Welcome again to my short series on the My Little Pony fan visual novels! In the last part (if you missed it, check it out here!), we’ve looked at six games of vastly variable quality, climate and state of completion, and this trend will definitely continue today. Also, this post will include a (un)healthy portion of fandom cringe, although mostly connected to embarrassing fan fiction tropes, common in the creative output of many online communities, rather than the sheer fact the stories are about ponies. On the other hand, today's list features one of the very few, if not the only MLP VN project that could be seriously interesting to people that are not avid fans of the show – the still-in-development Starswirl Academy, with its impressive (humanized) reimagining of the Friendship is Magic setting and characters. So, let's get this party started! *the Party Cannon rolls in*
Most people agree that, apart from the randomness of internet memes, some of the main sources of Friendship is Magic’s success are its memorable leading characters – the six ponies that fuel the show with their memorable visual designs and vivid personalities. The people from Rosin Entertainment made a pretty obvious conclusion that this general characterisation, if transferred into a humanized, semi-realistic setting, would make a great basis for a moege, and started turning that idea into a reality. Thus, Starswirl Academy was born – an MLP fan game that, while still borrowing a lot from its source material, for an unassuming reader could easily pass as a normal, lighthearted romance VN. And, most importantly, quite a lovely and enjoyable one at that.
Unlike many other “human versions” of MLP, including the official Equestria Girls, Rosin’s project is a total reimagining of Friendship is Magic's fictional world, including details like normal, human names for all of the characters and a modern-day, boarding school setting that makes logical sense. Game’s reinterpretations of the Mane 6 are cute and well-designed (with Twilight as an Asian over-achiever and protagonist’s childhood friend is my personal favourite), both catching the appeal points of their original versions and adjusting them to the context of a "normal" romance story. The dialogue is genuinely fun and while the game seems to focus exclusively on SoL content, it does so in a way that made me seriously excited for the full release. Even the protagonist (named Tom Stone – those familiar with the show should easily catch the reference), while rather average, it not a faceless hunk of meat, with especially his teasing of Tai (the already mentioned, humanized version of Twilight) being extremely fun to read.
Of course, this wouldn’t be an MLP VN without its own development problems, although the team behind this game made a wise decision to not give any kind of timeline or dump frequent updates, but rather working on it at their own pace, with an explicitly stated “when it’s done” approach. For this reason, it’s rather hard to predict anything, although a 2019 release does not seem completely out of question – and if it happens, it quite likely be the one My Little Pony visual novel that I’ll be able to recommend even to those that normally would want nothing to do with the whole franchise. If they don't also hate moege, that is…
Final rating: Highly Recommended
My Little Dashie is one of the most famous MLP fanfics, in which a depressed, lonely brony, living in pauperised industrial neighbourhood finds a box with filly Rainbow Dash, so young she’s unable to speak. Deciding to take care of the pony before any harm comes her way, he ends up becoming her surrogate father in this foreign world. Over the years, he guides her through crucial developmental moments and creates a parent/child bond, while anticipating that whatever magic brought her to Earth will one day come back to reclaim her. It’s a tear-jerker in pure form, combined with the questionable wish-fulfilment of self-insert fan fiction, but executed well enough to gain a widespread appreciation from the community (and regardless of what you might be imagining, the brony fan-writing sphere is neither small, nor is its work of particularly low-quality).
It’s shouldn’t come as a surprise that it was this MLP fic that became one of the very few pieces of fan literature to receive a visual novel adaptation. Produced by Daily Oat Studios and released in early 2015 after a long development, My Little Dashie: The Visual Novel is a faithful, although slightly simplified adaptation of the source story, presented through an hour-long chain of CGs and narration, with very little dialogue and no interactivity – very much an “illustrated book with music” kind of VN. With relatively simple, but pleasing visuals and music, all this makes it possibly the most enjoyable way of experiencing the My Little Dashie story. However, if you would expect anything beyond a direct adaptation, you’ll be sorely disappointed, Also, the story itself definitely caters to the brony sensibilities, to the point where it would probably be pretty hard to digest for anyone at least not familiar with the show and the fan culture around it. It has no romance plot, so it’s not anywhere as creepy as the numerous Human x Pony shipping or porn stories, but will work best for those that, at least at times, would genuinely like to have a pastel-coloured, cartoon horse in their life.
Final rating: Recommended
Newgrounds has a long tradition of flash hentai games and animations parodying various pieces of media, and MLP is no exception to that trend. My Sexy Anthro “series” is a bit of a peculiar example, as it doesn't have much in common with its source material, outside of names and general characteristics of the girls. With as little as the game does when it goes to story (the first one pretty much only includes a minor introduction before the h-scene, with only the second going a bit more into “proper VN” territories), the scenario presented seems to have a bit more in common with Nekopara than MLP, with the hypersexualized “anthros” living among humans and an average-guy protagonist who just happens to catch the attention of a whole harem of those busty, horny creatures. The visuals and dialogues are also distinctly porny, so while designs and personalities of the heroines hold some resemblance to their Friendship is Magic sources, every piece of characterisation is dedicated to making them into walking sex dolls.
