Pony Island

Platforms

• PC

  Jan 4, 2016

  ---

  8.7

  playscore

  8.5

  19 Critics

  9.4

  8.48K Players

19 critic reviews · 3 community reviews across all platforms

Critic Reviews

• 

  Game Informer

  7.5

  Pony Island isn't particularly long. You can see everything there is to see in a couple of hours, and you'll likely need to browse the Steam forums to do so, as some of the secrets are too obtuse to solve without the collective mind trust of the Internet. Nevertheless, Pony Island is an experimental and novel experience with some memorable surprises.

  Reviewed on PC
• 

  PC Gamer

  9.1

  Pony Island picks up themes and ideas until it’s large enough to reach past its videogame constraints and start messing with your reality. That’s you, the reader, not ‘you’ a hypothetical Pony Island player—it creates the illusion (oh, please let it be an illusion) of toying with the real world, to the degree that when it ended I stood up, in an office to myself, to mime the splatter from my blown mind hitting the corners of the room.

  Reviewed on PC

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• 

  IGN

  9.0

  I greatly enjoyed the two or so hours it took me to play through Pony Island. This is a game that delights in toying with your expectations and in breaking the fourth wall, in revealing its sinister yet playful world, and in building up a compelling antagonist and telling an ambiguous story. Pony Island is about as punk rock as they come.

  Reviewed on PC

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• 

  Hardcore Gamer

  9.0

  Very quickly, Pony Island’s subtle ominousness becomes a journey into utterly fun madness. We were constantly surprised by the direction taken and the varying mediums for that direction. Fantastically portrayed through the excellent use of a multitude of techniques, the tone and theme is incredibly fresh.

  Reviewed on PC

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• 

  The Escapist

  8.0

  Pony Island is an incredibly clever puzzle-horror game that manages to immerse you in a screwed up world of ponies, code, and demonic machinations. Puzzle game fans will get a lot of enjoyment out of Pony Island's many coding puzzles and anyone who likes narrative or experimental games will love the way it screws with your head. Just don't buy this thinking it's an actual game about ponies.

  Reviewed on PC

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• 

  Destructoid

  9.5

  Pony Island messes with players in unexpected ways that stuck with me for days. It took a number of unexpected turns that caught me off guard and was constantly filling me with a sense of inescapable unease. It wasn't on my radar at all before it released, but at under $5 it's a wonderful use of two hours of your life.

  Reviewed on PC

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• 

  The Jimquisition

  9.5

  When the game allows itself to have music, the tunes are fantastic, piercing through an unnerving bass rumble that underscores the entire adventure. The retro-themed visuals serve a purpose in this particular instance, adding to the atmosphere rather than looking like a cheap attempt at indie cred.

  Reviewed on PC

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• 

  Video Gamer

  9.0

  I haven't played anything as engaging and interesting as Pony Island in a long time.

  Reviewed on PC

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• 

  gamesTM

  7.0

  But despite its short length, overt simplicity and some droning repetition, Pony Island has to be commended for being bold enough to present such an oddball idea in such an unapologetic fashion. For those with the pallet to appreciate its unique offering, this will be among the most memorable (and fleeting) games you’ll play this year.

  Reviewed on PC
• 

  God is a Geek

  9.0

  It baffles me as to why more don’t choose to play with our expectations of video games. Over the years, we’ve been trained to think a certain way and within minutes (or in some cases, by the time we’ve hit start) we can predict every big twist before it happens. There are certain games that wouldn’t work as anything else and use the tools at their disposal brilliantly. Games are wonderful and we need to be reminded that there are specific things they can do that films, books, and TV shows can’t. Pony Island captures that, and it captures it well.

  Reviewed on PC

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Community Reviews

About the game