Is That A Pony In Your Pocket? Let's Play Ponymon (Dawn Version)!

Since MLP ROM hacks are a thing now, I figured I might as well do an LP of...


Several bronies have been working on Ponymon Dawn/Dusk (a romhack of Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green) for some time now; its current mane programmer is Flutteryay. It's up to alpha 0.2 or 0.3 or whatever, it's hard to tell, and it's only playable up to Mt. Moon or Cerulean City/Fillydelphia right now (I think?) so...yeah.

Anyway, this is an intriguing concept, if the execution feels a little lazy at present, but then, Pokemon is a pretty damned complex game to reprogram. And, again, this is an incomplete hack...but might as well have a look at what they've got so far, right?

So without further ado, Let's Play Ponymon Dawn!

(Note: My goal here is to focus solely on the Ponyfication of Pokemon FR/LG here, so this LP will assume you're reasonably familiar with FR/LG and I don't have to deal with stuff that's basically the same.)

First, of course, we have to listen to this asshole ramble on even though we've all heard it five million times by now, so I'm only dignifying him with one screencap:



Okay, that's enough of Professor Oak. Let's name the Trainer and the Rival now...



A bit obvious, perhaps... And my Rival...



For those unfamiliar with brony lingo, "clop" refers to the act of fapping to Pony pr0n.

So, with those guys named, we start off at home...



...which is located in:



For the unfamiliar, Sweet Apple Acres is the farm where Applejack and her ridiculously huge family live and work in MLP:FiM.

Remember all those fun little signs that teach you how to play Pokemon effectively?



Yeah, I feel that way a lot.




...aaaaaaalrighty then...



I'm gonna make a lot of ball jokes. I can pretty much guarantee that.



Yet apparently, they're quite dangerous despite being cute and cuddly. So I can't leave Sweet Apple Acres until I get my own Ponymon...

One neat little change the romhack makes is that the starters are actually different between the two versions. The starters for Dawn Version are:





I chose Twilight Sparkle because she's my favorite pony. Let's check her out and see what she can do...




Oh yeah, they changed a lot of the types. So far I've only encountered Light (Normal) and Magic (Psychic, I guess?)

Also, you can tell which Ponymon are going to "evolve" by the "F" (or probably also "C") appended to the start of the name, and the obvious filly sprites of full-grown mares. This is a neat way around Pokemon evolution in a Ponyhack.



SUCKER!




Oh, little punk wants to fight, huh?





Yada yada...




Eat hoof, Pinkie!

Next up: Venturing out into the wild, wooly trail to Ponyville...

I've seen videos of this, it'll be interesting to see the changes without having to play it.

My only gripe is the screenshots seem resized slightly off.

Yeah, that's a fail on my part. I'll tweak.

MythrilMoth, there are procedures to follow before starting LPs.

Intriguing as this LP may be, did you just ignore the queue completely? You probably shouldn't do that.

I was informed of this about ten seconds too late. And really should have remembered there was a queue; it's been so long since I've read the LP forum stickies I forgot.

My apologies. Go ahead and delete/lock this thread.

Post in the queue thread and see if there's still an opening for July, maybe?

I could have done without knowing that was a thing that existed.

Oh...kay.

The scaling on your images is pretty bad. You should stick to a resolution that is divisible by the original resolution.

There is one more spot open for July. I will give it to you this time. In the future, please respect the rules.

I'm in the middle of my anniversary though so I'll take care of all this tomorrow, okay?

Until then this will remain locked.

Thanks!

EDIT: the thread is open again I just want to remind MythrilMoth that as the rules state:

This goes for the LPers commentary as well as any audience participation. So, let's keep the MLP sex fetish stuff to a minimum, no to a zero.

Thanks!

Beyond naming the rival "Clopper", I have no intention of going there. I'm NOT a brownie. :P

OK, doing one post a day so I can stay nicely ahead of myself. (And so I can wait out an update to the ROM, in case Flutteryay delivers anytime soon...)

When last we left off, I had just received a Ponymon from Professor Oak, and with precious Twilight Sparkle at my side, we totally spanked Clopper's lame sugar-addicted party pony, Pinkie Pie.

So, I've got my first Ponymon, which means now I can get to Ponyville safely...a good thing, too, because as soon as I hit the trail, I run into....





FUCKING CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS

For the uninitiated, the CMC are three fillies--Apple Bloom, Sweetie Bell, and Scootaloo--who are obsessed with getting their cutie marks (that funny little brand on a pony's butt), and completely ignore everypony's sage advice of "you'll get it when you find out what your special talent is". In their attempts to FORCE their special talents to emerge, they cause chaos all over Ponyville.

Right now, all I can do is beat the pony poo out of them, which is I will admit highly satisfying.



Okay...O_o;



PINKIE POWER!



Har har.

