Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the next Fighting is Magic™.

 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.

 I've been waiting for an opportunity to give Ponykart's unofficial revival project some more exposure for a while now, and now the time has finally come. You see, they're looking for some C++ programmers who also have some experience in C# to help them with the port, along with the usual graphics designers, musicians, and even writers (although I still have no idea why a kart racer would need people dedicated to the latter, especially since characters in said games rarely speak).

 Interested? Check out their announcement for details on the requirements and how to submit an application, or just read the copypasted version below the break. You might also want to check out their Google Group and GitHub repo.

 Coming in to fill another spot in the "pony games comprised entirely of OCs" lineup (which seems to be getting distressingly popular as of late) is a project by the name of Adventures in Equica: Unicorn Quest. The developer, Yotes Games, describes the project as an action-RPG, with a battle system reminiscent of top-down shooters and exploration similar to 2D Zelda titles. The game is still in the conceptual phase at the moment, unfortunately, but the developer promises daily updates for those of you who are interested in the development process. You can read more about the project, including the developer's long-winded explanations of various game concepts, in this post on his blog.

Personally, I'm interested to see how far this project goes; while anyone can write up a pie-in-the-sky game concept without necessarily being able to bring it to fruition, the developer already has some completed projects outside of ponies under his belt, which gives me some confidence for his. Plus, there seems to be a lack of Android pony games that aren't just ports of Flash minigames or clones of other, more popular mobile games; this project has a chance to please that under-served niche in the
fandom.

 It's been over a year since the last full Adventure of the Lunarbolts update, and as usual they showcase a couple scenes ostensibly about the developers creating this game, albeit while being portrayed as hopeless fools whose props repeatedly explode and are almost entirely unable to accomplish simple tasks. Perhaps there is no Adventure of the Lunarbolts game after all, but this is all an extended joke directed at overhyped projects created by bickering development teams?

There's always the possibility that they'll end up not releasing the game at all, but a documentary of its developers having lunch.

 So a while back there were a bunch of people who got together to make Let's Play videos and called their channel Brony Gamers Play. Since February marks their second year of existence they've decided to hold a daily stream over at their Twitch channel and give out various prizes every day, which is pretty sweet if you're the type of person who doesn't mind watching other people play video games with the slight chance of winning something in return.

To qualify for the giveaway you'll have to follow their Twitch channel at http://www.twitch.tv/bronygamersplay/ and talk to them on the chat. There's also a chart detailing as to exactly what games are being given away on each day, which may or may not interest you.

This simple game from NzureuzInternational is a game about hopping on clouds and Shadowbolt heads to ascend into the sky. It's basically a ponified clone of Doodle Jump. There's an in-game store with a few things to purchase with your accumulated score, but the options are either aesthetic (a couple of extra characters that are just reskins of Cloud Kicker) or only useful for score attacking ("start at 650 feet" and "add 500 feet to the end score", both of which cost exactly as much as you get out of them). Whether or not you enjoy this will depend on whether or not you enjoy the original game it's based off of. The game also has Android and iOS downloads for taking on the go, if that's your thing.

The folks running the Finnish Crystal Fair 2014 brony convention are organizing a Team Fortress 2 tournament named Crystal Gaming (unrelated to the Crystal Games Challenge we covered a few days ago), aimed at players of all skill levels. The tournament, designed as a promotion for the convention, is taking signups through the end of the month. They've got some TF2-related prizes for the top teams, and are also accepting item donations to add to the prize pool, if you've grown bored of hat collect-a-thons and want to offload your inventory or something like that. Read past the break for their press release, with more info and some useful links. (Or you could just read it on their site, if you'd rather.)

This game from Okamikurainya is a fairly standard pony platformer starring Daring Do (who would've guessed?), with its fair share of barely-visible jumps and doodads floating around waiting to be collected. The lack of any temporary invincibility after a hit leads to many situations where one hit leads to more that can't be avoided. The boss is unusually clever for these kinds of fangames, though, and manages to be pretty fun when you're not getting backed into a wall and killed instantly. There's some potential for a fun game here if the developer works to add some variety to future levels.

 Last year there was some event called the Crystal Games Challenge, and unsurprisingly they're holding another one this year from June 13 to 15. That's really all I know, aside from their plans to feature the entries on a convention panel somewhere like they previously did at Everfree Northwest.

They have an exclamation-plagued announcement at http://www.thegamingcolts.com/2014/01/15/announcing-the-crystal-games-challenge-2014/