Two of the games in this week's Link Dump Friday are inspired somewhat by Candy Box!, which is sweet enough without one of them also being entirely about delicious cookies overtaking the world. Throw in some ponies throwing down and some zombies, because the law of the internet states that there must be zombies in everything now, and you have a recipe for awesome.
Gold and Gems - [Submitted by William!] This lovely little RPG webtoy is sort of like Candy Box! minus the whimsy and double the grinding. In the beginning, your sprawling but empty kingdom only generates one gold per second. Leave the game to run itself in another tab or window and check back on it later, however, and soon you'll be able to afford a weapon, which will allow you to start on your journey of stabbing things in the face for money. The battles are very Candy Box!, and there's not much to do beyond waiting and stabbing, and waiting until you can afford equipment to better stab things with, but hey, that's basically my average day anyway. ... what? What did I say? 
Cookie Clicker - [Submitted by Sara!] Another Candy Box!-alike? Is that a thing now? In the beginning, there was cookie, and it was good. So click on it to generate more cookies! The more cookies you have, the more things you can buy to make cookies autonomously faster, which lets you make... more cookies! Ortiel's webtoy needs to be in its own page to run on its own, not a tab, but it's worth it to get your empire rolling. It's cute and funny, with a few surprises, though at the moment kind of aimless as you wait for a bigger content update to provide more to do beyond simply generate cookies. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I have a fleet of bartenders whose loyalty I have harvested with free baked goods ready to do my bidding when the time is right. Don't worry, they know, and they're cool with it. The end will come with flair.
Canterlot Defender - futzi01 serves up ponies serving up smackdowns in this defense game based on the Changeling siege of Canterlot in season two of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Hold out as long as you can by blasting incoming Changelings with bursts of magic from Twilight Sparkle's horn, calling in your friends to help out. Though simple and sadly lacking in Fluffle Puff, it's a fun and good looking little arcade game that will keep you on your toes. Hooves? 
Rise - Man, what's up with this zombie apocalypse? It's all full of stairs, and RPG and turn-based-y, as Hyptosis has you choose a hero and climb to the top of a tower said to hold someone who can answer all the world's questions, presumably like why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It looks and sounds beautiful, though consisting solely of turn-based battle after turn-based battle means its on the simple side. Still, if you're into endurance, it's a solid little game, plus your daily requirement of zombies.
Space Email - Email... in... SPAAAAAAAAAAACE! Shelby Smith's strange communication experiment is less a game and more of an example of how weird and amusing people can be given total anonymity, as all you can do is press refresh to receive and read e-mails written by complete strangers like you, or compose one of your own. Because this is the internet and people can be stupid, be warned that you could run across something terribly upsetting, or maybe spoilers for who Luke's father is, but you could also stumble across something interesting, unique, or just plain funny. Which is basically the internet in a nutshell when you think about it.
That cookie game was way more fun than it should have been, considering how much less developed it is than candy box. I found myself, at 1:00 in the morning, creating a spreadsheet to determine the best upgrade to maximize cps/dollar. Of course, once you get Elder Pledge, it all goes out the window. I ended up with about 46.5k cps before finally getting bored...
Cookie Clicker:
Had more fun editing the save file and experimenting with it than the actual intended game.
Think it's going to be even better when it would get updated with more features. :)
I can't help but feel a little iffy aboutGold and Gems because of all the tiles they lifted from Dungeon Crawl. It's giving me the weirdest sense Deja Vu.
Oh, ShuDog fail! Part of Gold and Gems falls off my monitor -- the save game button, to be specific. I loaded up my old password and found myself where the game was 12 hours ago. Ne'ermind, then.
Assuming a huge monitor is kinda uncouth.
Could I get a hint for G&G about item slots? I found a piece of armor, and I wonder if there are any more I can find/unlock later on.
Gold and Gems:
I've got gems coming as fast as they come, seemingly. The game has effectively told me, "Don't bother planting any more gems." But so far there's no indication that I can actually do anything with the gems, even though I have quite a bit more than 100k gems.
