobatics in preparation for a high-pressure exhibition in front of several foreign diplomats! 

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Rainbow's Tail

Rainbow Dash has a serious need to collect magical floating orbs, but her balance is off. Way off. Can you master the challenges of one-button flight? This game can be frustrating on your first few tries - miss one sphere, and you're pretty much doomed - but gets much more satisfying when you finally get the knack of keeping Rainbow Dash airborne. An even harder sequel centered around the flight-challenged Scootaloo in commemoration of next week's episode would be pretty cool.

Gravity Pony

Gravity Pony (Download)
(Arcade)

Happy U.S. Thanksgiving, everypony! Regardless of where you live, November's as good a time as any to eat good food and play pony video games. Because that's what this holiday is for... right?

Anyhow, Zilven Sparkle's whipped up a gravity-based pony minigame to keep you occupied. Help Twilight master gravity spells, and try to avoid falling to your doom for as long as possible. The game appears to use the same animation as the upcoming Super Smash Ponies, and looks great in practice. If you've got .exe download problems, the HTML5 version can be found here, although lag and graphical issues are to be expected.

Review: Twilight vs Walking

Play it Here!
Or on the Equestria Gaming Arcade

Few online games have reached the same level of legendary infamy as the infuriating QWOP. It's frustrating. It's bewildering. And, unfortunately, it's addicting. Meanwhile, the Equestria Gaming R&D department developed the Pony Proliferation Postulate: one minus the reciprocal of the Faust Constant to the power of internet notoriety times time since the premier of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is equal to the probability of content ponification, or P(p) = 1 - (1/F)^tN. The brilliant Donitz applied one to the other and discovered it was high time we controlled a jelly-legged Twilight Sparkle attempting to cross her own floor. 

C'mon, guys, QWOP with ponies. Read on after the break! [WARNING: SOME SPOILERS]

Playing this game would be a completely different experience if one controlled two different pony muscles per leg, as in QWOP. While Twilight vs. Walking is markedly easier than QWOP (Twilight's four relatively stable legs, along with checkpoints between rooms, allow you to take breaks) and shortens the play time. However, the resulting control scheme is infinitely preferable to QWASOPL:.

Your epic odyssey begins in Twilight's upstairs bedroom, and, over the course of three levels, almost to the front door. You'll stride gallantly over mighty book forts - if you can make it there. Twilight vs. Walking has replaced QWOP's insolent hurdle with a much scarier flight of stairs. It's not as great an obstacle as it appears, but expect to bobsled down at least your first couple of times. 

"Spike, take a note. My foreleg seems to have melded with my flank."

In an unforeseen twist (this is the spoiler, if you haven't figured that out already,) just as you're about to cross the final room, a chasm opens in the floor and Twilight seems to plummet into an infernal pit. Red light glows from somewhere below as your body fades to black and breaks apart, adding an air of darkness to an otherwise cheerful game. An alarm clock rings, explaining your failure to walk and your lack of a horn away as elements of a dream.

Twilight Sparkle vs. Walking fully serves it's purpose as a QWOP clone. It's tough to complain about the responsiveness and ease of the controls in a game where that's intentionally the problem. If you liked QWOP, this is a pretty great game. If QWOP isn't your type of game, well... you're probably not reading this. Twilight Sparkle vs. Walking snags a peachy Spike Grade.

Pony On the Moon/Parasprite Invaders

Pony On the Moon/Parasprite Invaders

Pony On the Moon and Parasprite Invaders are two unfinished Java games. The first one is a gravity-based platformer starring Luna, who has been trapped on the moon yet again. In order to survive she must eat, and somepony has conveniently left some muffins drifting around. You'd think that she would also need an oxygen supply if she requires food, but then again this is just a fun platformer that could really use a dedicated artist.

The second game is a simple asteroids clone, except instead of a spaceship you control Twilight's horn, and in place of asteroids you get parasprites. Again, it's in an early state and once again shows that programmers in general are terrible artists, but if you somehow managed to get bored of Waiting is Magic (which we reviewed earlier) then this might be a fun little time waster.

If you want to play these two games you can find Pony On the Moon at http://ponies-in-space.appspot.com/ while Parasprite Invaders is located at http://ponies-in-space.appspot.com/paraspriteinvaders.html. Have fun!