You are Anon, a hardcore gamer. You've beaten every Soulsborne game, you can do 360 no scopes, you even clear a full minesweeper map in under two minutes. So, when you arrived in Equestria, you knew what you would do for a living. You wouldn't be like all those Snitch thots, no, you would be coasting on your incredible gaming skill. You already have your channel beacon configured with your channel name, "xXx_ShadowLord_King_of_Games_xXx". You start your first broadcast, smirking at the capture crystal with your arms crossed.
"Welcome true gamers and pissbabies, it is I, Shadowlord King of Games, here to reign over you all with an iron fist and a diamond dick."
The chat is scrolling way too fast for you to read, and you are impressed with how much they like you without even getting into content to show your skills.
"I may be new to Equestria, but I am a seasoned master in the world of gaming. Let's get started and unbox my console."
You kneel on the ground like a cool samurai and open the largest of the boxes.
"I decided to get a Saltstation 9, I hear they have the hardest games."
You pull out the console, and it unfolds into... A monopoly board? Like, nothing is labelled, and the colors are wrong, but that is definitely a monopoly board. You keep a straight face; an experienced gamer shouldn't have a reaction to something like that. You open the package for the controller, and it's a bongo drum with buttons along the rim.
"What the fuck?"
Shit, you said that out loud! You clear your throat and smirk at the crystal.
"It reminds me of some kiddie rhythm games from back home. No problem."
You suck at rhythm games. Only filthy casuals actually play those. This could be bad. You wave the bongo at the board, and the nano-crystal lighting syncs up.
"For my first game, I'll be playing the Broken Leg Chronicles: Pre-unification. From what I hear, it's not as dark and gritty as what I am used to, but that's fine."
You put the game crystal on the GO space and tap the bongo. The game boots up, projecting a wide vista of a snowy forest, and the silhouette of two ponies, a big one and a small one. You tap the bongo again and it brings up the character creator. There is some fumbling, and going back and forth as you kept forgetting which button was confirm and which was cancel, but you end up with a strong-looking unicorn stallion as your player character. Black coat, red mane, yellow eyes, pretty badass if you say so yourself.
Dark Souls may have taught you that magic users are easy mode, but you figure earth ponies and pegasi have an edge in a survivalist scenario. The opening cinematic shows your character and a small yellow filly with a short green mane trailing behind a caravan of ponies trekking through a blizzard. The wind howls, and an eerie neighing echoes in the night air. You frown as the filly walks close to the edge of the path, and promptly tumbles down a steep incline. The player character gallops after her, but soon slips and falls. A tree rushes up out of nowhere, the illusion goes black and plays the sound of a sickening crack.
You swallow. When the game fades back in, your character stands up, but immediately neighs at putting weight on his broken hindleg. The camera stills into isometric perspective, and you get the feeling that you have control now. You tap the bongo, and the stallion takes a step, favoring its hind leg. You tap a few more times, and he keeps going to the upper right. You drum your fingers on the bongo, and he jerks around and hobbles to the upper left. Directions must be from where you hit the bongo.
The clearing only has one other major feature, a small pile of snow with a divot leading to it. You walk your character over and press the confirm button. The stallion kicks the pile, and the filly is launched a foot or two.
"Aw shit! Why is the confirm button the attack button?"
The filly gives your stallion a sad look.
"I'm sorry daddy, I'll be good next time."
You groan.
"No game, that's cheating, don't do this to me!"
You make sure the filly is still out of kicking range and run through the buttons. Jump, cast Light, cast Fireball, kick, headpat (why are kick and headpat right next to each other?), lay down, piss, and shit, then you are back around to jump. You get up, grab a marker, try a few buttons, and write HP next to the head pat button. You exhale sharply.
"Alright, let's do this."
You trot over to the filly and she cowers a little, breaking your heart even further. You carefully tap the head pat button, and she perks right back up under your touch. Just to be sure, you hit it again, and the game does the same happy animation cycle. You smile and sigh in relief.
"Crisis averted. Alright, let's get going."
You have your character approach the trees, and the filly happily trails after you. Then she frowns.
"Daddy, what happened to your leg?"
