PONY ISLAND: Secretly Is Satanic

Before I say anything about PONY ISLAND, or we get to what insights Dan Mullins (the creator) had on building it, you should watch the Steam trailer:

Okey-doke.

From the title, you know that it’s a game about ponies… but (as you can now see) the game delights in misinforming and misleading us.

“…or Treat?”

Mine had been a stressful October, so when this game was recommended to me and I was told it was on sale (Steam Halloween Horror Games!), I bought it without registering more than “oh, the trailer had cool weird energy” and that it was for two bucks through to the minute of midnight.

It had been, I cannot stress enough, a hellish day.

So I was on autopilot, after my long walk home.

I wanted to play one of the games I’d just bought, and PONY ISLAND seemed less potentially stressful than the survival-horror game AMNESIA: THE DARK DESCENT (another recommendation, which I got in a two-pack with its curiously-named sequel A MACHINE FOR PIGS) or I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM (adapted from the Harlan Ellison story of the same name).

I pulled up the load-screen for the game, with its nice pastoral pony hopping across the fields of lush green Pony Island (just like the start and ending of the trailer). And that happy harp-music.

Which was comforting.

After the day I’d had… I spent awhile just looking at that.

Because it was sweet, and calm.

And I needed that.

I don’t want to spoil the experience of playing the opening, so I’ll just say that – after some hilarious and maddening puzzles – I found myself face-to-screen with the prompt:

As you might imagine, I was somewhat taken aback.

Then I just started laughing, and couldn’t stop for a minute. I’d had a hard Halloween – with the emphasis on trick, rather’n treat – and encountering this madness was a welcome release.

I checked the time, cuz I’d lost track–and saw that it had just gone midnight.

Which shut me up, alluva sudden.

I had been going through a personal slice of hell for a significant part of that day; it seemed only natural for the Devil to ping me at midnight on Halloween.

The synchronicity of it was so bizarre that, when I had the chance to interview the maker of the game a few months later, there was only one First Question for me to ask….

1. What is your relationship with Satan?
   Fear not! My relationship to Satan (the Abrahamic fictional entity) doesn’t exist much outside Pony Island. I decided early on that Christian mythology would be a cool backdrop for the game, but I have no special connection to it.
2. PONY ISLAND’s style harks back to earlier operating-systems, with a ‘1992’ copyright on the main page and chunks taking place on an old-style desktop. Was that [only] an aesthetic choice, or do you have fond memories of that era?
   It was mostly an aesthetic choice, but I think a crucial one–it really played into the creepy satanic stuff and added suspense. This aesthetic also allowed me to produce art assets* quickly and easily.

   

   Each block of grass, stump, and identical tree is an art asset in this Pokémon YELLOW forest scene.

   1992 is the year I was born, which should be a clue that I have no memories of that era, haha. When I was old enough to use a computer, it was running Windows 2000.

   * EDITOR’S NOTE: Art-assets are in-game objects, audio effects, textures, etc. Most games have a box or crate (or tree or rock) which is repeated endlessly/as needed – an object which can be part of the scenery, or function in gameplay. This is a basic asset.

   While this article is being published on a site whose audience likely knows plenty about why this design-choice makes sense, it bears slight elaboration for an audience who may not know that you can build your own assets or buy them at Unity’s Asset Store.

3. What was your original inspiration for using ponies, as the cute-and-cuddly false front to your game?    It was just something that quickly came to mind as I was doing the original game jam. I sat there for a couple minutes running through ideas for the cute-and-cuddly front, thinking about pandas, dolphins, etc. After that moment of thought I committed to ponies.
4. Programming puzzles are one of the main game activities in/on PONY ISLAND, and THE HEX also looks partly puzzling. What types of puzzle games do you most like to play? And what games would you say inspired you to make your own puzzlers?
   For whatever reason, I find puzzles to be highly satisfying to create but I don’t play a lot of pure puzzle games. The last one I played thoroughly was THE WITNESS. It might be that my intuition for puzzle design comes from all the little puzzles that one finds scattered throughout most video games.There are little puzzles in BIOSHOCK, and in the LEGEND OF ZELDA series. In card games like HEARTHSTONE, &c. So with enough exposure to games as a whole, you end up with an idea of common puzzle mechanics, and maybe what makes them interesting.
5. What was the most challenging part of creating PONY ISLAND?
   The hardest part of PONY ISLAND was coming up with the answer to the question: “What happens next?”I constantly had writer’s block, because What Happens Next had to play into the narrative, fill in the lore, and provide some semblance of compelling gameplay. It also had to live up to the opening thirty minutes of the game, which I had always felt were quite strong.
6. How did you promote the game? Was it mostly word-of-mouth, or did you work to get that ball rolling?
   Mostly the promotion was handled for me by the many YouTubers and Twitch streamers who broadcasted it. I think they were enticed by the idea of a funny-sounding game with a lot of surprise moments that they could react to and show their personalities.
7. At the risk of asking something a bit basic: do you have any favorite childhood games?
   Definitely! Thinking back on the games that consumed my childhood brain the most: Pokémon, Pokémon, Pokémon, Pokémon, SUPER MARIO 64, then FINAL FANTASY TACTICS: ADVANCE, aaaand… also Pokémon.
8. Are you interested in working on larger teams, or making your own company?
   I’m interested in experimenting with a team of around three or four members, but nothing larger than that. I’m not ready for the responsibility of managing a large team–without excellent management, creative vision gets lost in larger teams.
9. In the PONY ISLAND sequel, will we return to Pony Island? What do you think is left to explore, in the concept and setting of the first game?
   I think there’s a lot left to explore in the concept of PONY ISLAND. There’s that arcade that you briefly glimpse a couple times throughout the game. If/when a sequel happens, that arcade is going to remain a fixture.As for Satan’s game called “Pony Island”, the sequel would probably be about some other mythological evil being’s game.

Great thanks to Dan Mullins (@DMullinsGames) for taking the time to answer these questions, and giving such insightful candid answers.

I look forward to PONY ISLAND 2 – or whatever spiritual/digital plane the next installment takes place within!