The developer of 2021's dark horse roguelike Inscryption announces sequel to his breakout genre-bending indie
Dec. 8, 2023Pony Island gets a surprising follow-up
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Following the genre-mashing success ofInscryption, indie developer Daniel Mullins is going back to the game that put him on the map.
The original Pony Island sees you stumble upon the titular arcade cabinet, only to find that it’s been hijacked by the literal devil. The game then fluctuates between the actual Pony Island, an old-school side-scrolling shoot ‘em up, and some light puzzle-programming as you try to escape Lucifer’s clutches from inside the game.
There’s no sign of the devil in the sequel - thank the heavens - but the setup looks similarly haunted. Our protagonist boats up to a clearly ominous arcade cabinet, plays a moody-looking game about pandas, and then gets harassed by real-world YouTuber SungWon “ProZD” Cho - who’s playing a character called King Yan here. We see glimpses of the endless runner sections from the original, as well as programming logic puzzles that have you mess with the hostile interface - on top of frames that are so jumbled, they’re almost indescribable. Perfect.
“Pony Island 2: Panda Circus is a phantasmagorical voyage through time, myth, divinity, and video games,” the game’sSteam pagekinda explains. “Escape the lordly deities of the underworld with your soul, and your sanity, intact. This is not a game about ponies.” All in all, that’s close to what you’d expect from Mullins, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.
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