Luna Game
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Luna Game is a downloadable game created and posted by Ceremi to "Equestria Daily" on April 3rd, 2011. From the name of the game to the sprites used, it is clearly based on the popular show "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" (also known as G4 MLP:FiM). While the game looks simple and easy to understand, Luna Game spawned a series of games and even fanmade games with the last official installment being Luna Game 5 on February 19th, 2012. Yet, a common aspect of all the games is that the protagonist, Princess Luna, goes through a series of obstacles and platforms that ends in a screamer. Said screamers are images depicting characters such as Apple Bloom with a screaming audio clip relayed as a result.
Luna Game 1
Released on April 3rd, 2011, the game starts with a custom made Princess Luna model that slightly drops on a platform. The terrain remains the same as it is brown with green triangles looking downwards to signify grass accompanied by a navy blue background with white dots that are supposed to be stars. Meanwhile, an instrumental is played which are to as "Upbeat Pony Beats" in the application. With no introduction or instructions, the player is tasked with only progressing to the right using the arrow keys to either move left, right, and jump.
However, little does the player know that unlike in most scary games where it is a linear "Point A to Point B" type of goal that ends in a jumpscare, the screamers in Luna Game are triggered by a time limit (not shown in-game) that starts ticking the moment the application runs. To make it even more confusing, the time limit itself is randomly assigned, though it is usually between 10-20 seconds or, on rare occasions, 30 seconds. For example, one player may end up getting 10 seconds while another may end up with 16 seconds, making the screamers almost unpredictable though most players see them around the point in which they are close to a T-shaped platform on the ground. With that said, it is also possible for the screamer to appear even if the player did not move Luna at all.
Once the timer hits zero, 1 of 2 edited pictures will be shown to startle the player:
- A picture of Pinkie pie smiling with black eyes and white pupils while distorted, feminine voices can be heard.
- An image of Apple bloom grimacing against a light that only shows her eyes, teeth, and part of her yellow skin including her mane. Unlike the first image, the audio played is an eerie ambience.
Aftermath
The images shown will not close until the player does it manually either through Task Manager or simply powering off their device. Yet, that is not all as the user's desktop is now filled with pictures that were either the jumpscares themselves, screenshots of where the player was by the time the jumpscare happened, and text files that says "The end is neigh". It should be noted that the images and screenshots may also be labeled with "The end is neigh."
Luna Game 2
Released on May 30th, 2011, this version has slightly improved graphics with Luna herself being noticeably smaller compared to her previous model. As usual, the player must move to the right, except this time they are told by black text that they can run by holding the shift key. In terms of the layout of the game, it is less platform-based unlike the 1st game.
The further Luna moves to the right, the more cracked the ground beneath her appears up until a point in which a picture of a zalgofied Pinkie Pie appears briefly with static noises. Afterwards, the world suddenly changes into a dark, red version with what appears to be a snowstorm heard in the background. Additionally, the player's movement is now significantly reduced and they are no longer able to sprint. After a couple seconds of walking, the player will encounter a dead end as there is a wall preventing any progress to the right. Yet, there is one visible peculiarity at the end, a big chasm on the ground. With no other option left but to descend into the abyss, Luna slowly falls as the background fades to black including herself, revealing a game over screen with fanart of Luna falling while some disturbing music plays with bloody text saying " YOU DIED."
After a couple seconds on the game over screen, the game will close by itself and, unlike the 1st game, will not add any files, screenshots, etc. into the PC.
Luna Game 3
Released on June 11th, 2011, it follows the same format with some slight differences. Aside from the forest setting and a catchy song that plays, the terrain is much more flat with small hills to jump on and no floating platforms. After running to the right for a certain amount of time, the background music starts to slow down followed by static sounds appears, cutting off the music. Simultaneously, the world starts to darken as the player approaches a huge pit on the ground like the one in the 2nd game.
However, there is no wall blocking the right side, allowing the player to jump over the hole and continue walking right. Unfortunately, the level loops and leads to the same pit again, forcing the player to fall down on the gap. Of interesting note, the player will notice that Luna disappears for a quick second after crossing a threshold in which the looping begins. This is a bug and only signifies that the player has been looped back to the same hole.
