Asmodeus.exe

**Asmodeus.exe** is the third boss and a minor antagonist of the 2016 suspence puzzle game *Pony Island*. He, along with the other daemons, is one of Lucifer's creations made to protect the core file of "Pony Island" arcade game from deletion; guarding the last system core-file. He claims to have a rather "sophisticated" A.I. than the other daemons.

Like Azazel.exe and Beelzebub.exe, he has his own unique boss mechanic—a test of attentiveness and intelligence.

## What Makes Him Magnificent?

* He claims to have much more sophisticated A.I., especially when compared to Azazel.exe or Beelzebub.exe, pointing out how the latter didn't even require the player to think. And as his mind game shows, he truly lives up to his boast.
* When confronting the player, he challenges them to a simple game: do not lose focus on him (i.e. don't click out of the game) and answer all of his questions correctly. Throughout the game, he employs very clever mind-trickery, including actively utilizing the fourth wall breaks to his advantage, thus making his seemingly easy game more challenging. His status as a clever trickster is actually backed up in-universe, as he boasts that he never lost the game in the past, and his fourth wall-breaking mind play allows the player to easily see why.
	+ The first display of his trickery comes at his second question: he gets the player to write down something vile and disgusting, and then pretending to be their friend on Steam who gets offended and starts telling them to explain themselves, all while he tells the player to write down an answer to another question of his.
	+ Throughout the game, he plays various social media notification sounds to trick the player into believing that they received a new message to trick them into clicking out of the game window.
	+ He also tries to trick the player into clicking out by insisting that they apologize to their friend.
	+ After his question regarding what animal appears in the game more frequently (with the answer obviously being 'pony'), he distracts the player with a sparkling running pony while he presents the blink-and-you-miss-it phrase underneath himself before making the pony distraction disappear and then telling the player to write the phrase down, which would most likely than not leave the player dumbfounded and caught off-guard.
	+ When telling the player to write down Number of the Beast, he presents another blink-and-you-miss-it phrase, instructing the player to write down the number he *actually* wants the player to write down.
	+ And lastly, when telling the player to memorize and write down the sequence of numbers, he fakes the game crash right before the player manages to type in the last number. If the player proves himself to not be easily fooled and instead "waits for the program to respond", Asmodeus.exe winks at the player and allows them to write down the last number.
* He is honorable and affably evil; while he does his best to trick the player into breaking their focus, he never actually rigs the game, as the point of the challenge is to test the player's focus, endurance and intelligence, with his tricks being intentional obstacles, and whenever the player proves themselves to be competent and not easy to fool, he will compliment them on their cleverness and good memory and ability to focus. And once the player wins his game, Asmodeus.exe willingly accepts his defeat and lets the player delete the core file he guards, outright admitting that he is okay with dying, seeing it as "a great adventure", and bids the player farewell as he gets deleted.
* In spite of how comedic the game is, Asmodeus.exe is never the butt of a joke, instead being presented as genuinely skilled trickster who is charming, affable and honorable, which is especially helped by his short screentime of roughly five minutes.

## What Makes Him a Baddie?

* He's a daemon created by Lucifer to protect the core file of "Pony Island". As such, he deliberately hinders the player's efforts from deleting it to ensure that they are kept trapped in Limbo.
* Should the player fail his game by incorrectly answering his questions or clicking out of the game window, Asmodeus.exe will lunge at the player and kill them.
* He appears to be coldly indifferent to his fellow daemons' fates, even outright taking a potshot at how unchallenging Beelzebub.exe was after he was deleted by the player. He also mocks his unused predecessor Buer.exe, who was disgruntled with being replaced by him, should the player type in his name.