Your character puts on a brave smile.
"It just got sprained, that's all. Don't worry, it will be alright."
You shake your head.
"Yeah, that's a bad sign. That filly better get to safety before he kicks it. I MEAN before he dies. Shit."
You glance at the chat, and if it was unreadable before, it's a blur now. The camera follows your stallion past some trees, revealing the tutorial platforming section. A small ledge is withers high on your character, but the filly probably can't climb that high. Sure enough, when you approach, a ring appears with a mote of light highlighting the lay down button position. You press it, the stallion lays down, and the filly climbs up and over. You hit what you think is the jump key, but your character promptly defecates instead.
"Shit! Augh, no pun intended."
Hitting the jump button gets your character back on his hooves, and you can just use bongo movement to get him over the ledge. As you go through the early areas, you start to get more comfortable with the control layout and the general feel of the game. Old campfires can be lit on fire for checkpoints, light spells help you see a path forward in dark sections, kicking obstacles to open up paths. You still haven’t figured out why your character shits and pisses, it doesn’t seem tied to any sort of realistic needs sort of meter, all it does is make the filly scrunch when she passes by it.
You get to one of the most obnoxiously video game-like sections, where ice blocks slide from the top of a cliff into a hot spring that spans the navigable screen. The filly starts humming a little song and clacking her hooves on a stone, and while it is pretty cute, it bodes ill for you. Sure enough, when your stallion gets in the hot water, he panics and frantically runs back to the shore, panting and steaming for a few seconds.
You sigh and hit the jump button. The stallion makes it to the first block, but he’s sliding from his momentum. You try to hit jump every time the filly clacks her hooves, but you can’t get the rhythm right even with audio cues. The first time you hit jump too soon, and growled at the long animation to get your character back to the shore.
“Keep doing your thing, Buttercup. I’ll make it before you know it.”
The third try, you make it to three blocks, a little under halfway there, before the block crumbles beneath you.
“Bullshit, ice doesn’t melt that quick!”
You keep trying, and that filly keeps humming her cheerful little tune. Twelve tries in, and you are three fourths of the way across before you fall in again. And the stallion just… scrambles across the spring, right back to the starting point.
“Oh, come on, the other side was way closer!”
Twenty-three tries later, and you are dead inside. You can never escape the humming, the clacking of insanity. Your finger is sore from pushing the jump button so many times, with increasing force as your frustration mounts. Your vision narrows down to your stallion’s hooves scooting on the blocks, everything else graying out. And then there is snow under your hooves. You blink, and see the filly hop effortlessly across, giggling.
“You did it, daddy!”
You laugh bitterly.
“Yeah, I did, Buttercup. Okay, I’m going to take a break, I’ll be back in five minutes.”
You cover the capture crystal with a napkin and walk into your kitchen. You grab a slice of room temperature pizza and chow down as you work out the kinks in your fingers. Seriously, fuck rhythm games. You finish off the slice and grab a bottle of soda from the fridge and down about half of it before returning to the couch. You set it off to the side, outside of the crystal’s field of view. You yank off the napkin and put on your game face.
“Alright, I’m back. Let’s try and knock this game out tonight, and I’ll make a poll on what I should play next.”
You look at the game display, and the filly is nudging the foreleg of your stallion with her head. Cute. You tap the bongo and get going. As the forest canopy closes over the top of the screen, it gets darker and darker. You cast Light, and make your way through the maze of trees and shrubs. You hear a distant howl and frown. Your character has a broken leg, there’s no way he can outrun a wolf. Thankfully, you get to a campsite and light the fire. The saving animation plays, your character laying down, the filly curling up against your belly by the fire.
You get up, and press deeper into the forest. You hear another howl, and it sounds much closer. You start tapping a quick one-two on the bongo, making your character trot through the forest. A line of shrubs block all but the bottom of the screen, and you move around them. Just as the line passes the left side of the screen, one of the bushes rustles and explodes, revealing a wood wolf thing. It howls again, and the chase is on. You bap the bongo as quickly as you can, growling as some of the hits make your character walk uselessly against a tree trunk, the wolf monster closing rapidly. The woodwolf thing bursts through another bush and pounces on your character.