Whereas the 2nd game was a slow decent with no ending jumpscare, this one ends abruptly with the same image of zalgofied Pinkie pie used from the 1st game. If the player were to fall down the hole for a second time after opening up the game again, the screen will flash with several images of zalgofied ponies. When the screen changes back to normal, it cuts back to Luna's dismembered corpse where she opens her eyes and a close-up image of her is presented, closing the game after this.
Luna Game 4
Released on July 9th, 2011, it starts with Luna on a flat platform above the ground with a light blue sky in the background. As the player moves to the right with cheerful music playing, the walking ends at a cliff where they must fall, resulting in a squish sound effect and an abrupt cut to black to signal Luna's death. The black screen will then have a series of text above a blue dot that reads "You've met with a terrible fate, Haven't you...", "It didn't have to turn out like this...", "You didn't have to die...", and then the final text has blood on the screen which reads "BUT NOW YOU'RE IN MY WORLD." After the threatening message, Luna is seen being thrown down from the sky and into a bloody world.
At that point, the game is now more reminiscent of the 1st game with the layout being platform-based. However, there is a catch, the player must run through the obstacles quickly before the darkness from the left side engulfs them. Yet, this is impossible to do as the player will reach a point in which they must perform a jump that is intentionally difficult to do, leading them to fall to their doom and allowing the darkness to catch up with Luna.
After this, the screen goes back to the blue square part with a zalgofied version of the "You have met a terrible fate Haven't you..." text. But this is not the end, as for a short second, a messed up 8-bit song starts to play while some glitchy blocks start to appear on the screen, forming a path that Luna must follow. To the surprise of the player, the darkness comes back almost immediately behind the player again, forcing them to only move right and never stop running. Eventually, Luna will come across what appears to be a wall that as soon as she goes closer towards it, Pinkie Pie appears with a maniacal smile and disappears alongside Luna. After the encounter, a sound of a heartbeat can be heard with an image of Pinkamena Pie from an episode of MLP titled "Party of One." As the heartbeat gets louder and the image gets lighter, a windows message pops up saying "Luna Game 4.exe has stopped working" to which the player must close the program, ending the 4th Luna Game from there.
On an important note, trying to reopen the game again regardless of the ending the player got will lead to a black screen with a caption that says "Your fate is already sealed...", meaning that the only way to play it again is to either install a Replay Program made for the game, or to delete the game file and reinstall it.
Luna Game 0
Released on August 15th, 2011, it beings with Luna spawning in Princess Celestia's castle. Some dialogue exchanges related to friendship are given to the player along with a new mechanic not present in the other Luna Games; they can interact with the other ponies by pressing the spacebar key when Luna is in front of them. After exiting the castle to the right, the player moves into a grassy area with a melodic tune playing. Aside from the slight texture changes such as better grass and even clouds in the background, the player will also notice that this installment has quests, all of which has to do with the Mane Six having problems.
As such, the player can play one of six different levels, each with a different item to collect such as books for Twilight and candy for Pinkie Pie. For each quest accomplished, the respective pony whose items have been fully collected will thank the player and ask them to collect more, totaling up to 49 items that the player must collect. However, as seen on the top left, there is a 50th item that must be collected which is a black and white version of Twilight's book. When the player touches it, the music halts to a loud boom. After this, all that can done is to press on, jumping over a platform towards solid ground in which it suddenly disappears. As Luna falls to her doom, some dramatic music starts playing as the screen fades to black.
The screen flashes white and an image of Luna in her "Nightmare Moon" form appears followed by her eyes glowing and flashing. The screen returns back to where the player last stopped before the falling, but everything now has a reddish tint. When the player continues back to the previous area, some foreboding ambience plays as the ponies talk to Luna about how Pinkie Pie is looking for her. By the time the player reaches up to Pinkie Pie, she welcomes Luna and tells her how "you can never have too many parties!" As she continues to talk about parties, Luna is told by an ominous whisper that she must kill her to which it gets aggravated and tells her to "KILL HER NOW!" Following the voice, Luna slashes Pinkie from her back to her chest where, in a state of shock, goes "B... But... Why...?." After a short second, the top half of her body begins sliding off and the game closes. TO the player's dismay, the game opens again and displays a disturbing image of Pinkamena saying "This Isn't Over" which stops the game shortly after.
