Pony Island
$4.99 on Steam
Perfect to play in the dark and scare your parents or the people in the apartment above you. "What are those scary sounds?," came from a knock on my door. That was in real life and not from the game. Though the game takes its cues from some previous titles to make you think your computer may be haunted. Making me think I did hear a knock on my door that came from the game, but it was real life...Pony Island is a game about ponies, ponies that breath lasers, gain demon wings and try to leave a game created by Satan. Or really you the player are trying to leave a game created by Satan with the facade of Pony Island.
What starts off as a baby game about ponies and jumping over things becomes a much deeper puzzle game on how to save your soul from a game that's been capturing them for a while. Dark humor mixed with a fun story let's you experience a creepy pasta-Internet based campfire scary stories- as thought it's happening to you.
Now you may start by jumping with a pretty pink pony, then the game's true nature breaks through and you'll have to solve certain code puzzles along with some other games that help with having a few PC games under your belt. This is done by the game breaking down and you having to fix it. It's quite fun to see a menu screen fall apart.The puzzles to fix "broken code" in the game, may take a little time to figure out. They're sort of a simple sort of Lemmings-get-a-key-in-the-keyhole game. The puzzle games list certain orders for a key to go in a hole, left or right and skip over broken parts of code that reset the puzzle. I only say, play when your awake, if you're a little too sleepy it can take some time.
The devil in the details with the look of older PC game and story unfolding of Satan trying to keep your soul with bad game design, who knew Satan was a programmer? It makes for a fun horror story you put yourself in. Getting back to the game tricking you, I don't want to ruin anything, but the game tricked me a few times going over what it normally could have done, making it feel as though the game is possessed. It put me on edge, that's why it's great to play at night in a dimly lit room, like I did.
There's someone already inside the game the needs your help getting out, but the games asks even more questions if you're really helping someone escape with you or letting out pure evil in the world.
All that with a score from Jonah Senzel that will have people around you questioning the freaky sounds coming from your computer.
Reasonably priced, the game won't take forever to figure out if your an avid gamer of classic game stories. It took me about 2 hours in total to finish. There is replay value on trying to collect hidden tickets within in the game and find out three secrets about yourself.
Pony Island has come out as TTDILA's favorite new game of 2016. We hope to see more from the games lone programmer Danie Mullins, with his uninspired game company named after him. It may be the year of the monkey, but to us it's the devil! Let it scare the Hell out of you right now.