PonyIsland

Earth ponies best stat is strength. They love group sports, especially tug of war contests. They are also loyal and dependable. They may seem a little plain compared to the other species, but Earthies will grow on you if you give them a chance.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 7, Strength: 10, Agility: 6, Charisma: 7.

Flutter Ponies are more agile than any other breed. They are the silly air-heads of the pony breeds, and constantly on the move. When breeding them for colors, their wings always stay the same, unlike Fairys.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 5, Strength: 5, Agility: 12, Charisma: 8.

Pegasus ponies are the tricksters of PonyIsland. They love to laugh, and are very strong fliers. You'll never be sad with a Pegasus as a friend.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 7, Strength: 8, Agility: 5, Charisma: 10.

Fairy ponies are small and delicate-looking. Their greatest asset is their beauty, and do very well in Beauty Contests. When breeding for colors, their wings are one of the 'extra' slots and will change depending on what the color of the parents wings were.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 6, Strength: 3, Agility: 9, Charisma: 12.

As well as being pretty, Unicorns are very intelligent. They are the ones the other ponies go to when they need answers or a helping hand.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 11, Strength: 5, Agility: 5, Charisma: 9.

Sea ponies love water sports of all kinds. They have beautiful voices and entertain the other ponies at any time day or night. When breeding them for colors, the accents on their fins will change depending on the parents fin accent colors.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 6, Strength: 6, Agility: 10, Charisma: 8.

While shy, Shell ponies are hard workers and very loyal to their friends. They love playing tug of war and other interactive games. Their shell color is one of the 'extra' slots and will change depending on what the color of the parents shells were.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 8, Strength: 12, Agility: 4, Charisma: 6.

Mer ponies are a special hybrid. You can create starter Mers, but you can also get them by breeding a Sea pony with an Earth pony. You're chance of the baby being a Mer with the cross-breeding is 1 out of 3.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 8, Strength: 4, Agility: 11, Charisma: 10.

Dragon ponies were the first of the Fire breeds. They are extremely intelligent, and like caves and other dark places.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 12, Strength: 12, Agility: 8, Charisma: 2.

WingedUnis are another special hybrid. They can be created as Starters, or through the cross-breeding of Pegasus and Unicorns. You're chance of the baby being a WingedUnicorn with the cross-breeding is 1 out of 3.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 11, Strength: 8, Agility: 5, Charisma: 10.

Phoenix ponies are a special breed. They are very agile and have fiery tempers. Their tears can heal almost any wound. The edges of their wings and tails are one of the special breeding spots and you can get different colors there depending on what colors the parents had.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 8, Strength: 4, Agility: 12, Charisma: 10.

Valkyrie ponies were brought out from the depths of a volcano by the evil Lord Korr. They are the fiercest and most terrible breed in PonyIsland, and they live for battle.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 13, Strength: 6, Agility: 13, Charisma: 2.

Thought to be nothing more than a myth, Kirin ponies were discovered in the deepest jungles. These beautiful ponies are as gentle as they are intelligent. Their scales are one of the special breeding spots and you can get different colors there depending on what colors the parents had.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 14, Strength: 6, Agility: 6, Charisma: 12.

MerDragons live on an island, but have their nests on the sea floor. The eggs come to maturation in a volcanic chasm, and once foaled, they must be rushed to the surface to take their first breath and first flight. Then they fly off to find someone to imprint on, who will then care for them until they are grown.

They are a hybrid species that can be made as starters, or by breeding a dragon with a merpony.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 10, Strength: 10, Agility: 10, Charisma: 10.

From the Great Goddess Am'hatai's daughter Viridia Aether's dream, from Heaven itself, the WishingPonies took shape. These noble and pure hearted ponies stepped into the world and immediately it seemed a brighter place, a place where any wish could come true.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 12, Strength: 5, Agility: 8, Charisma: 15.

Living in a jungle tribe all on their own, the Purr Ponies at first were quite wild but soon became friends with the other breeds of ponies. Intelligent and very agile the Purrs like heights and enjoy jumping up into the low branches of trees. They also have excellent eyesight in the dark and are adept at using stealth to follow or hide from others.

Starting Stats: Intelligence: 9, Strength: 9, Agility: 14, Charisma: 8.

Also called S-genes, mutations are split into 4 types. Hair, legs, body, and face. The hair genes are Rainbow, Stripe, Tips, and Multiple Stripes. Leg genes are Socks, Stockings, and Faded. The Body genes are Paint , Zig-Zags, Heavy Dapple, and Light Dapple. The Face genes are Star, Freckles, Blaze, and Faded. Finally, the last gene is called Colorized. You can colorize every other gene except the hair ones. Basically this means if you have a colorized stocking pony (shown below), the stockings are whatever the 2nd extra color on your pony is. (Color is divided up like this: Eyes, Hair, Hair 2 [used with Stripe, Tips, or Multiple Stripe. It's basically the 2nd color shown in the pony's hair. It also shows up as the Feather Tip color on Phoenix ponies.] Body, Extra 1 [Fairy Wing Color, Shellie's Shell Color, Sea Pony Fin Color, Dragon, Phoenix & Kirin Shell colors when they're babies and shown half in their shells, Kirin Scale Color, & MerDragon Fin Color], Extra 2 [Dragon, Phoenix & Kirin Shell Spot Color, and all the Colorize options.])

