My Little Pony, My Little Pony, what will today's adventure be? Well, in Friendship is Magic: Story of the Blanks, a retro-NES experience by Donitz, Applebloom talks herself into going with Twilight Sparkle to deliver a package to the magician in the forest. But the woods are dark and scary, and you'll never know what you will find... Flowers? Friendship? Magic? Love? Diamonds? Candy? Who knows? You'll need a beautiful heart, faithful and strong, to make it to the end, but a little bit of magic should make it all complete.
Story of the Blanks has a simple control scheme, befitting its 8-bit appearance. [Arrow keys] to move Applebloom and [z] to talk to her pony friends, pick up and deliver items, and any other sort of interaction with the world of the blanks.
Story of the Blanks makes for a nice pastiche of old-school licensed games. I thought it cool that staying within the limitations of the NES hardware was clearly a consideration by the developer and musicians. It's not quite up to the Great Gatsby level, but I could easily imagine this requiring repeated cartridge blowing to start up. The game not particularly long or difficult, and while a knowledge of the cartoon may add to your enjoyment, it's not required. Please note by the rating that there are elements that don't exactly fit with the kidsafe nature of the cartoon... that's the internet for ya, I guess. Still, Friendship is Magic: The Story of the Blanks is short, twisty, and demented in all the right ways. Whether you're playing it for the meme or just as a break, I think you'll enjoy it.
My Little Pony game.... twisty and demented? Ok, you got my interest!
.....oh snap D:
First hint for you guys...
STAY AWAY FROM DEAD PONIES.
Seriously. You will die. I died twice already x_x
What.... Just.... Happened.....
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT??????
11th time was the charm, and I finished the game. My interpretation of what happened (and if you have anything I missed, please point it out):
Unless I'm mistaken, a pony was born with a "cutie mark"... which all the My Little Pony ponies have... but this pony was the first with a mark. The other ponies thought it was a bad omen and decided to murder her, apparently. I don't see how she would have "ruined the party", though... they'd clearly left her alone for at least a few years, since she wasn't a baby, so decided to murder the night of the party seems like THEY ruined it. Silly ponies.
That... was surprisingly good. Nice old school style, very creepy and twisted story, and leaves plenty of room for the player to imagine what happened in that town. My Little Pony isn't my cup of tea, but I did enjoy the game for it's own little story.
My only complaint is on how short the game is. Something like this has a lot of potential for growth, in my opinion. I give it five mushrooms.
Help! I'm stuck at the well! I need the crank!
JIGuest:
On the second village screen, in the bottom left, you'll find a red gem; take it Roneo on the first screen. He'll leave the doorway he is standing in, so you can enter
I saw this, read the first half of the review, then sent the link to a friend of mine who likes MLP without playing more than about 60 seconds.
When he whispered me back that he was going to have trouble sleeping for the next few nights, I was confused. So I played it.
VERY unexpected, and frankly, I think the MLP motif is exactly why it's so deliciously creepy.
5 mushroomed to the max. Perfectly played.
>Becky apparently doesn't watch the series
No mention of the "Bronies"? I don't know if you gain or lose internet points for that, Tricky :)
I got myself stuck in the house with the pushable blocks. I can't find a way to get out, or to reset the game. I don't want to have to start over :-/
For a little while, I was feeling rather disappointed, but I liked the twist it took about half way through, that made things REALLY interesting for me. I agree with dylpickles, though. I wish it were longer.
I feel like this game should be called
Friendship is Black Magic
Weirdness.
Anon: You're right, I don't! What am I missing?
This got deliciously creepy. I wish there had been more explanation, but the opportunity to think to myself
OH MY GOD ZOMBIE PONIES ARE GONNA GET ME
made it all worth it.
:( Woulda been good but it was way too hard for me to avoid the zombie ponies
Shaking... all... over! :) Did not expect this to be so darned scary.
To darkxangel83: it helps if you use two arrow keys at a time to move diagonally.
Becky:
Ponies earn a cutie mark upon demonstrating a special talent or ability. Applebloom has not yet earned hers. She is sometimes called a "blank flank" for this.
...did I just spend 15 minutes looking up My Little Pony on Wikipedia? What happened?
delightfully demented... i'm a little slow on the quick twitch of old school gaming... the zombie ponies took me out numerous times but that was fun!
That fast one gets me every single time. Sigh.
To anyone having trouble with the zomponies:
After the first one, go diagonally to the blocked path, there's a boulder. Quickly move it down and you'll have enough time to get out of the 3rd pony's way.
Afterwards, just keep going through the forest as fast as you can.
Thanks Becky, but what's up with the pony crying and repeating "It is not right. This is not right."??
...
And how the darn do I escape Gladstone!? Who is Gladstone??
Dude, zombie ponies are crazy scary!
Jay is games are bronies?YESSS
The new my little pony series is very good.if you havent already,Watch it.
