Hot off the queue of things that have lingered in our inbox for a depressingly long time, Canterlot Siege 3: Inversion is the latest entry in the line of Flash-powered tower defense games by futzi01 starring characters from the MLP universe. The main difference in this one is that now you're playing as the villains, trying to stop the good guys from reclaiming their home. Gameplay-wise, notable additions include the ability to place boss characters - fully upgraded attackers with special attack patterns - and additional variety in the level choices, going from the old design philosophy of different paths in a grassy field to levels with some actual variety in them, even if only visually. The game does get difficult fast - as someone not well-versed in tower defense games, I struggled to make it very far my first few rounds - but it becomes more manageable with practice.

 At this point I mostly post these things to keep a log of them. Most of the people interested in this game probably follow the author and played it months ago.

 There are a lot of story-based games circling around the pony fandom, but not many have the strong player-influenced dynamic that Shattered Kingdom aims to provide. The project, being developed by a group known as Alicorn Games, is a turn-based strategy RPG centered around an Equestrian civil war between the Celestial Empire and the New Lunar Republic. The game will be heavily story-oriented and non-linear, with the player's actions influencing various story elements throughout the course of the game.

 The game is still early in development, and no public demo exists (at least that I can find), but a recent video of their panel at Bronycon 2014 showcases some of the team's current progress. More information can be found on the team's official blog.

 The pony fangaming scene has a good share of games inspired by particular episodes. Stop the Bats! is one of them, created by Versimer in a mere 8 days using C++ and the SFML library. That's fairly impressive in itself, considering that some fangames use premade engines and still take longer to complete.

But just how good is the game itself? Well, you're gonna have to hit the page break to find out.

 Despite the name leading us to believe that it'll feature gameplay similar to the Age of Empires series, Hopeabandoner is evidently aiming for his RTS to be more like the Starcraft series, which kind of disappointed me since I'm rather fond of the former. There's also some plans for "original elements", which probably have something to do with unit customization (something that's been available since 1999 in Warzone 2100, along with a crapton of other RTS games). Even so, the pony fandom doesn't have enough real time strategy games and it would be nice to actually see one get finished for once, so...

Follow the tumblr, I guess?

Seems Sun and Moon inspired a little more interest in pony board gaming! I'll bite. This game was actually sent in a while back, but I've got quite the backlog to get through.

In the style of its predecessor, Randleshackle is a chess-like game played between two players marshaling the forces of Celestia and Luna. The goal of the game is to amass points by capturing the opponents mules, unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, and ends when the opponent's alicorn is captured. A 3-player mode is in development, but it looks like it has a way to go at the moment.

On their turns, players can empower their ponies to use special racial powers: resilience for earth ponies, flight for pegasi, and magic for earth ponies. The powers function as a roshambo mechanic - unicorns have the advantage against pegasi, who trump earth ponies, who in turn stymie unicorns.

The best thing about the game? It's still in play-testing, so your feedback determines how the final project comes out! Enjoy.

Some reviews take little to no time out of my day. Others take forever, because I get hooked and spend more time than I care to admit beating the game in its entirety. Princess Civilization falls into the latter category.

Playing as Twilight Sparkle, it's up to you to send your scouts across Equestria, spreading peace and harmony as you go! The land is threatened with more than its share of grave danger, but the situation is salvageable with some old-fashioned 4X strategy.

Review below the break!