Like in the 3rd game, trying to reopen the game again is pointless since it now displays more text and only this text saying "The past cannot be changed...", though it can be played again using the method stated above to play Luna Game 3 again.
Friday the 13th Easter Egg
If the player changes their system date to Friday the 13th, the player gets a special cutscene in which Pinkamena will face Nightmare Moon. Nightmare moon asks why she killed Pinkie Pie, claiming that "a party doesn't make up for 1000 years of suffering", scaring Pinkamena and causing her to talk some sense into the princess. Shockingly, Nightmare Moon breaks the fourth wall by saying "SHH! Someone is listening" and then the screamer appears once again.
Luna Game End (A.K.A Luna Game 5)
The official Luna Game 5, officially known as "Luna Game End" was later released on August 22, 2012. What is interesting is that this game was considered as more of a "project" than all the others by Ceremi due to not only length, but the fact that this was saved up to be the conclusion to the series for a whole year. At the time, users questioned as to why "Unknown project; unknown completion time" appeared on the official Luna Game website (see trivia below). By the time that the game came out on the date stated prior, the text was replaced with a link to a video that featured a black and red test signal, which becomes garbled by static before fading to a title simply saying "5" then fading out (5 meaning that this is the 5th and final installment in the series of course).
The player starts off on a flat strip of grass at night with happy music playing in the background. After a short amount of walking, the player encounters a familiar cliff. Though this time when the player falls down, the player safely lands on the ground. After some walking, Luna's movement starts to slow down, and eventually the text bubble “I’m really tired” appears over her head. She collapses a moment later, along with another text bubble saying “I’ll just rest for a moment…” to which the screen slowly fades to black.
After the music stops, Luna is now in a white void with only a single black line as the ground below the player. When walking to the right, she encounters the 8-bit limbo sprites from Luna Game 4 where, if touched, it leads to the ground below them to vanish coupled with some strange noises that sounds like muffled electrical sparks. Simultaneously, the sky and ground blocks randomly appear which gradually generates. After another few moments, a strange screech can be heard that causes the floor to disappear again, except this time the player falls and the blue sky turns into an empty, dark red sky.
When the player hits the ground again, the player is greeted by ground blocks with familiar line designs from Luna Game 4. Continuing to walk right will reveal a smaller cliff where jumping on it again will trigger the ground blocks to randomly start turning into the same 8-bit limbo blocks from Luna Game 4 along with the second soundtrack in the 8-bit limbo world "Incoming Darkness" starts to play, and somewhat a dark shadow starts eating up the screen to the left. If the player doesn't escape from the darkness, it will lead back to the next map. Yet, should the player manage to outrun it, several obstacles will appear to make it more difficult to run, thus leading to the same outcome if the player attempts to go to the end.
Once caught, the player is shown Luna lying back down on the ground from the first scene where she took a nap, implying that it was a nightmare of sorts. After a moment, she stands up and starts to see some shadow ponies. For some of the ponies, dialogue can appear which are typically vague such as "From Ashes to Shadows..." while others simply pace back and forth. After some static flashes, the text above the ponies heads will change along with their original sprites. Fortunately, the player is now able to sprint, but it leads them to approach towards a shadowy Nightmare Moon. With Luna moving closer to Nightmare Moon, another creepy song starts to play accompanied by a heartbeat. From there, more static appears and the screen changes into black.
However, that is not all, for the aforementioned ending is 1 of 2 endings that the player can get. In this case, it is the bad ending as it insinuates that Luna either died or never woke up. In the good ending, the screen cuts to black like before, except this time text appears reading "Princess Luna?" Luna is then shown surrounded by the Mane Six, as a happy melody plays in the background. Twilight claims that Luna had passed out after helping Pinkie Pie to get her candies, and Luna says that she had some nightmares. Pinkie proposes for them to throw a party to make her feel better, and Luna agrees with such idea, but says that something still feels off. Twilight questions Luna's words, and she quickly replies that it is "nothing..." in an ominous way. Right before the game closes, during a few frames, Pinkie Pie's sprite changes into Pinkamena as a loud boom noise plays in the background, suggesting that Luna's ending may not be so "happily ever after" after all.
