Quick Review: Pony Island

I don’t think it’s possible to talk about this game without spoiling what it’s actually about – so bear that in mind. If you want to avoid spoilers for this game released on January 4th, 2016, skip this review.

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We’re good? Okay.

Daniel Mullins Games is the studio behind Pony Island, a game with some ponies and some islands, but that's only part of the focus. This arcade cabinet isn’t quite right. In fact, it seems like it’s possessed by a whole bunch of demons. And a mere exorcism won't help it.

Pony Island is an interesting concept. The
"Pony Island" within Pony Island is bland.

You spend the game in two ways: Either playing the titular Pony Island, Satan’s creation, which the demon will frequently mess around with, or hacking the game yourself, reprogramming it and accessing the files behind. You are contacted by a soul trapped within the game, asking you to delete the core files of the game in order to set them free. It's a good thing that Satan is a crappy developer who set up his game on a machine with several flaws that you can exploit! Not that the demons will make the act of deleting core files any easy, mind you.

Pony Island itself is kind of a platform/shmup game that will change with the modifications you make. The programming part is a puzzle game in which you move elements around. The goal is to make a code key reach the code lock at the bottom of the screen. You must move the key around using the elements, and make values change as the key passes by them, in order to open the path and "repair" the code of Pony Island. It’s tricky to explain, so here are some images.

An element telling the key to move down, an
element telling the key to move to the right...

An element that takes the key back at the start,
and one that takes it to the left.
Things are about to get way tougher.

There is something cathartic in insulting
a demon like this. (Yes, I wrote the F-words in.)

Most of your actions are done with the mouse, but the keyboard is used in places. Sometimes you can enter text, and I sure as Hell (no pun intended) tried telling the demons to go fuck themselves but they never replied. I am glad there’s an element of interactivity at all, that’s interesting. Still, when the entire concept behind a game involves trying to break said game, I would have loved to see more ways to “break” the system, even if it just means “demons get angry and give you an instant Game Over”. I would have deserved that for insulting each demon every way I could.

I felt the game was rather easy, but it's not really an issue. Some Pony Island levels and hacking sections later get trickier, but nothing I would classify as crazy difficult. If something gets really difficult, it’ll be for story purposes. The story takes every chance it can to break the fourth wall. It does so in pretty surprising ways at times, too, but I won’t spoil how.

Beware my brave beast's binary blast!

I can see why this game made it to several “Best of 2016” lists. It’s one of the best games I’ve played this year. The level of creativity and ingenuity behind it amazed me. There are very few flaws I can think of regarding this game. Of course, you must be fine with the wave of postmodernist games that focus a lot on the fourth wall and playing with the medium, like Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club. I do like this type of game, but I can see why some people would grow tired of it since so many indie titles have gone that route. I think this game could have done with a couple more Easter Eggs (such as more responses to things one could write in the text segments), but that’s a very minor complaint as the game is already very good as is. Oh yeah, I recommend this one, definitely.

Pony Island is available for 4.99$.