It is primarily a point-and-click style adventure game, frequently referencing other user-interface metaphors, such as a simulated operating system.

[1] The player must explore the internal programming of the "Pony Island" arcade game in order to progress.

Prior to working on Pony Island, Daniel Mullins had just graduated from college and attempted to launch a game, Catch Monsters through Kickstarter during November 2014, but failed to raise sufficient funds, and instead found a programming job though still wanted to develop games.

[6] For example, in the pseudo-code sections of the game, he found that adding iconography for locks and keys for the commands the players could manipulate helped them to understand how to interact with the code without direct instruction.

[2] Pony Island has generally been well received by critics, praising it for being a metafiction on the nature of video games.

IGN awarded it a score of 9.0 out of 10, saying "Pony Island is a punk rock experiment in storytelling and game design that delights in toying with the player.