“Shit! Fuck!”
The screen goes black, and you wake up at the campfire. You shake yourself to get rid of the tension, and go through the sequence again. This time, you are more careful about where you hit the bongo, and get far enough to see a river with an old log bridging it. Then the wolf pounces on you again.
“Okay, we got this. Just got to be quick, but careful.”
Three runs later, and you feel like you are missing something. So the next time the wolf shows up, you try kicking it. No dice, the pouncing animation carries it over the kick and you die. Light doesn’t blind it (pounce, die). Fireball only stuns it a little, but turning your character back and forth gets rid of any time you would have gained (pounce, die). Jumping does less than nothing (pounce, die). Head Pat gets a confused growl, then (pounce, die). Piss doesn’t do anything (pounce, die). Shit, however, brings it to a stop as it devours your leavings.
What the fuck
While you stare, the wolf finishes, then pounces (die). You may or may not be giggling hysterically as you hammer the shit button as you flee the woodwolf, make it across the log, and kick the log into the river. You slump back and rub your face.
“This is a shitty game.”
You can’t help giggling some more. By the time you get yourself under control, the filly is nudging your stallion’s foreleg again. You smile.
“Alright, alright, let’s get going Buttercup.”
The next few areas are a nice cool down section, with puzzle platform elements like pushing blocks and vine-pulley systems for raising and lowering logs and rocks. Buttercup even gets to help, climbing up vines and along thin branches to move things along. When you get to the next campsite, you have a guess as to what you’re going to be getting into. And you are right, as two wolves come howling onto the screen. You gallop your stallion across the thin stone slab over the ravine and boost Buttercup up so she can climb up the cliff face to a prominent rock. You turn and stunlock the wolves with fireball as they reach the slab. The filly strains and pushes, and the rock wobbles, then tips over. The rock crashes through the slab, and the wolves tumble into the ravine. You laugh.
“We make a good team, Buttercup! Ain’t no way they’re coming back from that.”
When you move forward, the filly scrambles down. You stop to give her a head pat, smiling at that same happy little stock animation. As you progress through the next few areas, you notice a gentle rise in elevation. Maybe you’re getting close to the end? The packaging said it had a playtime of one hour, and you’ve been at it for about two. As the trees begin to thin out, and the way forward becomes clear of even shrubbery, you hear a chorus of howls. You immediately start galloping, though the filly quickly outpaces you with your broken leg. Buttercup stops every time she reaches the edge of the screen before you, looking worriedly over her shoulder. You grimace.
“There had better be another terrain barrier up ahead.”
Just to be sure, you start hitting the shit button as you beat the bongo. The first few wolves clear the left of the screen, and are completely ignoring the fecal distractions.
“Fuck! Why won’t you eat my shit?”
You beat the bongo faster, not bothering with any other buttons, but it doesn’t matter. Your speed is capped at a hobbled gallop, and the wolves are closing the gap. As you emerge from the forest, the gloom of night is broken by a faint, warm glow on the far right of the screen. You grin at the obvious end point, before noticing something crucial. There is no way you can make it, and Buttercup keeps waiting for you. The stallion seems to know it too.
“Go! Get the others! You’ll be safe!”
“No! I won’t leave you, daddy!”
You feel yourself start to get choked up. You’re beating the bongo as hard as ever, but your stallion is only slowing down.
“I’ll hold them off! Get help, and come back for me!”
The filly blinks back tears, then turns and gallops offscreen. Your stallion comes to a stop and faces the pack of woodwolves, firing fireball after fireball into the group, but they just keep coming. Abruptly, the camera shifts to track the filly as she runs into the pony encampment. The dialogue is muffled, but they rise up and gallop to the left of the screen. The ponies stampede the woodwolves, driving them off with magic, axe strikes, and divebombs. When they pass, Buttercup slowly makes her way to your crumpled form.