Then we get an interesting lesson in brony philosophy from some kid in a dorky hat:





When I stop in at the local market, I'm saddled (hur hur) with a package delivery, so it's back to Sweet Apple Acres for now, where I receive a Ponydex and a sack of balls.



NOW I can start catching Ponymon...

But first, let's look at my starter's Ponydex entry:




...well...that's highly informative.

Now that I'm equipped to begin catching and raising Ponymon, I venture forth once more...





...I'm sensing a theme here.

(Lyra Heartstrings, incidentally, is a background pony the fandom has taken a liking to, and a frequent brony meme is having her obsessed with mythical creatures called "humans". She is also depicted as being in a lesbian relationship with another mare, Bon-Bon.)

Also, the Ponymon menu icons for everypony except the Mane Six are...well...



Yeah.

On the way out of Ponyville, I run into the Old Man.



Somehow that was very, very creepy and wrong.



So now we're leaving Ponyville and headed to Hoofington City. But first, we must traverse...the dreaded Everfree Forest.

Which I'll do...next time!

The pictures are cute, but I'm not sure the point of playing such an incomplete romhack. Unless you're playtesting, which seems like a pain.

Also: Ugh. Socks. Another one of those disturbing brony trends.

Pretty much lulz. And, realistically, this romhack is about as complete as it needs to be, because I'm sure it's already just about reached the point where anyone would lose interest anyway. :P (But I'll stick with it as long as there's something to stick with...)

Plus, I have to admit, there's a certain fascination with observing the development process of something like this...you know, seeing what the hackers and spriters focus their attention on, where their priorities are, what things they miss, what things you expect them to miss that they don't...

But yeah, it's mostly for the lulz.

Bronies are weird.

Oh, and a quick addendum:

It looks like pretty much every Ponymon has multiple evolutions, from foal to colt/filly to mare/stallion, and also some "evolutions" which are just things like insane-face, Gala dress, Nightmare Night costume, and so forth...at least, that's the sense I'm getting from reading the Wiki. If I'm correct from looking just at my own Ponydex, each of the Mane Six has a whopping SEVEN evolutionary stages.

That is amazing.

Also, I assume Lyra evolves into Sea Pony Lyra at some point.

I wanna see her evolve into Human Lyra from Anthropology.

OK! On with the show...


When last we left off, I had just begun catching Ponymon. My party at this point is:

Twilight Sparkle (foal), level 8; moves: Hoof Stomp, Tail Whip
Apple Bloom (foal?), level 3; moves: Hoof Stomp
Sweetie Belle (foal?), level 3; moves: Hoof Stomp
Lyra (foal), level 3; moves: Hoof Stomp



So I've heard.

On the way to the Everfree Forest, I pick up the last CMC:



Now, any brony who knows the show knows who lives in the Everfree Forest...



Zecora is a zebra who's an evil enchantress, who does evil dances. If you look in her eyes, she'll put you in trances. And then what will she do? She'll put you in her evil brew, and gobble you up in a big tasty stew!

Actually, she won't do any of those things. She's more or less a mysterious hermit and witch doctor, who's an expert on herbal remedies for various bizarre maladies.



Uh...actually she's a zebra...

While Zecora is a Light (Normal) type Ponymon, she is the first to learn a Magic (Psychic) type move: Confusion. Which is INSANELY useful in Ponymon, as it turns out. (Twilight learns it at level 10.)

Continuing through the forest, I run into a couple of Pokemon trainers, one of whom has Bon-Bon--



--and Lyra, which as mentioned earlier is a big fandom joke. I also catch...



This background pony the fandom has nicknamed Colgate because she looks like toothpaste. Yeah, bronies are weird.

So, me and my exhausted ponies finally arrive in...



Wow, this game just loves stating the bleeding obvious, doesn't it?



The spriters seriously need to work on the overworld sprites here.



Well, that explains why Gilda is a big beaky jerk!

A townie gives me a little information about Hoofington...





So Hoofington is apparently full of sick weirdos except for the gym leader...




...who's just a platonic weirdo.




Interesting...




That's tellin 'em, Spike!

NEXT TIME: Training for the big gym battle in Hoofington!

This is all just amazing.

Okay so here's the thing.

It turns out I was very confused about how far the Flutteryay Alpha 0.2 actually goes. I misunderstood it to go all the way to Fillydelphia (Cerulean City).

It doesn't. It dead-ends at the Pokecenter right outside Mt. Moon.

So, at present, I have a few days' worth of updates to post, and then...nada. Because the alpha dead-ended. I'm following the changelog, but the progress on Ponymon is sloooooooooooooooooooow, and even if alpha 0.3 came out oh, tomorrow, 0.3 will dead-end just past Fillydelphia.

In other words, by the end of the week, this LP will already be on hiatus.

I might fill in the delay time by goofing around with the other starters, poking around in Dusk Version, levelling and evolving some Ponymon just for the hell of it to see what happens, but actual progress in the game is dependent upon programming delays.

