Devlog 2/23/2025: Vampire Level plot scrapped. Spilling the beans.

NO I AM NOT SAYING THERE WILL NOT BE A VAMPIRE LEVEL. Quite the opposite. Upon silent reflection of the vampire level's story, I have concluded that it is cringe, and I can come up with something that makes much more sense. So now that I've decided to scrap the story, I can spill the beans on it and why it is so cringe.

So, the level begins with the princesses entering a crypt (oooh! spooky!) and coming out the other end in a medieval village where ponies claim that the three princesses are actually dead (very surreal!) killed in a battle with sombra at the battle of Blackcrystal Fortress (Are you cringing yet?) So they have to find three keys in the tombs of each princess, unlock the gate, and fight the... ????? I never really decided on a final boss. After defeating the final boss... well... sit down because here's where the cringe bomb drops...

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Are you sitting down? Good.

... it's all revealed to be a SIMULATION IN A MASSIVE SUPERCOMPUTER POWERED BY A FRAGMENT OF NIGHTMARE MOON'S MAGIC! Programmed by a fucking FRYCOOK that built a MACHINE FOR TRAPPING SPIRITS. Flim and Flam had this FUCKING FRYCOOK turn the MACHINE FOR TRAPPING SPIRITS, which captured a FRAGMENT OF NIGHTMARE MOON, into a MASSIVE SUPER COMPUTER called NIGHTMAREOS which they have been plugging ponies into because... idk, Flim and Flam watched one too many sci fi movies??? It was completely pointless. I was trying to connect dots that frankly shouldn't have been there.

Other highlights:

• The minibosses were three undead versions of the princesses. Celestia has a burning one, Luna has a ghostly one, and Cadance has a decaying one. 
• The villagers and yes, the vampires, were plugged into the simulation with their minds plugged into a sort of matrix.
• This was (and still is) the level where I intend to test a day and night mechanic. 
• As a secret easter egg, in Celestia's tomb you could run into the three player characters from Sala's Escape (and there were going to be CGs of it.)
• at the end of the level, you could see the NightmareOS computer which could grant you the vampire state (or take it away, depending on your mood.) the NightmareOS also has a log of it's... development. Now I'm no Linus Thorvald or anything, so the logs were very simplistic. 
• Would you believe one of the logs talked about how flim and flam just shoved the frycook into the simulation?
• In the alleged battle that killed the princesses, each princess managed to get a final hail mary in. Celestia, while poisoned by Flim and Flam's mech, managed to melt it and kill both of them. Cadance managed to kill Chrysalis with two of three arrows she fired, while one being sent right back at her for a kill shot. Luna while impaled with Sombra's trident (wtf was I thinking) managed to get in one last good crescent slash.

Here is some scrapped sketches. These are things I will NOT be using going forward in the vampire level:

So, with this crap plot scrapped, what will I put in it's place? Oh I dunno, how about something like ppshhh... "King Sombra creates an army of vampires whom he controls with some kind of evil artifact or the supercomputer from the cringe story earlier?" Seems a bit simpler, doesn't it?