Hi David!
You can get more armor and weapons by going on quests, and they'll automatically equip when you find them. Some items can be found by going through dungeons multiple times.
And ray9na
Once you go on the quest that unlocks it, gems are used to upgrade your weapon and armor.
Thanks, Dora. Right now, I'm still spamming the first quest because I can't survive the third quest just yet.
I was really enjoying space email, until I got the following note.
I'm weak.
Everyday I consider dying and escaping, because of my poor handling of stress.
I make everything seem permanent or think how things are now will never get better...
Not only that, not many people would understand my situation anyways... mostly because I'm not a good person... but I'm not really an accurate judge of that since I'm always too scared to speak up about how I feel.
I'm just a coward. Most of all, I'm afraid of being unloved. All of my behavior and personality revolves around that. I'm even afraid my desire to be in a different body coincides with that. I want to be a girl. Girls are visually, at least pretty ones, are more welcoming. They're less threating, intimidating. Even if the beautiful people can be the most unapproachable ones for some people... I probably want to be pretty, because people are shallow...
I also sacrifice a lot for others, in the hopes of them liking me in return... Even when I don't really like someone and they have a lot of flaws, above all I just want them to care about me. So no matter how much people hurt me, I always show them kindness and hide how hurt I get. Is that really selfless if I'm doing it just for them to not dislike me for it? I'm disgusting and since I'm disgusting, this will probably be my last waking day
I don't expect pity for writing this message, I just want to lay all my feelings bare for myself so I can see just what kind of person I am and because no one wants to disappear without a trace
I figure I should post this assuming it's real... and he goes through with it...
Shudog, I'm able to display all of G&G on my phone. Maybe something else went wrong?
In G&G I think I have beaten the last level - level 20. Is there anything more to do? I can still get gems and upgrade my weapons and stuff.
RE: G&G, I find it interesting that I have zero recovery time after the 4th quest, but have to wait a few seconds after the 3rd. I've unlocked the 8th quest, but can't reliably survive the 7th.
I don't know if it's just me or what, but Cookie Clicker pauses if I navigate to another tab.
For G&G can you increase your gold generation rate?
Samantha Allen
Yes, after a while you get that ability.
The new, updated Cookie Clicker does not have the problem I described before. :) It's quite a significant upgrade all around.
Can the gem generation rate go any higher than 1/sec by planting them?
Samantha Allen
Oh, yes. :)
G&G was fun until one of the later levels spawned the "use potion/scroll" box beyond what my screen displays. It doesn't have a scroll bar so it's basically impossible to finish if your monitor isn't big enough.
On G&G is it normal to only be able to carry 1 each of the heath potions and spells (the only spell I can carry multiples of is teleport)
Hey Dora! I don't know if you are able to edit these posts, but there are two things you may want to consider adding/changing:
First, Cookie Clicker JUST got a new update with a new URL! Here is the new link: http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/
Second, unfortunately, Space Email has a notice on the link given that the service shut down just today. It's very sad, I wanted to see it! :( But it might be a good idea to put a notice or remove the link altogether. Thanks for reading!
Samantha Allen
You should be able to carry multiples of an item. The icon remains the same, but a small number at the bottom right indicates how many you have.
if anybody else has the problem a refresh fixed it for me.
"You should be able to carry multiples of an item. The icon remains the same, but a small number at the bottom right indicates how many you have."
There seems to be a bug in tracking how many items you have. After you get the first instance of an item, the next instance you buy will not increase the quantity, but subsequent instances will. You just have to accept the loss.
To anyone having trouble with the game field sprawling off their screen:
ctrl - will shrink the display in your browser page
ctrl = will magnify the display in your browser page
ctrl 0 will reset the display in your browser page to 100% magnification
Hmmm. Picked up Gold and Gems again while going through old bookmarks--is there a way to increase your gem generation past 100/sec?
Update