She nudges your foreleg with her head several times. Finally, she curls up against your belly and starts humming that cheerful little tune from the hot springs. The camera lingers, and starts rolling the credits to the side as she sniffles and hums. You stare at the screen, blinking through the tears and wiping your eyes. At the end of the credits, the ponies come back and nuzzle little Buttercup, and the screen fades to black. You scrub your palms against your eyes, coming back to yourself.
“That was…”
You laugh a little helplessly.
“That was cruel. At least Buttercup made it.”
You take a shaky breath and let it out slowly. You rub your neck and look at the capture crystal.
“So, uh, yeah. I’ll put a poll up and call it a night. Fuck, but that was intense.”
You slide a sheet into a holder in front of the capture crystal, and start skimming through the chat that you never got around to reading. The beginning starts out as you would expect it.
[Gamer colts, amirite?]
[Girls, I don’t think he’s even seen a console. What a faker.]
You can tell when you started getting to gameplay.
[Oh Celestia, he actually kicked her, what the buck?]
[Filly’s lucky, I would gladly take some kicks for head pats from a stallion]
[Come on, nopony’s this new at i-games. Right?]
[Shadowlord? More like shitlord]
[This is painful to watch]
[Why is this awakening something in me? Do I really want an incontinent, big-balls goth coltfriend?]
You can’t help giggling when you get to the hot springs part of the chat.
[Aw, he named her. Stallion’s instincts cannot be denied]
[Please kill me now]
[These growls should not be doing this to me]
[Celestia, they really did a good job making the stallion’s tail cling to his sack when he’s wet]
Wait, what? You… probably aren’t going to check the footage.
[At this point, I’m just vibing with Buttercup]
[If he’s this bad at the ice blocks, how bad is it going to get in the next section?]
[Shh! No spoilers, in case he reads the chat!]
You scroll down.
[Cadance forgive me, I have three new fetishes now]
[Has he… never heard about a timberwolf?]
[Hit poop! HIT POOP! H I T P O O P !]
[He can’t hear you]
[No one can hear us, we are in Tartarus]
[Oh thank buck, he figur]
[I want to slap him for being bad and making me feel bad watching him]
[Do you think he’ll get one of the filly death scenes?]
You feel your blood run cold. No. Fuck that. You are never playing this series ever again. You scroll further down.
[Sasuga Skin O’ Babe, I want to make a foal now]
[It’s too pure, my heart can’t take it]
[ywn kill timberwolves with a daddy that gives you head pats]
[Fillies don’t know how good they have it]
[Girls, you know what’s coming next]
[Buck, let me have this happiness]
Quite frankly, you are impressed that the mares in the chat were able to respond to each other, given how flooded chat was.
[Oh Celestia, he’s pooping up a storm]
[I’m laughing and crying and it’s all wrong]
[Buttercup is a bitch, if she went and got help as soon as possible, her goth daddy would still be alive]
[SHE WAS TRYING HER BEST]
[Buck, I came here to schlick over some hot young streamer, not to feel]
[GOTH DADDY, NOOOOOOO]
[We couldn’t protect his smile, we’re going to have to carry that weight]
[Buck me, buck the game writers, buck the mare in particular that decided it was okay to reference the idle animation in the death scene, I can’t replay this game without crying like a colt]
[Oh no]
[Don’t cry, fake gamer, that’s cheating]
[I’m weak to stallion tears, and this game is already a bad day for rain]
[I wanna lick his tears and tell him it’s alright]
[Girls, I’m going to SIIIIIIIIIMP]
[Let’s have him play Broken Leg: Badlands]
[Buck no, keep that cursed shit out of here]
[The bugpod scenes are hot tho]
[CHANGELING DETECTED]
[BAD BUGS GET THE SPRAY]
[I’m not! It’s just, you know, helpless wet stallion stuff?]
[Yeah, I’m not a changeling (probably) and I find that hot]
[Ugh, bugcucks are the worst]
You get the feeling the chat more or less devolves from there, and check the poll. It seems the top voted game is Candy’s Corny Adventure. That sounds… safe enough. You’ll actually research it this time, though.
You remove the power crystal to your channel beacon, and shamble off to bed. That was way more exhausting than you anticipated. You fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow. That night, you dream of a warm meadow and a happy filly with a yellow coat and short green mane.
