Compilation Post #1

 Hello! Sorry for letting the site go quiet for a while. Between other projects of mine and personal life things, there hasn't been much time to devote to playing through fangames to write individual posts. In an effort to bring some activity to this place regardless, I'm going to start writing little compilation posts of the smaller projects we receive in our submissions inbox. Expect a variety of content in these, from completed games to pitches for larger projects that just don't have enough information available yet to fill an entire article.

 If any of the content here looks like it should have its own separate article, feel free to leave a comment saying so!

My Little Karaoke: Beta Channel

My Little Karaoke

 Last night, the team behind My Little Karaoke - an UltraStar song pack chock-full of brony music and other things, and pretty much the only thing in our karaoke tag - released a new update. Unlike previous updates, this one contains no new songs, but instead is focused on the game itself, moving to a brand-new launcher and engine with support for things like online leaderboards, duet songs, and a system to facilitate quicker song releases. Check their release post for more information.

- RedEnchilada

Pony Rush

Pony Rush

 For those who need a little bit of pony on the go, Pony Rush is a simple cloud-doger game for Android smartphones. (And as clever people could figure out from the title, you play as a pony. I don't know her name.) There are two modes; an endurance mode where you fly until hitting a cloud, and a time attack mode where the goal is to reach the end as quickly as possible. There isn't a lot of depth (nor sound; put on your music library while you play, I guess), but the best scores for each mode are stored, so pursuing a new best might be a good way to kill a few idle minutes. The game ran fine on my underclocked Galaxy SII, and no special permissions are required, so it shouldn't be difficult to run the game on any decent phone.

- RedEnchilada

Game: Cutie Mark Unmagic

Cutie Mark Unmagic

 Hot on the nonexistent trails of the lack of news about season 5 of that one horse show, futzi01 has another one of those Flash games he always makes. This time, the concept is six minigames centered around one-upping each member of the main cast at some part of their special talents, sending them face-first into crushing show spoilers and the endless wait for more drips of information. If all six of the minigames are beaten in one sitting, your reward is a screen ranting about the excessive commercialization of a show designed primarily to sell toys.

- RedEnchilada

Canterlot Siege 3: Inversion

Canterlot Siege 3: Inversion

 Hot off the queue of things that have lingered in our inbox for a depressingly long time, Canterlot Siege 3: Inversion is the latest entry in the line of Flash-powered tower defense games by futzi01 starring characters from the MLP universe. The main difference in this one is that now you're playing as the villains, trying to stop the good guys from reclaiming their home. Gameplay-wise, notable additions include the ability to place boss characters - fully upgraded attackers with special attack patterns - and additional variety in the level choices, going from the old design philosophy of different paths in a grassy field to levels with some actual variety in them, even if only visually. The game does get difficult fast - as someone not well-versed in tower defense games, I struggled to make it very far my first few rounds - but it becomes more manageable with practice.

 At this point I mostly post these things to keep a log of them. Most of the people interested in this game probably follow the author and played it months ago.

- RedEnchilada

My Little Karaoke: Additional Content Disc #3

My Little Karaoke

 For the third time in a row, the My Little Karaoke team has released a new batch of songs for aspiring horsefamous singers to destroy their vocal cords to. If you've seen this project before, you'll know what to expect; if you haven't, it shouldn't be hard to guess. Like always, the new pack can be downloaded from the project's official site, and the listing of new tracks will be copied below the break.

Game: Legacy of the Pony

 

Legacy of the Pony

  This game has been out for a couple of months now, but it's never too late to post about projects, I think! Legacy of the Pony, created by DeftFunk and Noonanna, is a non-linear Metroidvania-style platformer starring Spike as he ventures through a sprawling cave system to rescue Rarity from the Diamond Dogs. To complete their journey, players will need to locate the Elements of Harmony hidden deep in every corner of the game world.. A variety of powerups and collectibles are littered throughout the game to help Spike on his quest, and a map system helps keep players from getting lost. The game has an 8-bit aesthetic reminiscent of Game Boy games, which provides a bit of charm.

 The game can be downloaded from Dropbox (with a Spanish version available for some of the international readers out there), and it has its own subreddit for discussion on the game. I've barely scratched the surface of the game so far; this post may see updates in the near future with further impressions as I progress.

