Sort of pony related, I guess?

 Since I'm guessing that most of you people have already participated in one of Legends of Equestria's many open server weekends and pretty much know what to expect, there's not much for me to say aside from that it'll begin at 12:01 AM EST on August 8th and end at 11:59 PM on the 10th, and that you will need an account on their forums in order to participate in the usual mixture of general chat, roleplay, and enterprising young chaps finding increasingly convoluted ways to leave the confines of the map. Not the sort of thing that I usually enjoy, but it's not like I really have much for friends to play LoE with, so I usually just run around as a lowly mudpony and quit shortly after reaching that one really high spot just outside the lawyer-friendly city of Cantermore.

In case you wish to read the original announcement for whatever reason, you may do so at http://forum.legendsofequestria.com/index.php?topic=11989.0

 Well what do you know, Special Somepony (also known as Cloudsdale's infamous SSP, who has simultaneously been the most popular and infuriatingly annoying person on Romance) has recently announced that he/she is providing updates about their status for whatever reason. Not that you'd want to follow the premature dating misadventures of several twelve year old children on an internet chatsite anyhow, but apparently this is pony related so I guess you can...try to enjoy this?

 Only a couple days after the previous Story of the Blanks HD update comes this new video, featuring two very similar concepts for the game's visual style: the former being more zoomed-in while the latter taking a more effects-heavy approach with a more distant camera and the background being blurred out quite a bit more. I lean more towards the latter myself, although I get the impression that using varying camera distances for different scenes would actually be rather useful for story and atmosphere-related purposes, but if you want to give your own feedback then feel free to comment on their YouTube video and speak your heart out.

 Also, you'll be pleased to hear that the team are apparently going to continuing the original, more show-accurate style unless they happen to receive a C&D, a decision which I fullheartedly support.

 After over a year of almost absolute silence from the developers of the Story of the Blanks HD remake, aside from the rare animation preview and occasional snippets of the soundtrack by Kyoga, their head has come forth and confessed that she's essentially paranoid about the possibility of a C&D (nevermind that the vast majority of fangames have never received one, contrary to what your average EqD commenter might tell you) and is really wanting to move to an entirely original style with renamed characters and...ugh. It's almost as if she's forgotten that this is supposed to be a fangame, let alone a remake of a fairly well-known creepypasta, and such a project should be more a labor of love rather than merely an opportunity to make money. Heck, the reason why people were attracted to this project in the first place was because it purported to be an expanded re-imagining of the original game in the same spirit, not some cutesy Power Puff Girls-style romp that just happened to share its title with Story of the Blanks.

 Look, I'm sorry if this comes across as rude or anything like that, but this was honestly the one ambitious fangame I was really, really excited to play someday (aside from some quirky projects like Raycord Legends and Curse of the Lost Kingdom), and now it almost looks as if it's all going to go down the drain just because the creator is afraid to accept the necessary chance of a C&D. If you're going to enter the fangame development scene at all you have to take some risks; trying to skirt around the issue by changing names/character designs will only result in people getting upset and a smaller overall playerbase.

 Here we have Equestria Racing, which appears to be some sort of ponified Superman 64 clone minus the beat 'em up sections and kryptonite fog. I do have some rather mixed-feelings about it so far, but hopefully the final product will manage to make for it by throwing in some interesting locations to fly around in and whatnot.

I've embedded some of the previous development updates below the break as well, in case you're interested in seeing those.

 For various reasons, the Legends of Equestria development team decided to release a Babscon trailer showcasing the game minus the apparently quite awesome dragon invasion they held near the open server weekend's end, which I find somewhat disappointing. Ah well, at least it's a nice preview for those of you who want a sample of the LoE experience without waiting for another open server weekend or the lines of people sitting on that one rooftop and general goofiness typically found in private servers, the latter of which I wouldn't consider a downside to visiting a private server at all.

 And on another note, tux3 released his LoE private server build on GitHub a couple days ago, which you can grab at https://github.com/tux3/LoE-PrivateServer/releases for whenever those go live.

 Back in March we posted about an upcoming Legends of Equestria open server weekend from April 18 to 20, and now that the 18th has finally been reached we are pleased to announce that the event has begun on time. You can download a copy of the game here, and don't worry about login issues; apparently the team has resolved those so we probably won't have more horror stories of people literally waiting for several hours to get in.

 If you aren't able to play this weekend for whatever reason, I'd suggest downloading the client anyways since Tux3 will probably release another private server for it after the event is done. We've also copypasted a guide to the game below, which you can also find at http://forum.legendsofequestria.com/index.php?topic=10677.

 In case you read the comments of our last post, you'd have heard that Dark Skyes' artist Pukey Pony got together with several folks and began work on an actual visual novel based off of the ill-fated trolling attempt (albeit without the supposed "deep RPG elements" and "100+ hours of gameplay"). As of now they're using placeholder music and backgrounds until more progress is made on the writing and character artwork, but I guess that isn't a really big deal since the fandom does have an overall lack of complete dating sims and it'd be nice to have that particular genre covered.

 There was a video update before this one, but Sam Hyde had it taken down from YouTube over "copyright violations" or some crap like that.

 Surprisingly enough, Super Smash Ponies appears to be still alive and its developers are apparently looking for some people to help them finish Rainbow Dash so they can move on to the better ponies. Not all that exciting, but eh. It's a slow month, so if you happen to be one of those rare voice actresses or animators who aren't always busy with stuff (I'm looking at you, Nicoboss) perhaps you should consider checking this out.

You could read the original announcement at their site, or just head on below the break for some copypasta.