If Seth is to be believed, a disturbing amount of you guys have been hammering the inbox with… this. For those who don’t know, this is… Pony World 3, a clearly FiM inspired game that’s… I don’t know, trying to hit it off with the brony crowd? Or maybe just provide a gaming experience for younger people that want a My Little Pony game but want something more involved than the Gameloft one?
Whatever it is, I’m Alexstrazsa, taking a quick break from Desu Daily and entering the depths of Pony World 3 for your… enjoyment.
Hit that “Read More” button and let’s begin our journey.
The first thing, and I mean the very first thing you’ll find upon launching the game via Steam is this. Looks promising, don’t it? Those cold, unfeeling eyes really invite you in and assure you that you’re about to have magical pony experience!
But hey, at least it’ll look “Fantastic.”
It’s around this point that I started to wonder if this was all really worth it, but I had already come this far. There’s no going back now.
So this title screen is pretty standard. Play, Credits, Settings, Profiles, and the button I’m not allowed to press just yet. Also, you might notice that the ground is completely white! For one reason or another, it’s not rendering properly for me, and it just randomly flashes white. Maybe it’s my graphics card, a GTX 770 that’s typically for more uh… demanding applications.
There’s no time to dwell on graphical errors, though, so let’s take a quick look at the menu.
Settings is what you’d expect, with options for language, music, sounds… AND UI COLOR? Now this is some next level customization right here! Normally I’d set it to purple, but this time I’ll go with blue. You’ll see why shortly.
Profiles just has your various game profiles, credits lists a bunch of people who’d probably not have their names there, and quit does what you would expect. Pretty standard stuff. So let’s go hit that play button and see where it goes!
Time to hit new game, and…
NOPE nevermind I don’t like where it goes, take me back! This pony has lived a thousand lives, died a thousand deaths, and remembers it all with soul-crushing detail. Those are the eyes of one who has seen far, far too much.
Horrifying visage aside, let’s customize it!
In the spirit of EQD.
I tried my best, but uh… it seems you can only customize colors in this section? I clicked all the buttons I could, and all it had were color sliders and the occasional accessory, like the blanket she’s currently wearing and her barely-visible butt mark.
Also, I’d like to add that switching from male to female only adds lipstick and longer hair. That’s it. There’s no other differences.
So let’s just… ugh, take this pony and start the game. As far as her occupation, I went with whatever the cash register indicates. Cashier? Maybe. That’s probably something Trixie would end up doing.
Oh, okay. It seems we’re not quite ready yet. I now have to pick a scenario of some sort. Tutorial is what it says on the tin, “Single” has you making friends, finding a partner, and having a baby. “Couple” is the same thing, but you start the game with a pair of ponies instead. “Sport Champion” has you playing minigames, “Millionaire” has you gold farming, and “Free play” just lets you go around doing whatever.
I suppose the tutorial is the most logical place to start.
So here we are. Our farm. You can point and click to move and use the right mouse button to change th
e view.
Now that is a beautiful plot. Of land.
Now let’s take a look at that UI. You’ve got speed controls, the needs of your pony, and different tools to help you play. I’m gonna try clicking that hammer to see what it does.
Huh… “Build Mode.” And a nice big grid to build on.
Wait a minute… Build Mode, speed controls, needs, starting a family and making friends. This is…
This is The Sims. This game is The Sims, but with ponies instead of people. I’m just… is that really the angle they went for here? You even have jobs and promotions and statistics about what your pony does. IT’S THE SIMS.
With that revelation out of the way, I guess I’ll start working on the tutorial. It gave me a list of buildings to put on my farm, so here we are:
5 STARS. A+. 4 STARS.
So there’s Trixie’s new abode, with stable, shower, compost pile, and well. It’s everything a budding pony could ask for.
Apparently we needed to grow some tomatoes, but those take four days to grow. We can’t sit here observing our future tomato empire forever, though, so let’s take this time to venture into town and meet some other ponies.
I’m sure this won’t be horrifying at all.
Away we go.
Well, here we are, in town, in the late hours of the morning because Trixie is an insomniac! There’s already some potential friends in sight, including Ruby… Jessica… and Barbara.
These are… these are not the names I was looking for.
I decided to fast forward a bit until it was bright and early, so I could show you the full majesty of this pony world. As you can see, there are plenty of buildings to explore and ponies to meet!
