the internet was never a truly free or equitable space and was always being restrained and manipulated by capital forces but we really have traded away something so special for the sake of "streamlined user experience" without even realizing it and I doubt we can ever go back
Great game that takes me back to the halcyon days of getting lost on shitty Geocities pages, following random links and looking at things I'm not supposed to, then frying my old man's Sony Vaio by pulling the power cable out when I hear him coming up the stairs. Like the early Internet, Hypnospace is built on a foundation of computer viruses and hot dog gifs and it's better off for it.
I was born post-Y2K so I'm not gonna pretend to act like I have any experience with what the internet was actually like at the time, but even as a spectator to that whole era I can still see this as maybe the best piece of art ever made about how much it means to be a part of a community you belong to. About knowing your roots and preserving your history, even in the face of societal adversity. About how capitalism can ruin art whenever it feels like it. It feels universal. It lures you in with goofy character writing and funny observations of days gone and then punches you hard in the gut with the force of how much those types of things mean to you.
they got me cryin over the heavyhanded christian theming at the end!!! goddammit passionate collective of talented artists who made this thing i hate u!!!!
they got me cryin over the heavyhanded christian theming at the end!!! goddammit passionate collective of talented artists who made this thing i hate u!!!!
A memorial and portrait of a time "lost", with the paint bleeding through the page to imprint on the user, hoping for them to understand what we might bring to today. Each brushstroke an elegant capture of people and the communication between them, shared through the tendrils of corporation forever omnipresent then as it is now. And they all share the same message. There's no going back. Reflect now and move forward, because we as a people still are the same expressions of love and joy, regardless of how much it appears to have superficially changed.
Recommended by lpslucasps as part of this list.
One of my favorite past-times online is wandering through the remains of old websites that have slipped through the cracks of time, free of Javascript and the sleek minimalist design of the current netscape. Ancient fan websites for niche anime series, the blogs of middle-aged professors talking about their field of study, the personal websites of long-gone starry-eyed netizens, abandoned forums archived in whole by a community enshrining their texts like an old religion, it's akin to exploring an abandoned building: It's purpose is long-forgotten, it's structure has rotted away, and the only signs of life are the pests and micro-organisms that have found their ecological niche within. Like the digital archaeologists of today, the rats who reside there have no clue about the significance of the artificial home in which they reside, they can only peer upon the bones and wonder what it all meant.
Hypnospace Outlaw's greatest strength is how it manages to perfectly capture the feel of late 90s internet. From the hyper-compressed audio and video, the gaudy yet charming layouts of old webpages and the general interconnected feel of insular online communities, it has the cultural language of the pre-Y2K internet down to a T, but more importantly, Hypnospace Outlaw captures the twilight of the Wild West-era of the internet. Hypnospace is an ecosystem, a thriving network of fringe individuals and communities connected through the power of Sleeptime Technology, but just like in real life, corporate shortsightedness and the cold hand of Capitalism tried to force Hypnospace into a more marketable form that would ultimately kill the very ecosystem it cultivated. In a striking parallel to the world of today, the final stretch of Hypnospace Outlaw takes place in the modern day, decades after the Y2K panic, where the goal of the player shifts from maintaining the peace in Hypnospace to simply trying to maintain Hypnospace. From the Internet Archive, to Flashpoint, to the Lost Media Wiki; there's a prevalent culture on the net today around preservation, full of communities that work around the clock to try and save the internet as was, before corporations forced the discontinuation of legacy software and aesthetics in the name of profit, before the internet was monopolized by corporate spyware and data-harvesting scams that forced the cultural mass extinction of the disparate websphere.
Hypnospace is an undeniably fantastical game, an alternate history dealing in the hypotheticals of advanced sci-fi technology, but its undercurrent of pre-Y2K fear and a longing for the internet as it was give it the grounding to resonate with the players who grew up in that era of the world. To pretend the internet was ever the mythical wild west we romanticize it as nowadays is foolish, but its undeniable that we lost something in the years following. All roads on the Information Superhighway converged into one, right into the mouth of the corporate Abaddon.
And it might be too late to go back.