I am Anon, a hardcore gamer. I've beaten every Soulsborne game, I can do 360 no scopes, I even cleared a full minesweeper map in under two minutes. So, when I arrived in Equestria, I knew what I would do for a living. I wouldn't be like all those Snitch thots, no, I would be coasting on my incredible gaming skill. I already have my channel beacon configured with my channel name, "xXx_ShadowLord_King_of_Games_xXx". I start my first broadcast, smirking at the capture crystal with my arms crossed.
"Welcome true gamers and pissbabies, it is I, Shadowlord King of Games, here to reign over you all with an iron fist and a diamond dick."
The chat is scrolling way too fast for me to read, and I am impressed with how much they like me without even getting into content to show my skills.
"I may be new to Equestria, but I am a seasoned master in the world of gaming. Let's get started and unbox my console."
I kneel on the ground like a cool samurai and open the largest of the boxes.
"I decided to get a Saltstation 9, I hear they have the hardest games."
I pull out the console, and it unfolds into... A monopoly board? Like, nothing is labelled, and the colors are wrong, but that is definitely a monopoly board. I keep a straight face; an experienced gamer shouldn't have a reaction to something like that. I open the package for the controller, and it's a bongo drum with buttons along the rim.
"What the fuck?"
Shit, I said that out loud! I clear my throat and smirk at the crystal.
"It reminds me of some kiddie rhythm games from back home. No problem."
I suck at rhythm games. Only filthy casuals actually play those. This could be bad. I wave the bongo at the board, and the nano-crystal lighting syncs up.
"For my first game, I'll be playing the Broken Leg Chronicles: Pre-unification. From what I hear, it's not as dark and gritty as what I am used to, but that's fine."
I put the game crystal on the GO space and tap the bongo. The game boots up, projecting a wide vista of a snowy forest, and the silhouette of two ponies, a big one and a small one. I tap the bongo again and it brings up the character creator. There is some fumbling, and going back and forth as I kept forgetting which button was confirm and which was cancel, but I end up with a strong-looking unicorn stallion as my player character. Black coat, red mane, yellow eyes, pretty badass if I say so myself.
Dark Souls may have taught me that magic users are easy mode, but I figure earth ponies and pegasi have an edge in a survivalist scenario. The opening cinematic shows my character and a small yellow filly with a short green mane trailing behind a caravan of ponies trekking through a blizzard. The wind howls, and an eerie neighing echoes in the night air. I frown as the filly walks close to the edge of the path, and promptly tumbles down a steep incline. The player character gallops after her, but soon slips and falls. A tree rushes up out of nowhere, the illusion goes black and plays the sound of a sickening crack.
I swallow. When the game fades back in, my character stands up, but immediately neighs at putting weight on his broken hindleg. The camera stills into isometric perspective, and I get the feeling that I have control now. I tap the bongo, and the stallion takes a step, favoring its hind leg. I tap a few more times, and he keeps going to the upper right. I drum my fingers on the bongo, and he jerks around and hobbles to the upper left. Directions must be from where I hit the bongo.
The clearing only has one other major feature, a small pile of snow with a divot leading to it. I walk my character over and press the confirm button. The stallion kicks the pile, and the filly is launched a foot or two.
"Aw shit! Why is the confirm button the attack button?"
The filly gives my stallion a sad look.
"I'm sorry daddy, I'll be good next time."
I groan.
"No game, that's cheating, don't do this to me!"
I make sure the filly is still out of kicking range and run through the buttons. Jump, cast Light, cast Fireball, kick, headpat (why are kick and headpat right next to each other?), lay down, piss, and shit, then I am back around to jump. I get up, grab a marker, try a few buttons, and write HP next to the head pat button. I exhale sharply.
"Alright, let's do this."
I trot over to the filly and she cowers a little, breaking my heart even further. I carefully tap the head pat button, and she perks right back up under my touch. Just to be sure, I hit it again, and the game does the same happy animation cycle. I smile and sigh in relief.
"Crisis averted. Alright, let's get going."
I have my character approach the trees, and the filly happily trails after me. Then she frowns.
