1. Pony Island is one of those metafiction games the kids are going crazy for these days. W/in the game, you play on a simulated CRT upon which the titular fictional arcade game and other computer software is simulated. "Yo dawg, I head you like games so we put a game in your game so you can play your game while you play your game."
2. This is the only game I've ever played where it warns you specifically
against playing w/ a track pad. I'm not sure what that's about but I
thought I'd mention it. The warning is good one, by the way; this would
be tough to play w/ a track pad. I just don't see how that makes it
different than, say, Call of Duty or, you know, any other game at all.
3. If you want to boil this down, it is a series of mini-games of growing difficulty that you complete in order. It is not presented as such though. It is presented as a arcade machine that has eaten your soul. Your goal is to get spit out.
4. These mini-games are kind of hit and miss. None of them are really bad but I doubt I'd play any for more than a few minutes on its own. It's more about the overarching premise than the mini-games themselves so it still works overall but, you know, attention to detail is often what separates the great games from the merely good.
5. The titular fictional arcade game itself is one of the main mini-games. In it, your goal is to run right and jump over things. You use a mouse (not a track pad) to shoot things that come at you. The mechanics here are sound but the level design is just kind of weird. Frequently, something resembling a boss will come at you right at the beginning and then the rest of it will be a cakewalk. Anyway, it is sometimes frustrating and frankly passable at best taken on its own merits--even for the short time you spend w/ it.
6. In the other main mini-game, you use programming-type logic to solve quick puzzles written in code. (Don't worry, everything is represented by very clear symbols so you won't have to open your computer science 101 textbooks.) The puzzles never get all that tough but at least some of the later ones are tricky enough to be satisfying.
7. Both of the mini-games mentioned in 5 and 6 come in both light and dark world type variations which play out mostly the same. It is fun to see how these fit in into Pony Island's broader context and especially interesting to see how the programing-logic puzzles translate to being strictly graphical.
8. In one variation of the fictional arcade game, you wind up killing Jesus and it's pretty funny. This is actually during the light world variation so that lets you know about where Pony Island has its heart.
9. In addition to this, working w/ various glitchy computer interfaces is a substantial part of gameplay and challenge. There are options menus and desktops to navigate to find passwords and suchlike in order to gain access to portions of the computer that allow you to shake loose your immortal soul from the arcade machine's vile clutches. This is all a good time.
10. There is one point where Pony Island--the whole actual game not the simulated arcade game w/in the game--repeatedly crashed on me and I'm not sure if it was intentional or not. *shrugs*
11. Pony Island's story is set up through instant-message-like communications in from various entities w/in the fictional soul-consuming arcade cabinet. It is from these you become aware of your situation. It also stitches together the mini-games in a meaningful way that brings everything together in a contiguous whole. These little stretches of storytelling are really what make the gave worth playing overall.
12. This is the only game I've ever played that tells you to uninstall it when you're finished.
13. Pony Island feels a bit slapped together in the end--and I suppose it was being as it was developed initially for a Ludom Dare game jam. Be that as it may, it was slapped together pretty well and will only occupy a few hours of your time so it's well worth playing just to see how cleverly put together it all is--just don't use a track pad and uninstall it when you're done.
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