You can have one of each gene visible on a pony, but not two that occupy the same space (with the exception if one is the Colorize gene. If that one has been passed to your pony, whatever gene it is colorizing will be...colorful!). So you could have Rainbow and Paint for instance, but not Paint and Zig-Zags.

Rainbow: Stripe: Tips:

Multiple Stripe:

Socks: Stockings: Faded:

Paint: Zig-Zags:

Colorized Stockings: Colorized Heavy Dapple:

Face Star: Face Fade:

Face Freckle: Face Blaze:

Okay, so breeding is easy, right? Wrong! Well, mostly. It's easy in the sense that all you have to do is go to the males profile and click the Breed To drop-down. If he's yours, you'll be able to breed with no fees or waiting. If he's someone elses, you'll have to pay a fee, and sometimes wait to see if you're approved if they have him on a bid only basis.

The hard part comes in when you have to decide if you are going to go for Purity and no Inbreeding, or if you don't care about such things. A lot of the players on PonyIsland like ponies who are pure (and pure in this instance means all the same pony all the way back to the starters. No other breeds of pony in the pedigree at ALL.) and 0% inbred. This means if you are only breeding to sell, you may get little to nothing for a pony who is heavily inbred and has all kinds of breeds in the pedigree.

Other players like breeding for color and don't care what's in the pony as long as it looks pretty or has a pure hex.

And of course, if you want to do something truely difficult, you can try to breed a certain color in all avaliable areas on a pony. Most ponies you can only breed for color in the basic areas. Eyes, hair, and body. Certain special ones have extra areas. Fairys have their wings as a breedable color. Sea ponies have fin accents, Shellies have their shells, Phoenixes have the edging on their wings and tails, and Kirin have the scales on their body.

All of this makes the average breeding slightly more complicated. To help things along, you have an option in your ToolBox called Test Breed. Here you can see what MIGHT happen if you breed Pony A with Pony B. It's not a guarentee, but it gives you some random possibilities based on the colors and mutations of those two particular ponies.

Another thing that makes it interesting, is that if your pony has a mutation that is recessive (IE. your pony's mom or dad had Paint say, but it isn't visible in your pony, that makes your pony a carrier and the trait is now recessive, it MIGHT pass on to it's child, or it might not...) and you breed it to another pony with the same trait in recessive or visible, the baby has a chance of being visible or recessive itself.

So say you're breeding project is a Unicorn with visible zig-zags and visible rainbow hair. You have a male and a female who have both traits in recessive. You breed them. You might end up with a baby with both visible, one visible, or nothing visible. It's all in the luck of the draw.

You can also breed for a particular Breed of pony. Say you only have Earth ponies in your stable. And you want a Kirin. You could either go out and buy one, or you could breed your female Earth ponies to male Kirins. You would then have a 50/50 chance on getting a Kirin baby out of the Earth ponies. You won't get a different breed, but you could end up with a mix bred Earth instead of that mix bred Kirin.

The contests you can enter are all geared to help your ponies gain levels. There are Marathons, Racing, Show Jumping, Slalom Racing, Diving, Water Ballet, Swimming, Lava Walking, Slalom Flying, Air Ballet, Speed Flying, Hide and Seek, Tug of War, Beauty, and Lotterys. The lottery contests do not help you raise levels, and are usually used by players to give items or ponies away. They are totally random. The others are based on the level of a certain stat. (So in Beauty contests, the level of your ponies beauty stat is the most important.)

If you enter more than 1 contest per pony per hour, your pony has a very high chance of dying from over contesting. Also, if you do not vet your pony after every contest it has entered, it may die if you enter it in a new contest. You should also never enter your pregnant ponies in contests on the day and near the time they are due as pregnancy drops their health down just like a contest. And therefore they may die during the contest even if you vet them before the contest due to the birth.

Quests come in two types. Breeding and Training. A breeding quest asks you to breed 2 ponies to get a certain color that is between 2 hexes. And they are random in what the color is.

The training quests want you to level up your ponies in a certain stat. Both give you PG (Pony Gold, the currency of PonyIsland) and certain ones give you BP (Bonus Points) as well.

There are also different levels of difficulty to both kinds of Quests. They go from Newbie (and you only get one of those), Medium, Hard, Extremely Hard, and Impossible.