"Daddy, what happened to your leg?"
My character puts on a brave smile.
"It just got sprained, that's all. Don't worry, it will be alright."
I shake my head.
"Yeah, that's a bad sign. That filly better get to safety before he kicks it. I MEAN before he dies. Shit."
I glance at the chat, and if it was unreadable before, it's a blur now. The camera follows my stallion past some trees, revealing the tutorial platforming section. A small ledge is withers high on my character, but the filly probably can't climb that high. Sure enough, when I approach, a ring appears with a mote of light highlighting the lay down button position. I press it, the stallion lays down, and the filly climbs up and over. I hit what I think is the jump key, but my character promptly defecates instead.
"Shit! Augh, no pun intended."
Hitting the jump button gets my character back on his hooves, and I can just use bongo movement to get him over the ledge. As I go through the early areas, I start to get more comfortable with the control layout and the general feel of the game. Old campfires can be lit on fire for checkpoints, light spells help me see a path forward in dark sections, kicking obstacles to open up paths. I still haven’t figured out why my character shits and pisses, it doesn’t seem tied to any sort of realistic needs sort of meter, all it does is make the filly scrunch when she passes by it.
I get to one of the most obnoxiously video game-like sections, where ice blocks slide from the top of a cliff into a hot spring that spans the navigable screen. The filly starts humming a little song and clacking her hooves on a stone, and while it is pretty cute, it bodes ill for me. Sure enough, when my stallion gets in the hot water, he panics and frantically runs back to the shore, panting and steaming for a few seconds.
I sigh and hit the jump button. The stallion makes it to the first block, but he’s sliding from his momentum. I try to hit jump every time the filly clacks her hooves, but I can’t get the rhythm right even with audio cues. The first time I hit jump too soon, and growled at the long animation to get my character back to the shore.
“Keep doing your thing, Buttercup. I’ll make it before you know it.”
The third try, I make it to three blocks, a little under halfway there, before the block crumbles beneath me.
“Bullshit, ice doesn’t melt that quick!”
I keep trying, and that filly keeps humming her cheerful little tune. Twelve tries in, and I am three fourths of the way across before I fall in again. And the stallion just… scrambles across the spring, right back to the starting point.
“Oh, come on, the other side was way closer!”
Twenty-three tries later, and I am dead inside. I can never escape the humming, the clacking of insanity. my finger is sore from pushing the jump button so many times, with increasing force as my frustration mounts. my vision narrows down to my stallion’s hooves scooting on the blocks, everything else graying out. And then there is snow under my hooves. I blink, and see the filly hop effortlessly across, giggling.
“You did it, daddy!”
I laugh bitterly.
“Yeah, I did, Buttercup. Okay, I’m going to take a break, I’ll be back in five minutes.”
I cover the capture crystal with a napkin and walk into my kitchen. I grab a slice of room temperature pizza and chow down as I work out the kinks in my fingers. Seriously, fuck rhythm games. I finish off the slice and grab a bottle of soda from the fridge and down about half of it before returning to the couch. I set it off to the side, outside of the crystal’s field of view. I yank off the napkin and put on my game face.
“Alright, I’m back. Let’s try and knock this game out tonight, and I’ll make a poll on what I should play next.”
I look at the game display, and the filly is nudging the foreleg of my stallion with her head. Cute. I tap the bongo and get going. As the forest canopy closes over the top of the screen, it gets darker and darker. I cast Light, and make my way through the maze of trees and shrubs. I hear a distant howl and frown. my character has a broken leg, there’s no way he can outrun a wolf. Thankfully, I get to a campsite and light the fire. The saving animation plays, my character laying down, the filly curling up against my belly by the fire.
I get up, and press deeper into the forest. I hear another howl, and it sounds much closer. I start tapping a quick one-two on the bongo, making my character trot through the forest. A line of shrubs block all but the bottom of the screen, and I move around them. Just as the line passes the left side of the screen, one of the bushes rustles and explodes, revealing a wood wolf thing. It howls again, and the chase is on. I bap the bongo as quickly as I can, growling as some of the hits make my character walk uselessly against a tree trunk, the wolf monster closing rapidly. The woodwolf thing bursts through another bush and pounces on my character.
