10 Genius Fourth Wall Breaks In 2016 Video Games
6. Pony Island - Trolling The Player
Disguised as a platform runner where you initially jump a cute little pony over gates, blowing away tickling butterflies, Pony Island begins by poking fun at our insatiable need for rewards.
Completing the first level earns you levels indefinitely until you begin level 2. Eventually the game overloads from rewarding you and starts to reveal its true nature as a psychological puzzle game.
Sometimes you need to use the pony to delete corrupted files, whilst other times you dive into the arcade machine's registry to purge viruses. Unfortunately, before long the machine announces it can no longer accept tickets or coins, but it needs your soul to continue letting you play the game. It turns out, the machine is possessed and has absorbed the souls of many-a-player before you.
The game trolls the play endlessly; even the name of the game has nothing to do with the true essence of the game. This trickery gets more dastardly and entertaining as the game progresses, from a puzzle that asks you to write dirty phrases, only to then publish them on Steam for all your friends to see, to the soul of a former player guilt-tripping you into uninstalling the game as the only way to save him.
It's brave, it's stupid, and I love it!