This review contains spoilers
The niche sub-genre of games where you explore fake operating systems is something I have a pretty big soft spot for. When they also eventually break the fourth wall it's easy for me to love them. Pony Island does that almost flawlessly.
In Pony Island you find yourself exploring a glitch-ridden arcade machine and as you delve deeper into the files and the actual game itself you uncover more and more sinister elements behind the purposefully cutesy title. The mix of exploring a fake OS with clever hacking puzzles and simple but tricky platforming segments makes for pretty varied gameplay experience. The game keeps coming up with very clever surprises to keep you engaged and you never quite know what's coming next. Eventually, it may even overcome the border between the fake arcade machine and your own PC.
Even though I expected this to be a game of that kind it still got me pretty good at points. There was one particular moment that honestly kinda blew my mind in how effective it was: One of the antagonists challenges you to pay attention to what he says and act accordingly. It's very simple. However, it uses very clever ways to mess with you and get you distracted. At one point it asks you to answer a simple question. No problem. I type in my answer and hit enter. Shortly after I suddenly get Steam messages from a friend of mine. He mocks my answer and starts joking. I'm confused because I didn't know he was watching me play. When I finally realize it's just the game messing with me I already missed the next question from the in-game character. I was impressed by how seamless it was. It looked and sounded absolutely real and the fact that they managed to pull in a real-life friend of mine to trick me is just genius.
I finished the story in about two hours but this seems to be one of those games that have a lot of secrets hidden around so there is a lot of potentials to explore and really go deep. However thorough you want to be, you'll gonna have a pretty unique time, I think. It's successfully bringing the power of Psycho Mantis onto modern technology while telling a pretty captivating story.
This is one of those games that really make me wanna look up the developer and see what other projects they worked on.
In Pony Island you find yourself exploring a glitch-ridden arcade machine and as you delve deeper into the files and the actual game itself you uncover more and more sinister elements behind the purposefully cutesy title. The mix of exploring a fake OS with clever hacking puzzles and simple but tricky platforming segments makes for pretty varied gameplay experience. The game keeps coming up with very clever surprises to keep you engaged and you never quite know what's coming next. Eventually, it may even overcome the border between the fake arcade machine and your own PC.
Even though I expected this to be a game of that kind it still got me pretty good at points. There was one particular moment that honestly kinda blew my mind in how effective it was: One of the antagonists challenges you to pay attention to what he says and act accordingly. It's very simple. However, it uses very clever ways to mess with you and get you distracted. At one point it asks you to answer a simple question. No problem. I type in my answer and hit enter. Shortly after I suddenly get Steam messages from a friend of mine. He mocks my answer and starts joking. I'm confused because I didn't know he was watching me play. When I finally realize it's just the game messing with me I already missed the next question from the in-game character. I was impressed by how seamless it was. It looked and sounded absolutely real and the fact that they managed to pull in a real-life friend of mine to trick me is just genius.
I finished the story in about two hours but this seems to be one of those games that have a lot of secrets hidden around so there is a lot of potentials to explore and really go deep. However thorough you want to be, you'll gonna have a pretty unique time, I think. It's successfully bringing the power of Psycho Mantis onto modern technology while telling a pretty captivating story.
This is one of those games that really make me wanna look up the developer and see what other projects they worked on.