This time, we would take a look back to one of the first Pony games
I ever played: Story of the Blanks!
I you haven't played this game before,
then I recommend playing it first before continueing watching.
As you can see, it's an 8-bit, inspired fan game.
It even has PAL and NTSC colour switches, so you know it's serious with the autenticity.
The game was developed and published by Donitz on DeviantArt and Newgrounds in July 2, 2011.
Links in the description.
Alright so before we start actually playing the game I have a question:
What's that supposed to be on the sky? or whatever that is.
Is that some kind of like, orange cloud? or lake?
This thing always bothered me ...
But anyways, it's just abstract background.
Alright so we start. we use the arrow keys to move and use Z to interact.
Alright there's no much to interact here so we just move around we just have to follow the path
Oh yeah by the way, I'm not gonna do voices.
And so up we go! We follow Twilight into the Everfree Forest.
Now I have to say first of all the Everfree Forest here looks too pretty.
Like, I know that this is kind of like the outskirts of the Everfree Forest
but still you would think that maybe it should be a little darker?
Anyway I'm already getting the the vibes of like NES or Namco games by looking at this.
Oh and of course there's nothing to explore.
By the way this part right here? There's something about it,
I think it's supposed to be like an abyss? Also it looks like glitch graphics right there.
And there she is!
And we go back.
That's the whole adventure! We just go to Zecora and we go back to Ponyville and ...
sike!
No we cannot use our strong Earth Pony strength to move the logs.
Oh and Twilight apparently is now stuck looking at the opposite direction.
Hey is that Derpy?
And just like that!
We're lost in the forest now.
Even though Twilight was looking in our same direction!
Yeah way to go, Twilight.
Oh yeah by the way don't expect any
cockatricers or manticores because that would be too complex for the game to handle.
And what is this supposed to be? Looks different
I don't know I guess it's supposed to be some kind of ledge, anyway.
And here we are!
So yeah we're in a new town now, we can look around ...
Oh yeah we can also walk on the harvest soil.
Don't worry Applebloom is an Earth Pony so it's all under control.
So can we enter this house?
Nope because it doesn't seem to have any doors and oh by the way a gem!
Oh and because this game is realistic you cannot enter into other people's homes
Yeah because that's not suspicious at all ...
Hey you! Come back here.
Well anything on the windows? Nope, anything on the well?
So try to guess where could the crank be ...
You know, maybe in a logical place like another well?
Like the one right here?
... Or somewhere else completely unrelated!
Hey! Don't push Applebloom.
So yeah you guys get busy with your ... love.
I'm sure you don't ... you guys don't mind if I enter your house.
Alright, first of all, who lives here? What kind of house is this.
Like is this supposed to be a workshop or something?
Like it kind of reminds me of that NES game, I forgot the name but
you know, you push boxes around, it's like a puzzle game.
Uh I don't know Applebloom, I mean ... why did you needed one in the first place?
Alright so we're good to go, we have everything
we need.
Alright finally a key!
Now, let's unvellish the mysteries of this town.
And another seemingly empty house.
Oh yeah if you can't tell by the graphics,
uh, that's supposed to be a skeleton ... a pony skeleton.
So yeah let's just pretend that didn't happen, like yeah let's, let's go back to the village.
Yeah on second thought let's get out of Sunny Town, it's a silly place.
So yeah I see the party is over so I'm just gonna ... leave.
Yeah come on come on come on come on
Oh! hold the brakes speed racer!
No you don't!
Yeah we're done here.
Oh shit! Everything's red!
... the evil color.
Yeah avoiding these are, uh, it's pretty tricky. But also very easy
Yeah just a filly passing by!
And that's it!
Uh yeah what's your plan?
Aaand with that perfect ending, I'll explain why i love this game.
The game is laid back with it's presentation at first, and it doesn't pull the bait and switch right away,
unlike other spooky games such as Luna Game which at times feels like a shitpost.
Story of the Blanks has that sense of wonder at first putting you in the hooves of Applebloom.
Since the game is pretty straight forward it's hard to talk much about gameplay.
However did you know there's a map editor here in the game? By pressing Home and End at the same time
the game takes you back to the title screen and then by, get this, resizing the screen vertically
when viewing the .SWF file you will find a hidden menu at the bottom.
This menu can be used to mess around with the game's maps and characters,
as we can see the zombie ponies are called "Nightmares".
This menu is a mess though I don't think it was ever meant to be used since it's pretty confusing at first.
... and I think I just fucked everything up ...
What makes this game special for me though, it's how it plays out just like an episode of the show.
Minus the burning skeleton of course, that would
raise the audience target rating by at least two levels.
As you were able to see by using 15ai and
dubbing the dialog boxes, you can see how much this could work as an actual episode of Friendship is Magic.
There is so much potential in a story like Story of the Blanks,
specially by how mysteriously portrays the Everfree Forest.
Keep in mind this was back during the days of season 1.
The whole Everfree Forest was a blank slate for writers to speculate about.
During season 1 and 2, there was no official Equestria map.
So no one knew exactly how big the Everfree Forest was.
It could be a tiny forest or it could be about the same size of the whole Amazon.
The mysteries regarding the Everfree were so many, like, why did ponies believe the flora and weather
in there controled on its own?
What happened there?
Then after season 2, the first official map was
published by hasbro and, well ... turned out to be a tiny weirdly placed rainforest in the middle of Equestria!
What a joke!
Story of the blanks went on to win the Equestria Gaming creepypasta game contest in july 2011
And the site's owner at the time, Strawberry Spice, gave it an 8 out of 10,
the first game to have that rating on the site back then.
I recommend to play the game by yourself, although if you watched up to this point then you pretty much have seen everything the game has to offer.
An artist by the name of Template93 made a comic based on the game, I also recommend reading it.
So what about the developer: Donitz?
he stopped developing pony games around 2013 and not much else is known about him nowadays.
What about Applebloom's blank flank?
Well she went on to obtain an ugly cutie mark in season 5.
And whatever happened to Applebloom's new made friend, Ruby?
Well, she's still somewhere ... in the Everfree Forest ...
Forgotten and alone ...
Awaiting her recognition.