Reactions and Popularity
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Fanmade Luna Games
Luna Game 5 (Fan-made version)
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The Lunar Game
The player controls Luna using arrow keys to move and space to jump, Once the player goes down that pit, the player get out of it, Though, the only way to do it is to try moving and jumping around until the wall disappears, Move forward, which leads to a message: "And Luna lived happily ever after And nothing scary happened, ever".
Lona's Gohem 48
When the game finishes loading, the player appears on a poorly drawn grass field, if the player gets far enough, at which point the same screamer appears, (It is poorly drawn.) After a few seconds, the game closes.
On Youtube
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Trivia
- As mentioned earlier, the creator of the series was revealed to be Ceremi, which was first discussed on a thread, which can be found here.
- Although the series was initially posted on the aforementioned Equestria Daily website, it had its own website called "lunagame.net" which was launched on July 18, 2012. Although it is now defunct, it contained information on current updates related to the creator and the series.
- With the series gaining much attention from the MLP fanbase, a rumor was spread about the application being malware that could supposedly ruin a user's RAM on their PC. However, this was disconfirmed as the game is safe based on viral scans.
- The creepy ambiance that plays during the creepy Apple Bloom image in the first game is actually a heavily edited version of 3 MLP songs: "Hush Now Quiet Now", "Evil Enchantress", and "Giggle At The Ghosties."
- The original image that was used for the game over screen in Luna Game 2 was created by a user called PterosaurPony, and it can be found on DeviantArt.
- The text that appears in Luna Game 4 such as "You've met with a terrible fate, Haven't you..." is clearly based on the "BEN Drowned" creepypasta which was about a haunted Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask game cartridge.
- Pinkamena Pie, as used in the 4th Luna Game, has been a popular "alter-ego" character as seen in multiple horror works of the MLP fandom. Aside from the zalgo images in the Luna Games, she even got her own creepypasta simply titled "Cupcakes" which has been the most infamous work since then (although ironically, the original author came out claiming that it was nothing but a fanfiction joke he wrote).
- The infamous screaming used in the later games such as Luna Game 3 and 4, which has even been used in other horror games such as Uchakip, is actually a distorted audio from a clip in MLP where Fluttershy goes "You're going to love me!"
- In spite of how short Luna Game 0 was especially considering the average playtime of the series, there was an actual demo for it that was released on July 15th, 2011. In it, Luna talks to a bunch of ponies from the Mane Six where she reminds them that she "will never forget any of you... Not even now." After a transition, Luna punctuates her dialogue with "I miss you all..." The game ends with the words "Luna Game 0" in a bloody, creepy font, and then it closes.
Links
- creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/Luna_Game - Creepypasta Wiki, Special Thanks to them for information.
- mlpfanart.fandom.com/wiki/Luna_Game - Luna Games article on the MLP Fandom Wiki
NOTE: The following games contain screamers!
- The zip file with all Luna Games included: host.screamer.wiki/Luna.zip
Showcase videos
NOTE: The following videos contain disturbing imagery!
- First game: youtube.com/watch?v=5_JRu060KnI
- Second game: youtube.com/watch?v=6_cZD8MZDcU
- Third game: youtube.com/watch?v=55OmBVoXbUc
- Fourth game: youtube.com/watch?v=KsNe0sSGvlQ
- Luna Game 0: youtube.com/watch?v=wDTi4g3_T-s
- Fifth game: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGoinh0OVOE
Fanmade Games
- Lunar Game: browse.deviantart.com/?order=9&q=The+Lunar+Game&offset=24#/d4h75z1
- Lonas Gohem 48: mediafire.com/file/k9fd302e0yym8jt/LONA%27S+GOEM+48.zip
Virus Information
- https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/e451f0aa2bc1936755dbb6738c25dd0b90f031622f60049bf4af5db4bb024611/detection
- https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/714fd09e2146fb0c6847dfc3524164ffbc687e94b665f857a857db029acc562c/detection
