Cadence Toss

Canterlot Defender is a game made by futzi01 in Adobe Flash, featuring art by FronzyZX, Firestorm-CAN, RainbowPlasma, FlutterbrO, and Grendo11; as well as music by Bass Rabbit. The game also takes sound effects from the Universal Soundbank and the Adobe Flash sound library. It is a 2-D Sidescroller, Infinite Obstacle Course Survival, with the current version being 1.1. It is based off the scene in the episode The Crystal Empire - Part 2 where Shining Armor chucks Princess Cadence off of a balcony so that she may save Spike and The Crystal Heart from King Sombra. The game was made available for the Android by Mihasik.

Premise
The goal of the game is to help Princess Cadence stay aloft for as long as possible. To do so, the player must maneuver Princess Cadence away from the floating dark crystals, and help her collect Crystal Hearts. Collecting Crystal Hearts increases Cadence's flight magic, while flapping her wings or crashing into dark crystals decreases the flight magic. If Cadence runs out of flight magic, she will no longer be able to flap her wings. If Cadence slips below the bottom of the screen, she will explode. The player is given their score based on how far Cadence had traveled, while Cadence is then seen glaring at her husband while the words "Good Job, Shining Armor..." is seen at the top of the screen.

Gameplay/Features
The game starts out with the player choosing Cadence's initial trajectory. An arc with an arrow moving back and forth along it is seen directly in front of Shining Armor as he prepares to throw her. When the player hits the space bar or clicks the right mouse button, the arrow will stop and Shining Armor will toss Cadence in that direction. The arc is divides into a white section, and a red section below it; with a definite red line separating the two sections. If Shining Armor chucks his wife in the direction of the red arc, Cadence will simply fall off the balcony and the player's score will be 0m.

Cadence's initial trajectory is mostly irrelevant. Rather, it is her velocity along the x-axis that counts. Cadence's initial velocity determines how frequently dark crystals and Crystal Hearts are generated. If Shining Armor aims high, Cadence's initial velocity will mostly go into her vertical ascent, causing her to move slowly along the horizontal. In this case, the generation of dark crystals and Crystal Hearts will be high. This makes the game very difficult, since despite the increased generation of Crystal Hearts as well as Cadence's slower speed, the sheer volume of the dark crystals cause them to often completely block Cadence's path, making it very hard to maintain the flight magic level.

Ideally Shining armor is supposed to aim for the red line. By doing so, he maxes out Cadence's horizontal velocity, and minimizes dark crystal and Crystal Heart generation. While Cadence is in the air, the player makes her flap her wings by either pressing the spacebar of clicking the right mouse button. If the player lets Cadence drift too low, she will automatically start flapping her wings in rapid succession to stay aloft at the bottom of the screen. By doing so, she also rapidly degenerates her flight magic level. Her velocity throughout her entire flight remains constant, nothing seems to make her speed up or slow down. If she runs out of flight magic and begins to drift downwards, she may still get a chance to continue her flight if she haphazardly makes contact with a Crystal Heart.

Konami Code
The game features an easter egg where if the player enters the Konami Code during gameplay, the controls for the game change completely. When Shining Armor tosses Princess Cadence, Cadence's initial velocity along the y-axis is negated completely; however, her velocity along the x-axis is still calculated as normal. Furthermore, Cadence will now constantly flap her wings, and she will now mimic the height of the mouse pointer. The constant flapping of Cadence's wings will cause her flight magic to decrease continuously. Pressing the spacebar or clicking the right mouse button will cause Cadence to fire a beam of magic in a straight line parallel to the horizontal plane, starting from the tip of her horn. Any dark crystals or Crystal Hearts the beam comes into contact with will be destroyed. The beam also has a recharge time of four seconds. When the player is given their score after using this mode, it will have "(cheated)" written next to it.

External link

 * Cadence Toss on deviantArt