One of my favorite past-times online is wandering through the remains of old websites that have slipped through the cracks of time, free of Javascript and the sleek minimalist design of the current netscape. Ancient fan websites for niche anime series, the blogs of middle-aged professors talking about their field of study, the personal websites of long-gone starry-eyed netizens, abandoned forums archived in whole by a community enshrining their texts like an old religion, it's akin to exploring an abandoned building: It's purpose is long-forgotten, it's structure has rotted away, and the only signs of life are the pests and micro-organisms that have found their ecological niche within. Like the digital archaeologists of today, the rats who reside there have no clue about the significance of the artificial home in which they reside, they can only peer upon the bones and wonder what it all meant.
Hypnospace Outlaw's greatest strength is how it manages to perfectly capture the feel of late 90s internet. From the hyper-compressed audio and video, the gaudy yet charming layouts of old webpages and the general interconnected feel of insular online communities, it has the cultural language of the pre-Y2K internet down to a T, but more importantly, Hypnospace Outlaw captures the twilight of the Wild West-era of the internet. Hypnospace is an ecosystem, a thriving network of fringe individuals and communities connected through the power of Sleeptime Technology, but just like in real life, corporate shortsightedness and the cold hand of Capitalism tried to force Hypnospace into a more marketable form that would ultimately kill the very ecosystem it cultivated. In a striking parallel to the world of today, the final stretch of Hypnospace Outlaw takes place in the modern day, decades after the Y2K panic, where the goal of the player shifts from maintaining the peace in Hypnospace to simply trying to maintain Hypnospace. From the Internet Archive, to Flashpoint, to the Lost Media Wiki; there's a prevalent culture on the net today around preservation, full of communities that work around the clock to try and save the internet as was, before corporations forced the discontinuation of legacy software and aesthetics in the name of profit, before the internet was monopolized by corporate spyware and data-harvesting scams that forced the cultural mass extinction of the disparate websphere.
Hypnospace is an undeniably fantastical game, an alternate history dealing in the hypotheticals of advanced sci-fi technology, but its undercurrent of pre-Y2K fear and a longing for the internet as it was give it the grounding to resonate with the players who grew up in that era of the world. To pretend the internet was ever the mythical wild west we romanticize it as nowadays is foolish, but its undeniable that we lost something in the years following. All roads on the Information Superhighway converged into one, right into the mouth of the corporate Abaddon.
And it might be too late to go back.
This will be Backloggd graphics in 2013.
Recommended by lpslucasps on this list.
I've managed to shoot myself in the foot a little bit by promising to "review" anything on the aforementioned list, as this game has proven to be an especially difficult one. I've got a lot on my mind after playing it and I'm going to have to cheat a little bit with the format, because I don't think I can nicely condense this down into a single review with a coherent theme.
- Loads of nostalgic authenticity throughout the experience. I don't think this comes as a surprise to anyone given that it's the most surface-level observation, but it's true. I was born at the right time and raised by a tech-savvy mom, allowing me to witness the end of this era of the internet, even if I was a little young. There are a lot of details here that are so easy to forget in the era of WordPress and Squarespace sites prepared straight out of the can, adhering to good graphic design principles.
- It's a little uncomfortable seeing how little some things have changed. There are still painfully earnest posts from children and teens trying to figure things out, every new technology is still a fight between little Davids trying to unseat massive, corporate Goliaths before they take over the Cool New Thing™. Communities have always had awful shit that moderators are woefully unequipped to handle, on platforms that the creators don't even fully understand...
- ...and it all reminds me of being at work. I work in IT and found myself slipping into work mode a lot here, forced to emotionally detach myself from the cases/tickets I'm working on. I see your very real, very serious harassment case, and I can't do anything to punish them because I don't have the tools. I am powerless, except when it comes to ruining someone's day because a policy they've never read said posting a picture of a cartoon fish is an actionable offense. New fires will always ignite as you're putting out the old ones, and moderators are given this cruel, Sisyphean task of rectifying every possible issue on a platform using extremely limited tools that are hardly suited to the task.