Interestingly enough, the anthropomorphic designs are definitely inspired by furry artwork, but look rather distinct and a bit more on the “human” side of things. The h-scenes are of similar quality as in other flash games of this kind, that is not bad, but relatively low on detail and far below professionally-made nukige that you can easily find on the market nowadays. Because of all this, I really don’t see much of any kind of appeal in these games, as they only very superficially cater to either of its potential audiences (that is, either bronies or furries) and aren’t particularly attractive by themselves. Still, if you’re looking really hard for some highly-interactive MLP fap material, My Sexy Anthro is probably among the better option available to you (for whatever that's worth).
Final rating: Not Recommended
One of the notable organizers of the Thai MLP fandom, Parnkung, is also among the most persistent brony game developers, for many years now working on his series of pony dating VNs. While his most ambitious project, My Little Sweet Heart: Story of the Mane 6, is still being produced, in late 2015 he released the Story of Double Diamond – a romance tale with a human, female protagonist, featuring the titular Double Diamond, a mascot of sorts of the Thai brony community, as the main love interest. All these elements are placed in the setting of season 5 opening episodes – the village of brainwashed ponies, fixated on “equality” brought through nullifying their cutie marks and led by manipulative Starlight Glimmer.
With partial (Thai) voice acting and a fairly substantial story, Parnkung’s VN is arguably one of the more ambitious brony fan games in general, but falls into some typical pitfalls of MLP fan fiction. Above all, the Pony x Human romance is immediately weird and the protagonist falling at first sight for a pastel-coloured, talking horse feels unbelievably awkward. It truly is an unholy union of the most embarrassing otome tropes and ponies, with cringe-worthy scenes of the MC getting bashful or disbelieving in her attraction to a non-human. While the game develops the main intrigue quite nicely and even gives a proper justification to the protagonist’s creepy, zoosexual urges, it definitely requires a bit of tolerance and patience to get into. And if you can get past the steep entry barrier, you’re rewarded with a decently-produced and competently-written piece of romance, that can obviously be enhanced heavily by reader’s knowledge of the show, but could possibly even stand on its own.
Final rating: Recommended
With how easy basic VNs are to put together, the EVN scene always spawned its fair share of plain troll games. ICBTPAST is definitely in this category, being a sequel to a similarly obnoxious collection of ugly doodles, copyrighted music, ear-exploding sounds effects etc. There are a few, minor fun things here, which include the premise (the protagonist goes around insulting every character he meets in creative ways, and composing those insults is the main “gameplay mechanic” offered to the player, at times giving some slightly amusing results) and some fandom-specific jokes (like the horrible “princess” OC that plays a crucial role in the story), but generally, we can only be glad that this project was dropped after the first episode and will most likely never be finished. For once, the curse of MLP VNs did something good for humanity.
Final rating: Not Recommended
One of the newest MLP VN projects is a full-blown, erotic dating sim that promises to feature a vast number of romance options, unique character arcs for all of them and explicit Human/Pony sex scenes. All that within a parodistic, but surprisingly faithful adaptation of the FiM setting (basically, everything outside of the everpresent sexual humour feels quite "right"). The art and dialogue, wherever they’re complete and not placeholders, are actually among the better ones I’ve seen in the MLP fan games, making this a surprisingly promising trial, which actually made me want to see more, despite how creeped out I am by the erotic content it might offer later down the line.
The main problem is, that while the Alpha version launched with quite a lot of fanfare last September, even half a year later, there’s actually very little content in the available build, with only Mane 6 having any meaningful interactions and one story scene for each pony, outside of the short prologue. Of course, if the production quality and humour I’ve seen in finished parts of the trial are indicative of what’s to come, it should be worth waiting for. That is, if it ever gets finished – while the decent Patreon support for the team behind it makes this more likely than with many fully-noncommercial projects, there's still a very long way before this game gets even close to being complete. Only time will tell...
Final Rating: Not (Yet) Recommended
And that’s it for now every… Body! What these two posts presented to you is pretty much a complete list of MLP visual novel fan projects, the only exceptions being ones that were never released in English, like the Russian fan games Equestria Flower Day & Hearth's Warming Day. With the last season of Friendship is Magic cartoon coming and the fandom itself shrinking rapidly, I wouldn’t expect many new ones showing up, but if the already-in-development games such as Starswirl Academy and the second My Little Sweet Heart title come to fruition, they might be something worth taking a separate, more detailed look at. For now, I free you all from this den of overly-colourful weirdness and for the foreseeable future, go back to my usual EVN routine. Thanks for following me on this little, bizarre adventure and see you next Friday!
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