A rainbow swirled across the screen for a second. Clearly it was a disguised loading screen, but it only lasted about three seconds so I wasn’t going to complain. When it cleared away, my pony was standing in front of the gates to a city. Rotating the camera around, I recognized this place as the same white marble city from the screenshot on the back of the box. Several other ponies were walking around the area, going about their business.
Badge Unlocked: Welcome to Canterlot
Unlocked By: Create your first pony and begin your adventure.
Reward: 100 bits
The words appeared on my screen and then faded away after about ten seconds. So, the game has an achievement system? I guess that isn’t very surprising. Most games these days do have one. I guess it was safe to assume that the name of the city was Canterlot. But what exactly are bits supposed to be?
The interface was minimalist in design. The only thing of note was a small red bar in the top left corner of the screen. The universal shape and color of a health bar.
I took a moment to play with the controls a little. The controller was made of pink plastic that matched the color of the PonyPad. The movement and camera controls were straight forward. The left thumbstick made my pony walk around and the right thumbstick moved the camera. All standard controls for modern gaming. But what do all the other buttons on the controller do? It was time for me to experiment with the buttons.
Things immediately took a turn for the worst. As soon as I tapped my first button, my character lunged upwards, grabbed a low flying pegasus out of the air, and then pulled him into a heartwarming hug. A dedicated hug button? That’s a little bit odd.
“What the hay? Unhoof me!” The yellow furred stallion shouted.
He thrashed around and tried to break loose, but he couldn’t seem to make any progress in the face of my iron grip. Which was slightly strange considering my character’s below average height. Earth pony strength was apparently no laughing matter.
“Sorry, I don’t know the controls yet!” I reflexively blurted out. To my surprise, my pony shouted the same thing. That’s when I remembered that my coworker told me that this game has a voice recognition feature.
“Just let go of me already!” The pegasus snarled, his blue mane flailing around with his ineffectual struggles.
I couldn’t blame this stallion for being upset with me and losing his temper. I had just violated his personal space in the weirdest way possible. In a similar situation, I would be mad too. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what button to press in order to make my pony let go of him. I tried pressing the same button one more time. Maybe that would make me let go?
The pegasus made a wheezing cough sound and his face turned blue. Apparently, pressing the button a second time just made me squeeze him harder and now he was asphyxiating. His struggles got weaker as his face changed from blue to purple. I was crushing the air from his very lungs! I had to move fast if I was going to save him. It was time for me to start button mashing.
The hug transitioned into a full nelson followed by a german suplex. Then my character picked him back up again, performed a perfect pile driver, and to add insult to injury, jumped up and down on his body. Each painful crunch was emphasized with a vibration from the controller in my hands.
The luckless stallion blipped out of existence. His health must have hit zero.
“Oops!” I felt genuinely bad for the poor guy. He’d only been minding his own business when he got curb stomped out of the blue.
Badge Unlocked: Don’t Touch My Waifu!
Unlocked By: You sent Flash Sentry to the Hospital. You must be one of those kind of bronies.
Reward: 100 bits
I had a feeling that the achievement was trying to make a reference to something. But I never saw the My Little Pony show so the reference went over my head. The achievement said that he was sent to the hospital. That must be what happens when a character runs out of health in this game. I actually felt a tiny bit bad for the poor guy. He was just an NPC, I think, but still…
“Guards, help! That stallion just assaulted that poor pony!”
Uh oh! Time to flee before the authorities could show up! A sharp tilt of the left thumbstick sent me galloping into the streets of Canterlot. Being unfamiliar with the city, I had no idea where I was going. Not that it mattered as long as I was gone from the scene of the crime before the guards could arrive. Minutes passed with no sign of pursuit before I decided that it was safe to stop running.
Now what was I doing before I was interrupted? Right! I was trying to figure out all the buttons on the controller. Thankfully, my further experiments didn’t result in any more injured bystanders.
First, I figured out how to open my inventory. It contained the bits that I had earned from my first two achievements. Based on the item description, I think the bits must be some kind of currency. Another button press, and I figured out how to pick up objects, a small rock in this case. The pebble seemed to stick to the end of my right hoof like a magnet. A different button caused me to put the pebble into my inventory. I was amused to note that putting an object into my inventory caused my pony to stick the object into his mane. Finally, I discovered the jump button. I decided to not play around with the hug button for now as I didn’t want to cause anymore injuries.
Even after testing out all the buttons, I still wasn’t sure how to pickpocket someone. But Earl told me that I would probably have to learn how to do that by reading books in the game so I wasn’t too concerned. A city of this size most likely had a library I could check
With the basics of the controls figured out, I took a moment to actually examine the world around me in closer details. I was standing off to the side of a wide street. Ponies were trotting (or flying in the case of pegasi) past me. The décor at street level offered a wild assortment of colors, but white and purple seemed to dominate the most. Namely, the walls of most of the buildings were white with numerous purple accents. But when my gaze drifted upwards, the color palette changed to white walls with gold topped minaret spires.
