Developer: Daniel Mullins Games
Publisher: Daniel Mullins Games
Rrp: £3.99 (Steam) and £3.99 (humblebundle)
Released: 4th January 2016
Available on Steam and Humblebundle
Played using: Mouse and Keyboard
What is it with me playing games that you can’t review well without giving stuff away? There’s been a lot of those lately it seems. I dread when I get around to reviewing Undertale.
Sadly my screen capture software doesn’t work with Pony Island so there won’t be any video for this game, sorry.
Ignore the cutesy name, this game is evil and positively mind bending. Its a puzzle game, where you have to outsmart something that I really don’t want to spoil. The puzzles are quite devious and just making the game go beyond the start menu is part of the game. I highly recommend using a pen and paper to take down information while playing this game.
The game is retro styled, making it look like it’s running on a old Commodore 64 (or perhaps an Amiga). Of course that’s the trick, you’re looking at a monitor that’s within your monitor… Every so often something will happen that shows your avatars hands. Hands that are rendered in 3D, sneaky game, very sneaky. Actually, saying it looks like it’s from an Amiga or Commodore 64 isn’t quite right, and the graphical style changes as the game goes on, becoming more advanced.
As I mentioned earlier getting beyond the start screen is the first challenge of the game. As in you have to edit the options to start it (within the game, no actual coding is required). It doesn’t end there either, this game will throw at you lots of game modes that switch quite rapidly yet control pretty intuitively. One moment you’re a pony jumping posts, then you’re solving a logic puzzle, then searching for passwords and then back to being a pony again but with some new additions.
The game will challenge you throughout and force you to think laterally, it’ll also mess with your head with quite a few of its tricks. Seriously, when I finished this game I checked the system tray to see if I had actually left the game, it’s that good at messing with you.
Thankfully as challenging as it is, its at least fairly forgiving with its checkpoints, setting you back only a little way from where you made your mistake.
The soundtrack fits the theming of the game being done in chip tune but also to made to sound quite frenetic. Part of me wants to purchase it except I think I’d always feel a little on edge with it on.
Pony Island is one of those games that keeps you engaged, you just have to complete this one challenge, that last hack, solve this one mystery and I’m coming to bed I swear, I just need to…. Ah, it’s 3am. Well, what’s one more level? It’s an evil, insidious little game. Hell, even as I write this its 3:30am and I’m still tempted to return to it, which means it’s done something that no game (including big triple A titles) has done for a long time, gotten me hooked.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