Still, this has been fun, if brief.

So as of last update, my party has expanded to include:

Scootaloo (foal?), level 3; moves: Hoof Stomp
Zecora (foal), level 8; moves: Hoof Stomp, Tail Whip, Confusion
Colgate (foal), level 5; moves: Hoof Stomp, Giggle

While in the Everfree Forest, Twilight also learned Confusion.

Now that I've made it to Hoofington, it's time to train for the first gym battle.

And also to catch a couple more ponies...



I find it amusing that Big Macintosh is classified as a Sea Ponymon...

(Big Macintosh is Applejack's big-brother, a soft-spoken, super-strong, hard-working Earth pony who does the donkey's share of the apple harvesting at Sweet Apple Acres.)



And a Bon-Bon to go with my Lyra.

The most awesome thing I found in the grasses just outside Hoofington, though?



FUCK YEAH DERPY HOOVES!

Derpy was the pony who started it all. The first brony meme. The most popular background pony, to the point where she was briefly voiced in the series and has become a running gag, having scripted gags in many season 2 episodes. She's a wall-eyed pegasus who's incredibly clumsy, loves muffins, and causes catastrophe with everything she does.

In Ponymon, Derpy is effectively a Magikarp. When you first catch her, the only "attack" she has is Derp...



...which is a renamed Splash. She DOES learn Tail Whip at a later level, but so far she hasn't learned anything useful.

Before I continue, I'd like to talk a bit about types. As expected, Ponymon has renamed the Pokemon types to something more...pony. Except sometimes they're not so pony.

The Ponymon types I've run into so far are:
Light (Normal)
Magic (Psychic)
Spirit (???)
Laughter (Water, oddly enough)
Honesty (???)
Loyalty (???)

I've peeked at the type matchup chart on the official Wiki for this, but did not commit it to memory and I prefer not to spoil myself OR you guys in advance, so we'll just uncover the types as we go.

Anyway!

So I train up my team and carefully select my most kickass ponies, because I know Brock is going to be a complete pain in the ass...





*facehoof*



Yeah, the CMC have that effect on bronies.



It. Is. ON!




...and over in record time, as these are the only two ponies he has, and Twilight takes them down with one shot of Confusion each. Badge get!

Our next stop, of course, is Mt. Moon, but first, we've got to make it through a gauntlet of Ponymon trainers...




...and catch some new Ponymon...



Cheerilee is the Ponyville schoolteacher. She's been shipped officially with Big Macintosh.



Roseluck is just another background pony.

Carrot Top is also running wild in the same area as these two, but I only ran into one of her and I accidentally fainted her, so she's going to have to wait until next time...

Yeah, I think you should just try filling up your Ponydex as much as possible.

This has nothing to do with you or your LP skillz, but, this ponymod thing is lazy and terrible. :C

Actually, it's not; it's just a matter of the modders releasing a VERY early alpha that's full of mistakes and incomplete. The version I'm playing is Alpha 0.2. Alpha 0.3 is in the works and will fix a LOT of mistakes, fill in a lot of the Ponydex entries, change a lot more moves, and extend the playability through and just past the second gym.

When Ponymon is complete, it's going to be 20% cooler than Pokemon. It's just taking the mod team forever to code and bugfix the bastard.

(That having been said, I'm more than a little disappointed at its current condition, but I'm looking forward to the next version update.)

Would it be beneficial for you to wait until they release a more complete version, then?

Will they ever give the ponies back sprites?

Are the ponies ever going to look different? They could at least give different characters different poses or something.

Well, the plan at this point is simply to continue where I left off whenever alpha 0.3 is released, then alpha 0.4, etc. It kinda sucks that I set myself up like this without understanding the situation, but I don't like to start something and then leave it unfinished. So yeah, when they release the next alpha, I'll just keep going until I hit the next dead-end.

Look at it this way: at least it means TT only has to put up with about a week of this craziness at a time. :P

Well, I know they've already implemented menu sprites in the unreleased 0.3 build. I imagine they'll eventually do the back sprites, although it's going to open up the floodgates for DAT PLOT nonsense (I won't engage in any of that). Poses...no idea. If I find out anything concrete, though, I'll be sure to share.

God damnit.

Oh come on, SOMEPONY had to say it.

I've never watched mlp. However, whenever I hear the word 'pony', I think of this:

related video

I'm amused at the idea of seeing the different alpha versions of this every few months as they're released. It's cool to see things get built out, even if I'm not that interested in the final project.

Also, I'm with Mogri on the "things I could have done without learning" front.