- I feel like a lot of my enjoyment is tethered to my own memory of the ugly, poorly laid-out webpages of old (complete with horrendously compressed gifs, videos, and music). I can't speak to how it'll play for those without the memories - the memories aren't important for knowledge reasons, but for patience reasons. This game is full of tedium, and while I'm not trying to pitch this as some "zoomers will hate this!", I would personally be a little annoyed by it all if it didn't remind me of times where I was younger and dumber. If you get past that (or don't care), there's a lot of love here - love for technology of the past, and love for the people that use it. It's a pretty little digital diorama, and I like what it represents.
- I stand with Gooper
I've managed to shoot myself in the foot a little bit by promising to "review" anything on the aforementioned list, as this game has proven to be an especially difficult one. I've got a lot on my mind after playing it and I'm going to have to cheat a little bit with the format, because I don't think I can nicely condense this down into a single review with a coherent theme.
- Loads of nostalgic authenticity throughout the experience. I don't think this comes as a surprise to anyone given that it's the most surface-level observation, but it's true. I was born at the right time and raised by a tech-savvy mom, allowing me to witness the end of this era of the internet, even if I was a little young. There are a lot of details here that are so easy to forget in the era of WordPress and Squarespace sites prepared straight out of the can, adhering to good graphic design principles.
- It's a little uncomfortable seeing how little some things have changed. There are still painfully earnest posts from children and teens trying to figure things out, every new technology is still a fight between little Davids trying to unseat massive, corporate Goliaths before they take over the Cool New Thing™. Communities have always had awful shit that moderators are woefully unequipped to handle, on platforms that the creators don't even fully understand...
- ...and it all reminds me of being at work. I work in IT and found myself slipping into work mode a lot here, forced to emotionally detach myself from the cases/tickets I'm working on. I see your very real, very serious harassment case, and I can't do anything to punish them because I don't have the tools. I am powerless, except when it comes to ruining someone's day because a policy they've never read said posting a picture of a cartoon fish is an actionable offense. New fires will always ignite as you're putting out the old ones, and moderators are given this cruel, Sisyphean task of rectifying every possible issue on a platform using extremely limited tools that are hardly suited to the task.
- I feel like a lot of my enjoyment is tethered to my own memory of the ugly, poorly laid-out webpages of old (complete with horrendously compressed gifs, videos, and music). I can't speak to how it'll play for those without the memories - the memories aren't important for knowledge reasons, but for patience reasons. This game is full of tedium, and while I'm not trying to pitch this as some "zoomers will hate this!", I would personally be a little annoyed by it all if it didn't remind me of times where I was younger and dumber. If you get past that (or don't care), there's a lot of love here - love for technology of the past, and love for the people that use it. It's a pretty little digital diorama, and I like what it represents.
- I stand with Gooper
We're all blessed/cursed to live in the age where the Internet is ubiquitous. In it we pour pieces of ourselves, in a gigantic web of communications, friendships, relationships, rivalries, petty grievances and every human interaction. Hypnospace Outlaw is like a mirror held up to us, in which we see a microcosm of our Internet selves, frozen in time in the moment we left our digital footprints. It's a story where you visit a fictional past, one unabashedly based on our actual history, whose concerns are still distressingly relevant twenty years later. Alexandria still burns, our past is still lost each passing hour. One day, this site will be no more, Steam will be no more, we will likely be no more, no matter how remote that day may be or seem. This doesn't mean being here is meaningless; even if it were, what's the point in having all the miracolous opportunities we're afforded and not using them?
Enjoy today, now. And if something breaks? There's a saying where I come from: "Pope's dead, make another".
Keep on rocking, reader. Godspeed.
Enjoy today, now. And if something breaks? There's a saying where I come from: "Pope's dead, make another".
Keep on rocking, reader. Godspeed.
This review contains spoilers
Recommended by mutyumu for this list.
I’ve spent a lot of time since completing Hypnospace Outlaw debating the inclusion of all the conspiratorial elements- how could such an uncanny premise not have a dark secret behind it? Initially, I largely agreed with a number of the other reviews here that argued the pivot towards such a tidy conclusion a little distracting, but as I’ve sat with it over the last week or so, I’ve wondered if it’s something of a response to titles such as Gone Home and Firewatch. So much of the negative reception towards those games seemed founded on the unfulfilled promise of the mysteries those games set-up, giving way to some great character work but what were also seen as disappointingly mundane revelations.
