14 DAY TRIAL // 
Pony Island is a video game that's determined to break many of the conventions underpinning the hobby and does this in the best possible ways, taking players on a ride that starts with a primitive video game featuring a unicorn and ends, a few hours later, with plenty of surprises.
The experience never becomes boring, and the difficulty level is well calibrated to allow gamers to make relatively quick progress while also challenging them to use logic to solve the puzzles and discover hidden elements.
The narrative is the reason to play the game, which means that it rewards those who poke every screen and try every option, but one of its strengths is that it does not adhere to any genre and focuses more on atmosphere and suggestion than on the very solid mechanics that it offers.
Pony Island was created by Daniel Mullins, is only offered on the PC, and there currently are no plans to deliver it on other platforms.
Story
Pony Island does not offer a lengthy or a complex story, but the narrative is very effective, managing the complex act of creating a full mythology and some very scary moments with limited means.
Players start off engaging with a title from 1992, and soon they discover that its very simple nature hides something far more sinister, with demonic forces trying their best to capture the player's soul, which the game actually asks the player to give up early on to power the experience.
The title features interactions with mysterious figures and some interesting twists and turns that are better experienced than spoiled as part of a review, and developer Daniel Mullins does a great job at creating a unique atmosphere that will drive the curiosity of the player, rewarded by the very cool ending.
I especially loved the walkthroughs that are recaps of already completed actions and do not help progress in any clear way and the fact that there's an early sequence where the game option concept is deconstructed.
The writing is not stellar, but the world of Pony Island is interesting and sometimes feel like a larger commentary about the nature of video games as a hobby and how easy it is to, figuratively, sell our souls for the best possible interactive experience.
Despite the darkness that permeates the title, it's also often funny and even the scary moments succeed in part because the audience will clearly want to experience them as such.
Given the nature of the game's story, the attached screenshots and the video attached to this review might be considered spoilers, even if they only address events from the first half of the title.
Gameplay
Pony Island features a mix of mechanics that evolve as the game progresses and challenge the reflex and the logic of the player without asking him to perform any super-human feats to move along and experience more of the story.
Initially, the game is so simple that it's laughable, with just one mouse button required to time the jumps of a unicorn over some white fences in short and simple platforming levels.
Pony Island gives the player the chance to add some interesting and somehow hilarious abilities to the mythical creature to get through some more complex, later environments, although there's never a feeling that the player' coordination is thoroughly tested.
I needed to play some of the levels a few times to progress but simply because I was surprised by some of the team's ideas or because the graphic design obscured one element of the gameplay that could kill my character.
When they are not guiding unicorns around, players will have to deal with the code that powers the arcade machine he is playing around with, which sounds more complex than it is.
Using a limited library of symbols and after some observation of the code, players will have to make sure that certain commands get completed or that they manipulate some of the files appearing on the desktops they can explore.
“The puzzles are hard enough to generate a feeling of achievement when they are completed without moving into frustration at any point, and they are well integrated with the overall themes of the experience.”
Pony Island also allows gamers to interact with some character via text messaging, and this is easily its weakest area because the dialog is very strictly regulated and does not allow the player to express himself in any way.
The gameplay is smart and the fact that it's limited means that developer Daniel Mullins spent more time on balancing rather than on creating a wide variety of levels and new ways to interact with the game.
The simplicity will drive some gamers away, and I would have liked to see some of the ideas expanded further, but as it stands now, Pony Island is well constructed to move gamers forward in the story while also giving them the feeling that they are getting better when it comes to both puzzles and platforming.
Graphics and audio
Pony Island is an experience that's masquerading as another arcade video game from 1992, which means that players can expect a level of graphical fidelity linked to titles from that era although it's clear that creator Daniel Mullins has worked hard to make sure that the look of the game manages to enhance the weird nature of the gameplay.
Everyone who played classic PC games of that decade will find the presentation familiar in many ways, but the gray filter, as well as the constantly changing user interface, create an air of mystery that made me keep playing even when the story or the features failed to impress.
Sometimes the graphics are so bad that they seem to act as a clear motivation for the player to find out the reason for their decay and the way the glimpses of the past mesh with the rest of the experience.
After a while, Pony Island can become a little tiring but even that works in favor of the experience because it forces those who play to consider the separation between the real and the virtual and how other titles are designed to keep them engaged seamlessly, without asking any questions.
The sound design is equally eerie and somewhat sparse, giving the gamer space to imagine more than he hears and once again enhancing the overall atmosphere.
The Good
- Overall narrative and atmosphere
- Core gameplay
The Bad
- Limited graphical appeal
Conclusion
I appreciate the fact that the various gameplay mechanics, from the platforming to the code tweaking, very rarely overstay their welcome and are used just enough to make progress challenging and to keep the player engaged mechanically as well as from a story standpoint.
Pony Island never frustrates and is rarely mean to the player or to the games it parodies, despite the fact that it is being dominated by a sense that evil is driving the action behind the scenes, and I often stopped while playing to try and guess where the action was going (the end still came as a complete surprise).
Every player who liked titles like The Stanley Parable or the recent crop of experiences that ask the player to hack code will derive pleasure from the mechanics, and the story is atmospheric and interesting enough for any video game fan.
I like the feeling of surprise that creator Daniel Mullins has managed to make integral to his title, and I hope that, despite the easy-to-gloss-over title, it manages to generate enough sales to allow him to express his creativity in other video games.