Newbie quests would be easy things like, breed a pony, or level a pony. Any pony you own, and not for a specific breeding goal, just the baby. The Newbie training is much the same, but I forget how many levels it is, not many. As soon as you've completed it, you are given 3,000 Pony Gold.

Easy Quests are simple, level your pony X levels. Breed one specific area to be between X and Y hex color. Once you have done so, you are given 4,000 Pony Gold.

Medium Quests are a bit harder, and pay 8,000 Pony Gold and 1 Bonus Point.

Hard Quests pay 15,000 Pony Gold and 3 Bonus Ponts.

Extremely Hard Quests pay 30,000 Pony Gold and 6 Bonus Points.

And Impossible Quests pay 70,000 and 10 Bonus Points.

And Impossible Quests are named as such for a reason. For levels you have to level up your pony around 70 or so levels, and breeding is multiple areas not just a single one.

You also have to wait 7 days after starting any Quest before you are allowed to cancel it.

You can use any pony you wish to for each Quest, but can only have 3 Breeding and 3 Training Quests going at once on each account. And once you have chosen the pony to use for the particular Quest, only that pony can complete it.

If your pony dies before the Quest is completed, you fail the Quest, AND have to re-level the pony (if it has any levels) to where it was when it died.

Bonus Points are used for a number of different things. They let you get bigger stables in order to be able to keep more ponies. You can also use them to Buy a Pixie to look after your stables and make feeding and vetting easier. Certain items in the Store require Bonus Points in order to buy them, and you can also create custom Starter Ponies for 10 BP each. For every level of starter you make, you unlock new options for your next one.

You can earn BP in a number of ways. Through Quests, paying for your account, when someone who lists you as their referrer pays for their account, and by buying them from other people in the game.

You can buy items either from the Store, or from other players. The two most popular items are Snacks and Resurection Scrolls. The Scrolls are the ONLY way to bring a pony back who has died. They are given out on special random occasions and are not avaliable to purchase in the store. This can make them expensive unless they have been given out recently.

Snacks come in 7 types: Cupcakes, Carrots, Cookies, Crisps, Berries, Apples, and Sweets. All of them up your ponies mood, which helps them do better in contests. Some of them lessen hunger as well.

You can also buy accessories to dress up your pony. These accessories come in a variety of types and most of them boost a certain stat as well. Currently you can buy: Bracelets, Gauntlets, Finwarmers, Goggles, Circlets, Lockets, Starfish, Shells, Shoes, Bowties, Ribbons, and Feathers. Check what each one does before you purchase it, some of the circlets for instance are only for decoration and boost nothing. Other items may boost one or two stats, while taking away from another.

If you don't have enough PG or BP to upgrade your stables, but want some extra space for an extra pony or two, or have a pony who needs a certain kind of stable you don't own, you can buy upgrades at the Store. Check your stable first to be sure the upgrade you wish to buy is compatable as not all items work with all stables. You can currently get a Tower, Island, Cave, and Pool.

The last thing you can get at the store, are seasonal gifts. Around Halloween you can buy Costumes. Each costume can be used on almost any pony, but change depending on the gender and breed of the pony.

You can get other items at other times of the year as well. Some previous items include the Santa Hat and Party Hat.

One special thing you can do to your pony is add a special tattoo. This can either be designed by you, or you can pay another player to make one for you. Each breed of pony has slots for a tattoo. You need to know where the spaces are on each breed in order to make the tattoo turn out right. The tattoo shown on this Paint WingedUnicorn was made by a friend of mine, but you can have anything from a simple star on the hip, to a Twice As Fancy My Little Pony tattoo. It's all in what you can imagine and draw or commission!

Yes, PonyIsland is a pay to play game. However, you get a free 10 day trial that lets you do most of the things in the game before you are required to pay to keep playing. And it's pretty cheap, for a year it's only $23 (and you get 25BP, and 50,000PG), and for 6 months it's $14 (and you get 10 BP, and 25,000PG).

If you can't afford to pay for your own account, you can sometimes find other Users who will do so for you. However this isn't free either. Usually you will need to trade them your Starter pony, and the BP you get from the upgrade to User. This varies from person to person however, and the best way to find the going rate is to check the Non-Pony Trade Forum.

All the images I have used throughout this lense are copyright PonyIsland and used with permission.

With the exception of the Shell, Valkyrie, Kirin, and all the Face gene ponies, all the ponies shown here are currently (or in the case of the female Earth, Were previously) able to be found in the stables of one of my accounts. To see the rest of the bunch, Check SilvaraWilde, Kaylynn, PurelyPegs, or Purity3.

Thanks to Haylie for letting me use her pony as the representation of the Star face gene. Forever Autumn for letting me use her pony as the representation of the Freckle gene. And YourLittleHermione for letting me use her pony as the representation of the Blaze gene.

In closing, if you're looking for an ever-changing virtual horse site with lots to do and many friendly people, you can't go wrong with PonyIsland. Stop by and look me up, I'm always open to meeting new people!