The Elements of Gaming

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The scientists of Canterlot develop an Xbox 360 and a PC, and Princess Celestia sends them to her loyal student Twilight Sparkle and her friends to beta test for them. Read as they try their hooves at everything from FPS to RTS to rhythm and more in the form of ponyfied real world titles.

The Elements of Gaming is a My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic fanfic written by Ryden and Xephfyre.


Tropes used in The Elements of Gaming include:
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Fluttershy takes to The Darkness surpisingly well considering the pegasus's personality, and even names her Sim Jackie, the protagonist of The Darkness.
  • Bowel-Breaking Bricks: Pinkie's reaction to Twilight playing Tetris flawlessly. INVISIBLE Tetris.
  • Break the Haughty: Poor Rainbow can't seem to catch a break... she's the first to be annihilated playing Halo: Reach thrashed in her moment of glory by Rarity in Command & Conquer: Generals, shamed by Applejack and Pinkie in Rock Band, and is thrashed by Ditzy in Burnout, a game about racing, her special talent.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Fluttershy proves a deft hoof at Halo: Reach and Pinkie Pie gets 99% on Through The Fire and the Flame on Rock Band on Expert.
    • Applejack and Rainbow Dash both get trashed playing Burnout: Revenge against Ditzy Doo!
  • Drop What You Are Doing: Angel Bunny spends most of chapter 9 trying to get Fluttershy to play The Darkness. He drops the carrot he's eating in shock after Fluttershy shows just how terrifying she is playing a First-Person Shooter.
  • Imagine Spot: Scootaloo gets one where she gets her Cutie Mark commanding troops in Tiberium Wars.
  • Jerkass: Pinkies behaviour during the Gears of War section; behaving like a psychopath after the rest of the gang were already freaking out about the chainsaw-bayonet scene in the game when you chainsaw one of the locusts. She goes so far as to ambush Twilight with a fake chainsaw while she's in bed, an act which scares the unicorn so badly she hits Pinkie with a crowbar!
  • Large Ham: Sweetie Belle seems to have taken after her sister.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: Rarity doesn't take the destruction of one of her Storm Columns well at all.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Gears of War's trademark chainsaw bayonette proves to be this for everyone except Pinkie Pie.
  • Nuke'Em: Pinkie Pie's strategy for Command & Conquer: Generals.
  • The Power of Friendship: The Cutie Mark Crusaders get this aesop after defeating a supervillain team in Marevel versus Capcom III by working together to defeat them with their chosen characters, and then pulling off a level three special on the last remaining opponent.
  • Oh Crap: Happens several times through the fic, but special mention goes to Pinkie Pie playing against Twilight Sparkle on Command & Conquer: Generals, who manages TWO different Oh Crap moments with her Party Poppers and Super Party Poppers.
  • Slasher Smile: Pinkie Pie pulls one while playing Gears of War, terrifying the others.
  • Zerg Rush: Pinkie Pie takes this to such an extreme with Command And Conquer: Tiberium Wars that the computer breaks.