Image: Daniel Mullins Games

Everything and everyone starts small. Inscryption might be known as one of the best mystery rabbit-hole games around, but whimsical puzzle-smith Daniel Mullins began that journey over a decade ago with Pony Island. A short, smart, and very funny game about magical pink sparkle-ponies... And maybe an arcade cabinet (badly) programmed by Satan. To promote the upcoming (and honestly spectacular-looking) Pony Island 2: Panda Circus, the original game has been made free on Steam for 'a limited time'. No word on when it'll cost money again, but if you don't already have it, now's the time to grab it.

This is one of those games where the fewer spoilers you get, the better. Just that where you end up is going to be very far from where you start. Expect to be solving puzzles, completing minigames, and interacting with a growing cast of characters in an increasingly broken and unpredictable game. This one's the start of a whole series of games set in a shared universe about haunted, possibly sapient video games, with the next in the series being frantically genre-hopping The Hex. Well worth a try if you like this.

And beyond that, we've got Inscryption, which starts out as a simple card-battling roguelike but ends up spinning wildly off into whole new dimensions. Each of Mullins' games has been increasingly ambitious and packed with more concepts, gameplay styles and ideas, and from the looks of it, Pony Island 2: Panda Circus is going to be taking it SO much further, with the latest trailer featuring several flavours of RPG, adventuring, puzzles, first-person 3D exploration and FMV acting from a well-known cast. The sequel will be out next April, but sign-ups open now for a playtest version. In the meantime, check out the trailer below.

But the important thing here, let you forget, is that Pony Island is free for the time being. Tell your friends, surprise your family, and given how great Inscryption was, we're very confident that the sequel will be something special.