Hypnospace Outlaw manages to do both- you’ll hit credits and get an easy narrative resolution, but you’re also given the space to look over the stratified pages one more time, maybe wrap up the scavenger hunt you’re sent on the final act, a lasting sense of the lives cut short and the vibrancy of these communities slowly being drained out as you scan between pages. It’s a surprising balance, and while I think the real strength of the game is found more in it’s more honest, human moments, (hated Dylan far more his reaction to being involved in pirating music, than with the Y2K disaster), I’ve appreciated the catharsis and drama the hunt for the truth provides as I’ve put some distance from the game.
I feel far less qualified to speak to its depiction of the late-90’s Internet, but if there’s one bit of wisdom that’s stuck with me, it’s seeing a few of the communities jump ship from platform to platform. It seems almost inevitable these spaces will fall prey to corporatization and greed, but at least they’re habitable for awhile- and there's always somewhere new to carve out a niche when the time comes.
(On a more minor note: this is a surprisingly robust game structurally, with sequence breaks and a number of hidden areas scattered throughout the game, making exhaustively searching through every link and dead page more exciting than tedious- slowly amassing a desktop full of widgets, wallpapers, and music.)
I’ve spent a lot of time since completing Hypnospace Outlaw debating the inclusion of all the conspiratorial elements- how could such an uncanny premise not have a dark secret behind it? Initially, I largely agreed with a number of the other reviews here that argued the pivot towards such a tidy conclusion a little distracting, but as I’ve sat with it over the last week or so, I’ve wondered if it’s something of a response to titles such as Gone Home and Firewatch. So much of the negative reception towards those games seemed founded on the unfulfilled promise of the mysteries those games set-up, giving way to some great character work but what were also seen as disappointingly mundane revelations.
Hypnospace Outlaw manages to do both- you’ll hit credits and get an easy narrative resolution, but you’re also given the space to look over the stratified pages one more time, maybe wrap up the scavenger hunt you’re sent on the final act, a lasting sense of the lives cut short and the vibrancy of these communities slowly being drained out as you scan between pages. It’s a surprising balance, and while I think the real strength of the game is found more in it’s more honest, human moments, (hated Dylan far more his reaction to being involved in pirating music, than with the Y2K disaster), I’ve appreciated the catharsis and drama the hunt for the truth provides as I’ve put some distance from the game.
I feel far less qualified to speak to its depiction of the late-90’s Internet, but if there’s one bit of wisdom that’s stuck with me, it’s seeing a few of the communities jump ship from platform to platform. It seems almost inevitable these spaces will fall prey to corporatization and greed, but at least they’re habitable for awhile- and there's always somewhere new to carve out a niche when the time comes.
(On a more minor note: this is a surprisingly robust game structurally, with sequence breaks and a number of hidden areas scattered throughout the game, making exhaustively searching through every link and dead page more exciting than tedious- slowly amassing a desktop full of widgets, wallpapers, and music.)
o fato de que eu tive que procurar no google como desinstalar essa desgraça desse professor helper (e arrumar urgente um antivírus) do mesmo jeito que eu tive que pesquisar desesperado como desinstalar o hao123 e essas coisas porque tava ENCHENDO de anúncio porn* no meu navegador aos 8 anos me vendeu MUITO isso aqui.
e essa parte final toda melancólica também é muito foda???? replicaram perfeitamente essa vibe de tentar voltar pra lugares da internet que sentimos falta e gostaríamos de voltar quando bate a nostalgia.
acho que eram tempos melhores mesmo...
e essa parte final toda melancólica também é muito foda???? replicaram perfeitamente essa vibe de tentar voltar pra lugares da internet que sentimos falta e gostaríamos de voltar quando bate a nostalgia.
acho que eram tempos melhores mesmo...
I'm starting to think "Operating System Simulator" might be one of my favorite game genres. This was a fantastic experience that I wish was just a bit longer.
Check out Kingsway and the Emily is Away series if you're looking for games that capture the same sort of early Windows/Web1.0 vibe.
Check out Kingsway and the Emily is Away series if you're looking for games that capture the same sort of early Windows/Web1.0 vibe.