Let’s check out that building right next to us.
Oh. It’s a pharmacy. And wow, an expensive one at that! $250 for a box of tissues! Is there a paper crisis in this world? Have trees become near extinct and tissues are a commodity reserved for the elite upper class!?
$100 for a dentist appointment though. That’s not too shabby.
BUT THEN $150 FOR A BAND-AID!
I need to get out of this place before I break something I can’t afford.
Also similar to The Sims, if your pony is in a bad mood, they won’t do certain things. I tried to get Trixie to visit the museum, but she was far too hungry for that. The obvious choice was head over to the local burger joint.
Right as she got near, though, I noticed Lucy. Let’s try talking to her.
It’s exactly what you would expect. A chat bubble pops up, you can say things. The more random positive actions you do, the more friendly you get. In no time at all, Trixie had become colleagues with Lucy. And yes, that’s an actual rank:
Married at 13. I hope that's horse years.
When it comes to friendship, Pony World 3 doesn’t mess around. Anyway, time to satisfy Trixie’s hunger!
SWEET CELESTIA. This is the most inflated economy I’ve ever seen! A boiled carrot is $160! And a uh… “ship” is $200? Did they mean steak perhaps? Because that’s what that looks like. Also, jeeze, chicken and steak on the menu. These ponies have a carnivorous side after all.
Trixie was feeling frugal today and got tomato soup. But it only satisfied her hunger by +50, so she needed another one. $200 down the drain. You know what I could buy with $200? A lot of things. A lot of nice things. Trixie here spends it on soup.
She’s an animal.
While exploring, I came across this shop and discovered that the cash register profession I had picked for her was actually a trader, and this store was hiring! Since Trixie needs to make up for that soup she just bought, she’s getting herself a job.
I immediately made her work for eight full hours.
Upon finishing, she was dead tired, so I figured this would be a good time to send her home and give her some much needed rest.
Unfortunately, I went to the wrong portal and into the park, where the UI completely broke (it does this whenever you go into the park).
At this point you can probably see how the game works. You pick a scenario, complete the objectives one-by-one (some of which take far too long for what the game offers), and then I guess you win… or something.
It’s not a very particularly exciting or engaging game. At best, it’s tedious and a way to waste time for a little bit. At worst, it’s glitchy and entirely unfun. The novelty of it being “lol MLP knockoff!!!” wears out very quickly.
But that’s just the “main” scenarios. What about the minigames?
This one is a really odd looking “platformer” where you void obstacles and collect money.
This is Bejewled, but terribly slow-paced and without any of the cool bonuses for mixing four and five of the same gem together.
This one is an especially terrible looking top-down maze game. That pony there doesn’t look anything close to the one I made, and it plays like a flash game.
In fact, all of these play like flash games.
Basic memory game.
Sliding tile game, simply called “Puzzle.” I completed the muffin for you.
At the very least, you access them all at this lovely beach. Well, as lovely as this game can actually render the beach, that is. All twenty polygons.
So that’s… about it. I mean, I didn’t play every mode, but I can’t imagine the game gets much more involved than what I’ve shown you here. It is very simple, and honest, I think the aspect of the game with the most effort was the walking. Seriously, the way the ponies move from point A to point B is pretty darn smooth.
Everything else is just lacking. The graphics are questionable at best, a large portion of the game play is just pointing and clicking through menus (then waiting for a progress bar to fill up), and there’s not much substance.
But honestly, what did you really expect here? The game is $4.99 on Steam as of this writing, and it is very much intended for a young audience. For a bored kid who likes MLP, this might actually be right up their alley. If anything, the minigames are basic enough that you can waste time with them. And hey, maybe you might like building up your farm. Farmville was super popular for a while, after all. This just adds a colorful pony to the mix.
If you’ve read this far and you still want the game, I’d wait until it goes on sale or something. $4.99 is still a bit too steep for what’s essentially a browser game.
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this little write-up of the beast that is Pony World 3. It’s certainly an interesting MLP knock-off looking game, but interesting is where it starts and ends. You've seen all there is to see.
If you want more gaming stuff from me, check out my YouTube channel! And if any more MLP-esque games come around, you just might find me doing a writeup for them. Catch ya'll next time.