“Shit! Fuck!”
The screen goes black, and I wake up at the campfire. I shake myself to get rid of the tension, and go through the sequence again. This time, I am more careful about where I hit the bongo, and get far enough to see a river with an old log bridging it. Then the wolf pounces on me again.
“Okay, we got this. Just got to be quick, but careful.”
Three runs later, and I feel like I am missing something. So the next time the wolf shows up, I try kicking it. No dice, the pouncing animation carries it over the kick and I die. Light doesn’t blind it (pounce, die). Fireball only stuns it a little, but turning my character back and forth gets rid of any time I would have gained (pounce, die). Jumping does less than nothing (pounce, die). Head Pat gets a confused growl, then (pounce, die). Piss doesn’t do anything (pounce, die). Shit, however, brings it to a stop as it devours my leavings.
What the fuck
While I stare, the wolf finishes, then pounces (die). I may or may not be giggling hysterically as I hammer the shit button as I flee the woodwolf, make it across the log, and kick the log into the river. I slump back and rub my face.
“This is a shitty game.”
I can’t help giggling some more. By the time I get myself under control, the filly is nudging my stallion’s foreleg again. I smile.
“Alright, alright, let’s get going Buttercup.”
The next few areas are a nice cool down section, with puzzle platform elements like pushing blocks and vine-pulley systems for raising and lowering logs and rocks. Buttercup even gets to help, climbing up vines and along thin branches to move things along. When I get to the next campsite, I have a guess as to what I'm going to be getting into. And I am right, as two wolves come howling onto the screen. I gallop my stallion across the thin stone slab over the ravine and boost Buttercup up so she can climb up the cliff face to a prominent rock. I turn and stunlock the wolves with fireball as they reach the slab. The filly strains and pushes, and the rock wobbles, then tips over. The rock crashes through the slab, and the wolves tumble into the ravine. I laugh.
“We make a good team, Buttercup! Ain’t no way they’re coming back from that.”
When I move forward, the filly scrambles down. I stop to give her a head pat, smiling at that same happy little stock animation. As I progress through the next few areas, I notice a gentle rise in elevation. Maybe I'm getting close to the end? The packaging said it had a playtime of one hour, and I’ve been at it for about two. As the trees begin to thin out, and the way forward becomes clear of even shrubbery, I hear a chorus of howls. I immediately start galloping, though the filly quickly outpaces me with my broken leg. Buttercup stops every time she reaches the edge of the screen before me, looking worriedly over her shoulder. I grimace.
“There had better be another terrain barrier up ahead.”
Just to be sure, I start hitting the shit button as I beat the bongo. The first few wolves clear the left of the screen, and are completely ignoring the fecal distractions.
“Fuck! Why won’t you eat my shit?”
I beat the bongo faster, not bothering with any other buttons, but it doesn’t matter. my speed is capped at a hobbled gallop, and the wolves are closing the gap. As I emerge from the forest, the gloom of night is broken by a faint, warm glow on the far right of the screen. I grin at the obvious end point, before noticing something crucial. There is no way I can make it, and Buttercup keeps waiting for me. The stallion seems to know it too.
“Go! Get the others! You’ll be safe!”
“No! I won’t leave you, daddy!”
I feel myself start to get choked up. I’m beating the bongo as hard as ever, but my stallion is only slowing down.
“I’ll hold them off! Get help, and come back for me!”
The filly blinks back tears, then turns and gallops offscreen. my stallion comes to a stop and faces the pack of woodwolves, firing fireball after fireball into the group, but they just keep coming. Abruptly, the camera shifts to track the filly as she runs into the pony encampment. The dialogue is muffled, but they rise up and gallop to the left of the screen. The ponies stampede the woodwolves, driving them off with magic, axe strikes, and divebombs. When they pass, Buttercup slowly makes her way to my crumpled form.