I was expecting to like Hypnospace Outlaw a lot more. The game captures early days internet perfectly well and the way you play detective searching through websites is a nice idea. But somehow to me it felt tedious from the first moments on, which is to be expected because in theory: who wants to comb through terrible html all day.
I think overall the game concept works and is something really unique, but it was just not for me at this point.
I think overall the game concept works and is something really unique, but it was just not for me at this point.
Chicken Soup for the Jaded Shitposter's Soul.
I had a buddy named Vinny...
He could stuff an entire pizza in his mouth...
All without drugs!
If you're a cool teen...
D-d-don't insert a bean!
He could stuff an entire pizza in his mouth...
All without drugs!
If you're a cool teen...
D-d-don't insert a bean!
An astonishingly rich and exciting journey to the dawn of virtual communities and the edge of Y2K, which graciously honors with a unique sensitivity the expressive and creative chaos of a humanity facing a whole new world of interactions: the characters of Hypnospace Outlaw and the digital environments in which they come to life, in this labyrinth of web pages made of low-resolution images, rambling text, weird passions and a genuine need for belonging are what really captured me about this game, which with an almost philological ability of recreation brings back an extremely varied, but absolutely recognizable aesthetic that too often has been ridiculed by easy stereotypes and superficial fashions.
And yet, as if simply experiencing this world freely wasn't enough, the game manages to be perfectly structured within a fair compromise of linearity, which gives purpose to exploration with refined investigative mechanics.
There could be so many things to mention, so many incredible tools that fit into the gameplay, so many facets of the characters and their actions, but I really wouldn't know where to begin to describe them, it was all just magical and wonderful.
And yet, as if simply experiencing this world freely wasn't enough, the game manages to be perfectly structured within a fair compromise of linearity, which gives purpose to exploration with refined investigative mechanics.
There could be so many things to mention, so many incredible tools that fit into the gameplay, so many facets of the characters and their actions, but I really wouldn't know where to begin to describe them, it was all just magical and wonderful.
I don't have much to say about Hypnospace Outlaw itself beyond it being one of the funniest, most heart-warming, most endearing, most sincere, most ironic, most fun depictions of the Internet ever presented.
In my review-cum-memoir on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, I bemoaned the death of online spaces noted for their lack of thorough knowledge. It is perhaps fitting that WotLK's release came a mere five days before the launch of Jim Garvin and Ryan McGeary's 'Let Me Google That For You' website. Perhaps by divine providence too, WotLK's release coincided with the steady downward trend of Bill Dyess' then World of Warcraft database Thottbot and the first massive spike in traffic to Wowhead. The coincidence is staggering, but also points to a trend which has irreversibly altered the gaming landscape, and society at large. Much as WoW players sought user-data-verified hard statistics on their MMO of choice, tech savvy individuals' astonishment and contempt for being asked readily verifiable questions reached a tipping point in late 2008. Confirming and corroborating data on WoW would in time become something accomplished by every player. LMGTFY would in time become a site even your grandparents might send as a slight towards a query. The genuine question 'where is Mankrik's wife?' was less the object of ridicule, more a target for sarcasm and eye-rolling as the naive were directed to Wowhead. With ever increasing databases and wikis, games and media in general have become less about a sense of mystery, more one of minutiae. Players no longer revel in not knowing, they would rather examine the entirety of a game's mechanics and lore and history with a finetooth comb.
My point in bringing this up is two-fold. One: Games have genuinely not been the same since players expected to be able to understand them inside and out at whim. Two: The Internet has genuinely not been the same since users expected others to rely on a corporate search engine, largely constructed (especially now) to deliver advertising rather than substantive content, to remedy their perceived ignorance. As Embracer Group, Microsoft, Tencent, Sony, Epic, Valve, Ubisoft, EA, and other megacorporations oligopolise the gaming space, so too do Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Tencent, Joybuy, Alibaba, Twitter, Spotify, ByteDance, Baidu, Adobe, Block, and others reduce Internet diversity to a minimum. I can't act as if I knew the Internet of eld in its entirety, but a lifelong fascination with Internet obscura and history has me at least somewhat informed.
