My Little Pony: Text Adventures Are Magic OR Zork Pony

by Meandering Road

The Instruction Manual

The box is simple- six pony faces. Six well-known pony faces. No text, just a simple blue box. Inside, a couple of floppy disks (newfangled kids and your consarn laser media) and an instruction booklet.

You might want to ignore the booklet. It's what people do these days. After all, why read the darn thing when you can just go online and bug someone or read a walkthrough? Yeah, instruction booklets are for people who don't know how to play games.

....then again, WWTSD?

....she'd read the book. Sure she sometimes gets carried away, but you know Twilight Sparkle would -never- skip the instruction manual unless there was a serious need for time. And what have you got better to do? Clop?

Don't answer that.

So, with an only-slightly-begrudging sigh, you hand the floppy disks off to a pink hoof, which trades you a shiny new CD to go in your DVD/CD drive (and a cupcake for the road), and flip open the booklet.

A fistful of crumbs immediately descends into the booklet, but you hardly mind. Mmmmm, vanilla-frosted apple crumble. Not much to beat that.

Well, there's not much in here.

The first two pages are consumed entirely by friendly green block letters.

'DON'T PANIC'

This seems like sound advice, you think to yourself, chewing on another mouthful of delicious cupcake. You read on.

'Welcome to My Little Pony: Text-based Adventures are Magic.

This game operates entirely in text. Please be aware that you need a keyboard for this game, and a mouse will do you no good, so just give it a bite of cheese and set it free, alright? Seriously, do that, I've got this pegasus hovering over my shoulder and....

Well, anyways.

You take the role of Twilight Sparkle, brilliant (but friendless) student of Princess Celestia of Equestria. It is your job to make your way through the trials and tribulations of her journey to uncover the solution to a problem she has only just discovered-

The Mare in the Moon.

If you wish to access the menu, simply type 'menu' and hit enter. In fact, this being a text-based game, this is how you do everything- type it in.

We hereby absolve ourselves of responsibility for the occasionally smarmy and smartassed parser.'

That gives you a bit of pause. This crumb-filled booklet (that was a really nice cupcake and you briefly consider dumping the crumbs from the booklet into your mouth. Then you do it. What the hay, you're at home and nopony's watching you.) makes it sound like the game is actually thinking.

"What a riot, right?"

You agree and continue reading.

'Remember, this is a text-based game- so even the smallest decision you could make (or not make as the case may be) could lead you to a bad end! Save early, and save often! Save in separate slots too- or else you'll be unable to go back and fix your save.

At such time as you lose or reach the end of the episode, you will be given a score- the higher the better! Higher scores will give you a benefit...... what benefit? Well, that would be telling, wouldn't it? After all, you're here for the adventure.

Good luck!

-The Team'

Well, that wasn't too bad at all.

Picking up the CD and placing it in the drive, you gently press, and your computer opens a text-only window.

.....wait, who gave you that CD.......?

....and that..... cupcake?

Comments

[Firebirdbtops]

You must have been speaking about Shampoo's/Ryoga's quest earlier. You have no idea how fast that made me read this. I used to read EVERY Ranma fic, so you just hit me in the nostalgia. Hard.

[The Incredible Werekitty]

Pinkie Pie breaks the fourth wall, once more. News at 10, film at 11.

[Lexicon]

433916
Ever hear of the trope "The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You"? That's half of Pinkie in a nutshell.

[Meandering Road]

Well, the thing about Pinkie is this: she's the Element of Laughter.

I think a lot of people forget about the potential in what that really means- they have her break the fourth wall constantly, or doing such consistently ludicrous things so often that it no longer really mean things.

She's the Element of Laughter. She will break the fourth wall when it's funny, but only when it's funny, and only because it's funny. Once it stops being funny, it's no longer something she would do- because that's not Laughter, that's Annoyance. It's part of why her failures to engage her Cutie Mark/Element result in a much more serious Pinkie Pie- or at least a less ludicrous one.

The episode with time-traveling Twilight really stands out for this- she acts considerably less loopy and random there, because while being silly can be funny, being silly instead of supporting your friend and being there to help stabilize her when she's clearly suffering a similar mental break to the time she ensorcelled the entire town isn't funny- it's failure to be a friend.

Hence why she's only popping up now and then in this fic so far- To use Pinkie's 4th-wall immunity properly, you have to use it relatively sparingly, but consistently. Otherwise it stops being funny.

Anyway, thanks for reviews and encouragement!