Back at ground level, the buildings were lined with vibrantly green hedge rows. A large plaza surrounded me. Judging by the stalls and types of buildings around me, I think I was in a marketplace of some sort.
The ponies themselves were as vividly multicolored as the box art suggested that they would be. Most of them were unicorns, but I did spot a few pegasi and earth ponies going past. They all looked cute, but I was having a small amount of trouble pinning down their facial expressions.
Ah yes, their facial expressions. How do I put this politely?
Their facial expressions were so deep into the uncanny valley, that you could open a soup kitchen with all the cans that were thrown out of the valley.
The other thing that I took notice of were the strange pictures on all of their rear ends. All the pictures appeared to be unique. I saw pictures of flowers, clouds, math symbols, and other things that I couldn’t even identify. I watched the passing ponies for nearly ten minutes and I don’t think I saw two ponies that had an identical picture on their butts. I found this to be slightly surprising the more I thought about it. Most games tended to recycle some of their art assets, especially with their NPCs.
A quick glance at my own pony’s rear revealed that I didn’t have one. Did I have to complete a quest or something to get one of my own? Or do player characters just not have one? These were questions for later. It was time to go exploring!
I trotted forward, looking at the various stalls in the market as I moved. Each vendor was selling a varied assortment of knickknacks. From ant farms to zinc tablet suppositories, they had everything. I was tempted to try to see if I could steal something. Thinking it over, I dismissed the idea. I felt like I needed to learn more about this game world before I could start my crime spree.
Walking amongst the stalls, it didn’t take long to see something that caught my interest. Maps! There was a small stall with a green awning that was selling foldable paper maps. Having one of those could be useful. I approached the stall.
The vendor working behind the counter was a pegasus mare with a bright red coat of fur and a dark purple mane. The picture on her rear depicted an astrolabe. She seemed a little sleepy, but she perked up when she saw me walk over, “Hello, my name is Topography Shine. What can I interest you in today?”
I nodded and smiled, “Hi. Do you have any maps of Canterlot?” Mirroring my actions, my pony also nodded and smiled. That’s so cool! The PonyPad must have a face tracking camera.
“Of course! Just give me one second,” She shuffled around a large stack of maps before pulling out one in particular. “Here we go! A unicorn friend of mine even enchanted it. It will always show you your current location.”
Unfolding the map, I took a look. Sure enough, there was a blinking icon showing where I was. Unsurprisingly, I was in a section marked Canterlot Marketplace. Fantasy GPS, go figure. “This looks perfect! How much for it?”
Topography smiled at me, “Just 10 bits, Sir!”
I opened my inventory and quickly extracted the required number of coins from my mane. The mare took the money and hoofed me the map before saying, “As long as you’re in the market, I would recommend that you buy a saddlebag.”
“Can’t I just keep putting stuff in my mane?”
“No,” She frowned sadly, “You can only store a tiny number of objects in your mane. You need a saddle bag if you want to carry more things around.”
Ah, so the game had an inventory limit. That was good to know. “Thanks, I think I’ll do that. And thank you again for the map.”
“Anytime, Sir!” She waved a hoof at me pleasantly.
I turned to walk away from her stall.
“Woah! You don’t have your cutie mark yet?” Topography shouted after I took about seven steps away from her booth.
“What’s a cutie mark?” I asked, turning back to face her.
My question seemed to stun her, “You don’t know what a cutie mark is?” She pointed a hoof at the astrolabe pictured on her rear. “This is a cutie mark. It symbolizes a pony’s special talent.”
“So that’s what those things are,” The name sounded more than a little emasculating, but this was a game for kids. I think I’ll refer to them as booty marks instead. She must have noticed that I didn’t have one when I turned to walk away, “Wait, does that mean that you were checking out my ass?”
“Are you from the Human Realm!?” She blurted out, blatantly changing the subject with a blush on her muzzle. Hehe, I caught her peeking. “That’s the only way I can think of that you wouldn’t know what a cutie mark is. Everypony else knows that.”
The NPCs were vaguely aware that there was a world outside of the game? That was pretty meta, but I could appreciate the lore building. I’ll play along with the roleplay.
“Yes, I’m from the Human Realm. I just arrived in Equestria today.”
“That’s what I thought. All new arrivals from the Human Realm should go visit Princess Celestia. She’ll give you a pony name and a cutie mark based on your interests.”
That sounded like a tutorial quest. I’d better make that a priority. “Where can I find her?”
“Just head for the palace,” Topography Shine pointed a wing at the giant palace that could be seen from anywhere in the city. That made me feel more than a little silly. Where else would a princess be?
After saying goodbye, I made a quick stop at another stall that sold saddlebags and bought a dark brown one for 20 bits. Pulling out my new map, I made my way towards the palace.