In my review of GeoGuessr, and corroborated by jobosno's review of Microsoft Flight Simulator, stressed was the importance of appreciating the non-place. So too does this apply to the Internet at large, and Hypnospace Outlaw itself if we wish. Not everything on the Internet is substantive or substantial, nor is every page on Hypnospace. We fall down rabbit holes of Wikipedia deep dives, we examine every page on Hypnospace regardless of its relevance to our duty. Duty and productivity and the confines of time and the constraints of life and gaming guide us towards Internet or Hypnospace use that is conducive to our end goals, but those detours persist as availabilities. In the real world, they dwindle as web diversity shrinks, as webhosts go offline, as swathes of the Internet go unarchives and unremember[ed/able]. In Hypnospace, their finite nature means we cannot search forever.
The Big Crunch theory postulates that at some point, the universe will cease expansion, and will recollapse unto itself as all is returned to zero. To null.
At some point, the Internet might cease expansion, and will recollapse unto itself as all is returned to zero. To null. We will not go to website, we will go to keywords. That which is unadvertisable, incompatible with commercialisation will in effect go dark. In due time fewer and fewer spaces will exist. In due time, all will be one, and one will be none.
The Big Freeze theory postulates that the universe will never cease expansion, and will drift into entropy until all is returned to absolute zero. To null.
At some point, the Internet might expand infinitely to the point of unnavigability. In a web of infinitudes, all will be irrelevant and all will be lost as data becomes unable to be quantified on any scale. In due time, one will be all, and all will be none.
The unknowability of the universe renders any theory pointless. We do not know what will happen. We cannot know what will happen.
The unknowability of the Internet renders any theory pointless. We do not know what will happen. We cannot know what will happen.
Enjoy the Internet as it is now. Enjoy the Internet as it was then. Enjoy the Internet as it will be. Forever is it in flux, forever is it a stable constant. Forever does it all drift apart, forever does it all close in. Forever shall it be known and forever shall it be unknown.
We exist in a cosmic nothing of no import.
We exist in a digital nothing of no import.
Every atom in the universe is critical to its being.
Every byte of the Internet is critical to its being.
As a historian, I live on a periphery of data boundless yet intangible. I scour for that which does not exist, may never have existed.
At the end of Hypnospace Outlaw you are tasked with archiving a wasteland.
Archive our wasteland with the Wayback Machine extension. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wayback-machine/fpnmgdkabkmnadcjpehmlllkndpkmiak https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/wayback-machine_new/
We exist at a time where unfathomable amounts of human knowledge are being erased from existence every hour of every day. This is not a deliberate book burning. This is an incidental blaze.
Save what you can.
What a beautiful thing we are a part of.
Seek the obtuse, obfuscated, and obscure.
A selection of webzones I have found and I enjoy:
https://geocities.restorativland.org/
https://web.archive.org/web/20021215085602/http://www.u-ga.com:80/jp/games/mobile.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20070902163202/http://www.cbs.com/primetime/kid_nation/
https://web.archive.org/web/20050222012115/http://everquest2.station.sony.com/pizza/
https://prairieecologist.com/2020/01/13/finally-a-practical-guide-for-roadside-wildflower-viewing/
https://web.archive.org/web/20010118210000/http://www.l0pht.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20030207171752/http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,50875,00.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20060314162213/http://www.classicgaming.com/pac-man/Pac-Games/PacManVR/pac.htm
https://www.geo-grafia.jp/product/
http://erogereport.blog.jp/archives/cat_87375.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20060515154050/http://users.stargate.net/~glshir/PLAY.HTM
https://dreamlogos.fandom.com/wiki/Dream_Logos_Wiki
https://web.archive.org/web/20150222012855/http://quitesoulless.com/story.htm
https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=Oi1qbcz2m2SnwUeztGYcnQ
