Assault on Planet Equidon

Assault On Planet Equidon is the winner of Gamedev.net's sixth edition of the annual Four Elements contest. It is a side-scrolling action platform game.

The four elements that had to be incorporated in the game according to the contest outlines were:

• Ponies
• Accountants
• Crystals
• Explosions

The story of the game is that an army of accountants have travelled far into space to the planet Equidon to wage war on the ponies that live there. Most of the accountants however are killed by these ruthless ponies. Only one survives the initial onslaught and it is up to him to defeat the pony queen.

As an accountant you have a variety of accounting weapons at your disposal, such as the boomerang briefcase, stamp of rejection, the spiked briefcase, guided briefcase, paper cuts and an ink bottle. You only start with two weapons, but by collecting crystals you can buy new weapons in between levels. The crystals come from crystal-rich rocks, which have to be destroyed, or from dead ponies.

Ponies come in various varieties, with each their own unique behaviour: The Suicide Pony with dynamite belt, two types of charging Unicorns, two types of Pegasuses, the Rainbow Pony who shoots deadly rainbows, the Baby Pony and the final boss, the Pony Queen. With each level the ponies receive more health, making them harder to kill.

The ponies inhabit a landscape of lush greens, with colorful flowers and trees. While fighting the ponies, the player has to jump on platforms and avoid gaps in the ground that kill him. You control your character with the arrow keys in typical platform game manner. You use the spacebar to jump and the x-key to attack. With the z and c-keys you can switch between weapons.

Other items include coffee, which restores health and rocket boots which allow the accountant to temporarily fly.