JIGuest
I felt the pony saying that was attempting to protect pony with the mark, and was possibly crying and saying that because it wasn't right for the other ponies to want to "get rid" of another. Also, I just realized that the others probably think that the mark -is- a bad omen, like Becky said, because they don't know what the marks are, since they've been living in the forest for so long. As far as they knew, the mark really couldve been bad.
Was neat and all... but the grammar of the dialogue was so out of character.
Zecora didn't rhyme, Twilight spoke as if she was a robot ("I am/have not" instead of how she normally talks which is "I'm/haven't"), and AppleBloom's little cute southern charm was lost completely.
For someone who watched the show you'd at least think he'd get those right as he made the game...
Parodies are called parodies for a reason. Would have been better off if he'd used original character ponies instead and called it a tribute game.
Uhm... How do you start the game? :S
I think I'm just gonna go turn on a bunch of lights in my room and hide under the covers now... ._.
InsanePenguin - I agree.
And there's the whole "OMG I don't have enough tiiiiiimmmee and I'm gonna diiiie- Hey, I'm free! La de d- Crap. More zomponies." effect.
Zecora seemed to rhyme to me. And I wouldn't call this a parody.
In only 3 tries! (I didn't know what was going on the first two times).
That was awesome!
Knowing ahead of time that it was creepy, I was still surprised by how scary it was!
When you first find the bones in the fireplace, I thought they had killed Twilight! But that would have been reeeeeeeally dark... I was very relieved to see her at the end!
Holy cow! That was terrifying! I don't know what makes this game so creepy, but it does do its job well.
Amy, there's a reason it's considered dark:
They DID kill her!
Well, they didn't kill *Twilight*...they killed that other Pony, the one who gained the magnifying glass cutie mark. She shows up later because she's a ghost now.
This was very creepy, as I stated before. But probley would have been more creepy if I knew more about my littlr pony. Oh well.
My reaction to seeing this: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
However apparently it is very dark and that's good. Good job not making it a true game for the series!
Ponies, you will not get to me!
This game... I shared it with a couple MLP-loving friends, and they actually convinced me to watch Friendship is Magic, at least the first few minutes.
I am now officially a brony, and all because of this game. It is awesome, and deliciously, wonderfully creepy, and best played without being spoiled (but of course if you've read the comments to this point you've already been spoiled, so c'est la vie).
FIVE MUSHROOMS, ASLFKHG.
I thought it'd be longer than this. It was fun, I was so scared at the time I was playing but it ended so soon D:
I'm stuck at the cartridge screen. How do I start the game?
If the series was anything like this, i would become a brony. Note to the developer: please, consider more
dead ponies, murder mysteries and relics of the past
in the future.
Was I the only one?
When I first saw Ruby, I immediately thought, "Derpy Hooves!"
Elpunt: No, you were not.
I thought it was Derpy myself, and that Derpy was going to do something adorably stupid and get her and Applebloom in trouble.
How very wrong I was.
I absolutely love this creepy story! I don't understand what she found in the fireplace... I guess it was the ponie's skeleton. I don't understand one thing though... who was the dead pony & what were the other dead ponies talking about? I was so confused. I guess I should watch the new MLP series huh.
I can't get the game to start! It's stuck on the title screen. Is there something I'm missing? Please help!
I had heard a lot about this game being terrifying, bronies not being able to sleep after playing it, etc. before I tried it out myself. In that respect, I was a little disappointed that it wasn't particularly scary so much as just dark.
That being said, the game's reputation certainly isn't the developer's fault, and the plot (and graphics!) are really good. I'd definitely recommend it to my fellow bronies.
Oh, the "zombie" ponies don't kill you, they just turn you into one of them, which can never get cutie marks.
Can someone PLEASE tell me how to get past that infuriating crate puzzel!? I've been stuck for twenty minutes. >:(
I thought it was Derpy too!
To turn on:Click on the game screen and press space.Simple!
Yes,i'm a bronie,but this game scared me away from my little ponie forever!!I used to think my little ponies were cute,but ponies killing one another?CREEPY!!But I can sleep,you know they aren't real.Like when I was younger and got scared of missingno from pokemon,I got over it.
I know Halloween (Nightmare Night, whatever you wanna call it) is coming up and all, but holy CRAP that was spooky.
One of these days I shall find out why I've come back to this game multiple times since that initial freak-out. :/
my little pony? could it get any weirder? really like i never expected myself to get attacked by evil ponys. this game is short awsome fun and addicting. one play and you wanna play it all day long
A theory I have on the backstory to this game, after watching recent episodes:
Sunny Town was hit hard by an outbreak of Cutie Pox. Nothing productive could get done due to none of the residents being able to control their actions; houses couldn't be built, crops couldn't be gathered, injuries/illnesses couldn't be tended to...
Eventually the outbreak went away, but not after leaving a massive psychological scar on the entire populace, leaving them all in mortal terror of the plague marks that had nearly decimated their whole village.
...Then Ruby suddenly shows one of the symptoms when a magnifying glass appears on her. Panic ensues, and the populace reacts in the only way they can to prevent what they believe to be a second outbreak...