https://web.archive.org/web/20030407094755/http://www.vernonjohns.org/snuffy1186/movies.html
http://www.poetpatriot.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20000229230522/http://symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/y2kgame.hoax.html
https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/camping-in-a-u-haul-they-are-cheeper-than-an-rv-and-better-than-a-tent.53919/
https://web.archive.org/web/20140803164736/http://theodor.lauppert.ws/games/
https://tss.asenheim.org/
https://jimedwardsnrx.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pepsi_gravitational_field.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20130812175052/http://csbruce.com/tv/clone_high/
https://xercesblau.com/
https://www.walgreens2.com/peach-ring/peach17.html?fbclid=IwAR0iWWPkq0qf2kkYIVmUgL2pPuE1023aImBPnYuwmQXAxtyXNiElOnSDlVs
http://www.secondlivestock.com/
https://origamisimulator.org/
https://web.archive.org/web/20180818104057/http://underlinestudio.com/linesbreakingnewspaper/
http://blueteethnovel.tilda.ws/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170207203428/http://pacificitysoundvisions.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20120915100800/http://meryn.ru/portfolia/
https://web.archive.org/web/20130415230745/http://www.reddit.com/
http://www.woodswoods.com/new-gallery-5
https://web.archive.org/web/20120807153003/http://weblog.liberatormagazine.com/2010/11/minstrel-show-visual-art.html
https://glasstire.com/2012/11/23/the-ten-list-walk-as-art/
https://news.ourontario.ca/page.asp?ID=2910113&po=6&n=1
https://www.orionsarm.com/xcms.php?r=oaeg-front
http://1x-upon.com/~despens/teletext/
http://www.teletextart.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20060411023755/http://www.gamengai.com/main.php
http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/
https://www.amusement-center.com/project/egg/
http://retroblues.sakura.ne.jp/regeokiba/index.htm
http://msx.jpn.org/tagoo/
https://fm-7.com/
https://www.gamepres.org/pc88/library/frame1.htm
http://p6ers.net/hashi/
http://furuiotoko.la.coocan.jp/
http://85data.world.coocan.jp/
http://ayachi0610.blog65.fc2.com/
https://datafruits.fm/
https://www.catsuka.com/player/binge/
http://myduckisdead.org/
https://historicfilms.com/search/?
https://www.fontsupply.com/fonts/
https://contactjuggling.org/
http://www.t0.or.at/scl/agents.htm
https://archive.org/details/TheVistaGroup-TheAndersenTiltWashWindowStory1990s
https://cursed-commercials.fandom.com/wiki/Square_Butts
https://www.yygarchive.org/
https://news.nestia.com/detail/%E4%B8%8D%E6%AD%A2%E6%9B%B9%E4%B8%95%EF%BC%9A%E8%BF%99%E6%98%AF%E4%B8%80%E6%AE%B5%E5%85%B3%E4%BA%8E%E6%97%A5%E5%BC%8F%E6%88%90%E4%BA%BA%E6%B8%B8%E6%88%8F%E7%9A%84%E7%AE%80%E5%8F%B2/6267619
https://www.jacketsjunction.com/product/wikipedia-editor-jacket/
https://opendirsearch.abifog.com/
https://vimeo.com/729784691
https://ubuweb.com/
https://discmaster.textfiles.com/browse/2902/3D%20Images.iso/bmp/a
http://web.archive.org/web/20040405155729/http://www.mbnet.fi:80/apaja/alueet/
https://carta.archive-it.org/
In my review-cum-memoir on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, I bemoaned the death of online spaces noted for their lack of thorough knowledge. It is perhaps fitting that WotLK's release came a mere five days before the launch of Jim Garvin and Ryan McGeary's 'Let Me Google That For You' website. Perhaps by divine providence too, WotLK's release coincided with the steady downward trend of Bill Dyess' then World of Warcraft database Thottbot and the first massive spike in traffic to Wowhead. The coincidence is staggering, but also points to a trend which has irreversibly altered the gaming landscape, and society at large. Much as WoW players sought user-data-verified hard statistics on their MMO of choice, tech savvy individuals' astonishment and contempt for being asked readily verifiable questions reached a tipping point in late 2008. Confirming and corroborating data on WoW would in time become something accomplished by every player. LMGTFY would in time become a site even your grandparents might send as a slight towards a query. The genuine question 'where is Mankrik's wife?' was less the object of ridicule, more a target for sarcasm and eye-rolling as the naive were directed to Wowhead. With ever increasing databases and wikis, games and media in general have become less about a sense of mystery, more one of minutiae. Players no longer revel in not knowing, they would rather examine the entirety of a game's mechanics and lore and history with a finetooth comb.