She nudges my foreleg with her head several times. Finally, she curls up against my belly and starts humming that cheerful little tune from the hot springs. The camera lingers, and starts rolling the credits to the side as she sniffles and hums. I stare at the screen, blinking through the tears and wiping my eyes. At the end of the credits, the ponies come back and nuzzle little Buttercup, and the screen fades to black. I scrub my palms against my eyes, coming back to myself.
“That was…”
I laugh a little helplessly.
“That was cruel. At least Buttercup made it.”
I take a shaky breath and let it out slowly. I rub my neck and look at the capture crystal.
“So, uh, yeah. I’ll put a poll up and call it a night. Fuck, but that was intense.”
I slide a sheet into a holder in front of the capture crystal, and start skimming through the chat that I never got around to reading. The beginning starts out as I would expect it.
[Gamer colts, amirite?]
[Girls, I don’t think he’s even seen a console. What a faker.]
I can tell when I started getting to gameplay.
[Oh Celestia, he actually kicked her, what the buck?]
[Filly’s lucky, I would gladly take some kicks for head pats from a stallion]
[Come on, nopony’s this new at i-games. Right?]
[Shadowlord? More like shitlord]
[This is painful to watch]
[Why is this awakening something in me? Do I really want an incontinent, big-balls goth coltfriend?]
I can’t help giggling when I get to the hot springs part of the chat.
[Aw, he named her. Stallion’s instincts cannot be denied]
[Please kill me now]
[These growls should not be doing this to me]
[Celestia, they really did a good job making the stallion’s tail cling to his sack when he’s wet]
Wait, what? I'm… probably not going to check the footage.
[At this point, I’m just vibing with Buttercup]
[If he’s this bad at the ice blocks, how bad is it going to get in the next section?]
[Shh! No spoilers, in case he reads the chat!]
I scroll down.
[Cadance forgive me, I have three new fetishes now]
[Has he… never heard about a timberwolf?]
[Hit poop! HIT POOP! H I T P O O P !]
[He can’t hear you]
[No one can hear us, we are in Tartarus]
[Oh thank buck, he figur]
[I want to slap him for being bad and making me feel bad watching him]
[Do you think he’ll get one of the filly death scenes?]
I feel my blood run cold. No. Fuck that. I am never playing this series ever again. I scroll further down.
[Sasuga Skin O’ Babe, I want to make a foal now]
[It’s too pure, my heart can’t take it]
[ywn kill timberwolves with a daddy that gives you head pats]
[Fillies don’t know how good they have it]
[Girls, you know what’s coming next]
[Buck, let me have this happiness]
Quite frankly, I am impressed that the mares in the chat were able to respond to each other, given how flooded chat was.
[Oh Celestia, he’s pooping up a storm]
[I’m laughing and crying and it’s all wrong]
[Buttercup is a bitch, if she went and got help as soon as possible, her goth daddy would still be alive]
[SHE WAS TRYING HER BEST]
[Buck, I came here to schlick over some hot young streamer, not to feel]
[GOTH DADDY, NOOOOOOO]
[We couldn’t protect his smile, we’re going to have to carry that weight]
[Buck me, buck the game writers, buck the mare in particular that decided it was okay to reference the idle animation in the death scene, I can’t replay this game without crying like a colt]
[Oh no]
[Don’t cry, fake gamer, that’s cheating]
[I’m weak to stallion tears, and this game is already a bad day for rain]
[I wanna lick his tears and tell him it’s alright]
[Girls, I’m going to SIIIIIIIIIMP]
[Let’s have him play Broken Leg: Badlands]
[Buck no, keep that cursed shit out of here]
[The bugpod scenes are hot tho]
[CHANGELING DETECTED]
[BAD BUGS GET THE SPRAY]
[I’m not! It’s just, you know, helpless wet stallion stuff?]
[Yeah, I’m not a changeling (probably) and I find that hot]
[Ugh, bugcucks are the worst]
I get the feeling the chat more or less devolves from there, and check the poll. It seems the top voted game is Candy’s Corny Adventure. That sounds… safe enough. I’ll actually research it this time, though.
I remove the power crystal to my channel beacon, and shamble off to bed. That was way more exhausting than I anticipated. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. That night, I dream of a warm meadow and a happy filly with a yellow coat and short green mane.