Eliminate the source.
i played this till the zombie bit. I actually screamed. then i died which came to be a bit of a relief. OnyxMouse's theory is good!
This was.... scary butt fun
I feel I owe an apology to both a friend of mine, and the fandom in general: In a video I made recently, I used a snippet from a playthrough of this game that cut off right before the fireplace scene.
Said friend got curious, played the game....and now refuses to have anything to do with MLP:FiM ever again.
Umm...oops.
so my interpretation:
-The events happening here happened a pretty damn long time ago, hinted at the 'relics of the past' line from the end of the game and as Onyx theorized are from an outbreak of cutie pox. Which is mentioned in the episode that a village 'way back in the Paleopony period' had an outbreak of cutie pox the cause of which was never discovered.
-So now, cutie marks are considered the mark of a curse in the village.
-During a party Ruby goes and finds the present her friend lost. She gains the cutie mark because she's good at finding things.
-Village ponies kill her because they think she's cursed and will start the cutie pox all over again. They leave her corpse in the house on the edge of the village.
-Village ponies are then cursed themselves to remain undead and living out the events of the night they killed Ruby on the same night it happened every year. This is according to what that one zombie pony says before you leave the village
-Ruby accidentally leads Applebloom right into the middle of the reenactment because she's curious about applebloom. Events play out from there.
and that's pretty much it.
I honestly didn't think it was creepy enough to scare me out of sleeping. I thought it was well done, slightly creepy but not to that degree.
Cool game that changed my life.
I am in the herd.
Bronyfication complete!!
The zomponies kept me awake for a night, but a pinkie would say, giggle at the unusually scary zomponies that probably don't exist
If the crying mare was in the barn is Derpy,Dinky got murdered!
...I had to take sleeping pills to go to bed tonight. Meanwhile, my 6 YEAR OLD SISTER played it and said it was cool. I feel dumb.
I'm sorry, but i have a different theory:
So all the pony's never could gain cutey marks, for some random reason. But one day, Ruby (The ghost Girl,) found something and gained a cutey mark. The other pony's were so jealous of her, they accused her of harboring a bad omen. So they slaughtered her out of their jealousy. And the rest is pretty much the same as Touk's.
I got to the part where Applebloom found the bones in the fireplace, then couldn't handle it and closed the page QMQ
how do you get passed the black ponies can't get passed the third one it moves to fast
My thoughts when i saw the
zombie ponies was "crap crap i need a sword wait can? ponies even use swords? even have them? wait crap crap FUS RO DAH wait this isnt skyrim OMG RUN crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap *dies* :("
My Theory:
First, there is two types of ponies in the village: Shades and zombies. Second, I'm going to ignore the cutie pox as this game was written before that episode was released.
A long time ago there was a bunch of blank flanks. They decided to kill all the ponies who had cutie marks as they were jealous. As a punishment they were cursed to remain blank flanks for all entirety and became the shades. The immortal ponies now live in the village, only revealing their true form when they have no reason to disguise themselves. They kill any ponies with cutie marks who they come across, and they also turn any blank flanks who discover their true nature into one of them. In the present time Ruby discovers the village because her talent is finding things, and she discovers that is her talent while in the village, gaining her cutie mark. The shades then kill her and burn her corpse. The zombie ponies are the dead ponies who were killed by the blank flanks/shades.
Just read through all the comments, and my theory as to what happened is a little different, so here it is:
To begin with, the murderponies killed more than just the one we see, as evidenced by the crying pony saying "...again and again and again."
Given that, I believe that these ponies existed at a time when cutie marks were first appearing. Unfortunately, they believed cute marks to be a bad omen, so they killed anypony who gained a cutie mark.
Their punishment is to stay forever in the Everfree Forest as zomponies.
I get the feeling the one pony who was crying and saying "It's not right! It's not right! It happens over and over!" was crying because
the other ghost ponies claim "blank flanks" and kill those with cutie marks... therefore, this has happened more than once, and happens again and again, to living ponies like Applebloom.
I like InsanePenguin's theory a lot more, actually.
The ZomPonies got me like, what? 20 or so times? I gave up for a few minutes after that. --still trying.-- --looks up YouTube video--
AhHA!!
If you are having trouble with the game at ALL, go to this youtube video:
(i can't put links, so here.)
Friendship is 8-Bit: Story of the Blanks Playthrough/Walkthrough.
it's...a playthrough. I figured it was a last resort to finishing this game. nice storyline, I guess....(this scared the crap outta me!!!
The first half of the game was creepy enough, with all those dark forest. Then it just get even creepier...
... when I found the pony skeleton.
I then proceed to cry "oh my god" repeatedly through out the second half of the game, especially when...
...I have to flee from the second ghost by pushing the boulder. Oh my god, why is the boulder so heavy!?
I have watched a few episodes of MLP, so I can understand some reference, like the cutie mark one. That make this game even creepier for me. I'm thankful that I'm at home with my parents and siblings right now, and not at my dorm alone.
Reading all the comments after finishing the game and thinking about how I managed to beat the game first try and was only mildly creeped out by it :P
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