- RedEnchilada

Game: Unicorn Training

Unicorn Training
Demo | Full ($0.99)

 Adventures in Equica: Unicorn Training is a top-down shooter/RPG hybrid game developed by Yotes Games for mobile phones and tablets, which takes inspiration from the FiM universe but apparently manages to be distinct enough to get away with being a paid game. The game centers around a young unicorn named Clover, apprentice to Totally Not Starswirl the Bearded, as she trains in the ways of magical combat. While we posted about the project in its earlier days, when it was known as Unicorn Quest, the game finally released over the weekend for Android devices. The full version, which costs 99 cents, contains nine dungeons to explore, though only the first is available in the demo.

 While the game shows promise, my play session with the demo was disappointing; poor touch screen controls combined with tedious, monotonous fights and a dungeon that went on for too long to create an unsatisfying experience. Various bugs in movement and the interface served only to further dampen the fun. In addition, the boss at the end of the demo's dungeon simply vanished when I attempted to reload a save file, leaving me no other option but to exit without seeing whatever proper ending may have been there. An extra coat of polish and some more effort on dungeon design would greatly benefit this game; right now, I can't recommend much more than trying the demo out for a play session or two.

- RedEnchilada

Robin Steele the Waifu Thief

Robin Steele the Waifu Thief

 Created in 48 hours for the Crystal Games Challenge (which either nobody told us about or we lost in our email inbox somewhere), Robin Steele the Waifu Thief is a small game by Pix3M about a villainous Original Character Donut Steel™ barging into Canterlot Castle and claiming Twilight Sparkle as his waifu, whoever he has to take down to get there. Naturally, you play as the villain. Randomly generated floors and a massive difficulty help to somewhat increase the playability of this rather short game, and it's definitely worth a couple plays for the beautiful sprite work, but once you've experienced the ending, there isn't much to come back to.

- RedEnchilada

Card Game: Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder

 

Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder

 This fandom has a lot of shipping. A ludicrous amount, actually. There are some problems with the shipping, however: it's not interactive, and has a tendency to take itself way too seriously. Fortunately, the shipping present here suffers neither of those problems. Instead, players are treated to a humorous card game with a surprisingly deep level of strategy

My Little Karaoke: Additional Content Disc #2

My Little Karaoke

Last week, the crew behind My Little Karaoke - a song pack and modification for UltraStar for singing along with various pony songs - released a new content disc. The expansion provides a total of over 90 new songs according to the developers, including foreign language versions of a few official songs for you to improvise nonsensical lyrics over, as well as a bunch of brony music of... varying quality. (I liked a couple of them, anyway.) The update also comes with a new visual identity for the project.

You can find the download here, although the individual ZIP downloads of songs are no longer available, leaving the only option to download the entire 2GB ISO (which they seem insistent on using, as opposed to other, more sane archive formats for digital downloads like this) and extract the songs you want. The prior downloads have to be installed for an automatic installation to work, although nothing's stopping you from pulling the songs themselves into a custom UltraStar installation.

Read past the break for the list of new songs in this release.

PPPPPPonies

PPPPPPonies

 This has been sitting in our inbox for a few days undetected, but someone by the name of inderpxar modded VVVVVV to replace all of the characters with ponies. There are also a few dialog changes. There's not really much to say about a simple graphics mod, but it's an excuse to play through the game again, so I suppose it must be worth something. More information, and a download link with instructions for applying the mod, can be found in the Tumblr post.

- RedEnchilada

Review: Pony Platforming Project 3 1/2

Pony Platforming Project 3 1/2

 If you remember when Minty Fresh Adventure was released back in April over two years ago (has it really been that long?), Mark Sprague mentioned that he was planning on releasing an expansion of sorts to the game, but it kind of got pushed out of the way in order to focus on finishing the much more ambitious Minty Fresh Adventure II by the end of the year. Of course, we all know how that went, and in order to keep us distracted from asking where his game went Mark has gone and finally tossed PPP 3 1/2 to the masses...two years late.

Ah well, at least it's something. In case you're wondering how the expansion turned out, I've written a review of sorts below the break.