Ponymon added last update:

Big Macintosh (foal), level 4; moves: Hoof Stomp, Tail Whip
Bon-Bon (foal), level 3; moves: Hoof Stomp
Derpy (foal), level 5; moves: Derp
Cheerilee (foal), level 8; moves: Hoof Stomp, Giggle
Roseluck (foal), level 6; moves: Hoof Stomp, Giggle

So, we've got a gym badge, but wait! Before I go to Mt. Moon, I need to double back and catch some Ponymon I missed just west of Ponyville, plus clobber Clopper for a second time...




Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara are two bitchy rich fillies who antagonize the Cutie Mark Crusaders on a regular basis. Unsurprisingly, they're both nasty Dark-type Ponymon.



Twitht ith a clathmate of the Cutie Mark Cruthaderth who wearth really dorky glatheth and talkth with a really bad lithp. She'th altho the firtht dual-type Ponymon I've caught...



And that adds Kindness to our type list.

Around the same area where I caught these three, I run into Clopper again.



This time, he's augmented his lame Pinkie Pie with a truly NASTY Diamond Tiara, and the battle is much tougher, but I prevailed once again!

Okay, we're done here, back on the road to Mt. Moon...



On the way back to Mt. Moon, I FINALLY catch Carrot Top, who it turns out is Generosity-type.

Next time: the FINAL update for Version Alpha 0.2!

Ponymon added last update:

Diamond Tiara (filly), level 3; moves: Hoof Stamp
Silver Spoon (filly), level 4; moves: Hoof Stamp
Twist (filly), level 4; moves: Hoof Stamp
Carrot Top (foal), level 8; moves: Hoof Stomp, Giggle, Hoof Kick

(Hoof Stamp is a different move from Hoof Stomp. It's Dark-type as opposed to Light-type.)

Having finally cleared the gauntlet of bronies between Hoofington and Mt. Moon, I run into this guy:




Olympic mane-brushing?



Yes, and they eat brony brains.



Hello, who's this?



Oh...it's the programmer.



Boo!




BOO!





Sooooooooooooo...that's it for now.

Whenever the hay Alpha 0.3 comes out, here's where I'll be going in:

Badges: 1
Ponydex: 21 seen, 16 owned

Ponymon:

Roseluck, level 6
Type: Generosity
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Giggle

Twilight Sparkle, level 14
Type: Magic
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Tail Whip, Confusion, Giggle

Twist, level 9
Type: Kindness/Light
Moves: Hoof Stamp, Giggle, Sweet Kiss

D. Tiara, level 10
Type: Dark
Moves: Hoof Stamp, Growl, Bite

Derpy, level 10
Type: Loyalty
Moves: Derp, Tail Whip

Carrot Top, level 8
Type: Generosity
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Tail Whip, Hoof Kick

Macintosh, level 10
Type: Honesty
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Tail Whip, Double Kick

Zecora, level 10
Type: Light
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Tail Whip, Confusion

Sil. Spoon, level 10
Type: Dark
Moves: Hoof Stamp, Growl, Bide

Cheerilee, level 10
Type: Kindness
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Giggle, Tail Whip

Lyra, level 10
Type: Light
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Tail Whip, Bide

Sweetie, level 10
Type: Light
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Tail Whip, Rock Throw

Bon-Bon, level 10
Type: Light
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Giggle, Rock Throw

Applebloom, level 10
Type: Light
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Giggle, True Hit

Colgate, level 10
Type: Spirit
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Giggle, Horn Attack

Scootaloo, level 10
Type: Light
Moves: Hoof Stomp, Tail Whip, Bide

And lastly, just for the hay of it, a movelist...

Bide (Light): For two turns, the Ponymon stores damage inflicted by the opponent's attack, then returns twice that damage to the opponent.
Bite (Dark): A moderately powerful attack that may cause flinching.
Confusion (Magic): A psychic attack that damages and may cause confusion.
Derp (Light): Does absolutely nothing.
Double Kick (Light): Kicks the opponent twice. Less powerful than Hoof Stomp, but has a decent critical hit rate and either or both kicks can crit.
Giggle (Laughter): Lowers the opponent's Attack.
Growl (Dark): Lowers the opponent's Attack.
Hoof Kick (Light): A moderately powerful attack.
Hoof Stamp (Dark): Basic attack that may cause flinching.
Hoof Stomp (Light): Basic attack that may cause flinching.
Horn Attack (Light): A moderately powerful attack.
Rock Throw (Light): Hurls rocks at the opponent. Not very useful in Ponymon.
Sweet Kiss (Light): Causes confusion.
Tail Whip (Light): Lowers the opponent's Defense.
True Hit (Light): Less damaging than Hoof Stomp, but CANNOT miss.

And that's it for now...I'll pick this back up when Alpha 0.3 is released.

...oh! One more thing:

The guy who sells Magikarp for P500 in the Mt. Moon Pokecenter? He apparently sells Roid Rage. I'll find out later today and let everypony know.

Like I say, I would suggest playing with Dusk and evolving your ponies for now.