My point in bringing this up is two-fold. One: Games have genuinely not been the same since players expected to be able to understand them inside and out at whim. Two: The Internet has genuinely not been the same since users expected others to rely on a corporate search engine, largely constructed (especially now) to deliver advertising rather than substantive content, to remedy their perceived ignorance. As Embracer Group, Microsoft, Tencent, Sony, Epic, Valve, Ubisoft, EA, and other megacorporations oligopolise the gaming space, so too do Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Tencent, Joybuy, Alibaba, Twitter, Spotify, ByteDance, Baidu, Adobe, Block, and others reduce Internet diversity to a minimum. I can't act as if I knew the Internet of eld in its entirety, but a lifelong fascination with Internet obscura and history has me at least somewhat informed.
In my review of GeoGuessr, and corroborated by jobosno's review of Microsoft Flight Simulator, stressed was the importance of appreciating the non-place. So too does this apply to the Internet at large, and Hypnospace Outlaw itself if we wish. Not everything on the Internet is substantive or substantial, nor is every page on Hypnospace. We fall down rabbit holes of Wikipedia deep dives, we examine every page on Hypnospace regardless of its relevance to our duty. Duty and productivity and the confines of time and the constraints of life and gaming guide us towards Internet or Hypnospace use that is conducive to our end goals, but those detours persist as availabilities. In the real world, they dwindle as web diversity shrinks, as webhosts go offline, as swathes of the Internet go unarchives and unremember[ed/able]. In Hypnospace, their finite nature means we cannot search forever.
The Big Crunch theory postulates that at some point, the universe will cease expansion, and will recollapse unto itself as all is returned to zero. To null.
At some point, the Internet might cease expansion, and will recollapse unto itself as all is returned to zero. To null. We will not go to website, we will go to keywords. That which is unadvertisable, incompatible with commercialisation will in effect go dark. In due time fewer and fewer spaces will exist. In due time, all will be one, and one will be none.
The Big Freeze theory postulates that the universe will never cease expansion, and will drift into entropy until all is returned to absolute zero. To null.
At some point, the Internet might expand infinitely to the point of unnavigability. In a web of infinitudes, all will be irrelevant and all will be lost as data becomes unable to be quantified on any scale. In due time, one will be all, and all will be none.
The unknowability of the universe renders any theory pointless. We do not know what will happen. We cannot know what will happen.
The unknowability of the Internet renders any theory pointless. We do not know what will happen. We cannot know what will happen.
Enjoy the Internet as it is now. Enjoy the Internet as it was then. Enjoy the Internet as it will be. Forever is it in flux, forever is it a stable constant. Forever does it all drift apart, forever does it all close in. Forever shall it be known and forever shall it be unknown.
We exist in a cosmic nothing of no import.
We exist in a digital nothing of no import.
Every atom in the universe is critical to its being.
Every byte of the Internet is critical to its being.
As a historian, I live on a periphery of data boundless yet intangible. I scour for that which does not exist, may never have existed.
At the end of Hypnospace Outlaw you are tasked with archiving a wasteland.
Archive our wasteland with the Wayback Machine extension. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wayback-machine/fpnmgdkabkmnadcjpehmlllkndpkmiak https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/wayback-machine_new/
We exist at a time where unfathomable amounts of human knowledge are being erased from existence every hour of every day. This is not a deliberate book burning. This is an incidental blaze.
Save what you can.
What a beautiful thing we are a part of.
Seek the obtuse, obfuscated, and obscure.
A selection of webzones I have found and I enjoy:
https://geocities.restorativland.org/
https://web.archive.org/web/20021215085602/http://www.u-ga.com:80/jp/games/mobile.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20070902163202/http://www.cbs.com/primetime/kid_nation/
https://web.archive.org/web/20050222012115/http://everquest2.station.sony.com/pizza/
https://prairieecologist.com/2020/01/13/finally-a-practical-guide-for-roadside-wildflower-viewing/
https://web.archive.org/web/20010118210000/http://www.l0pht.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20030207171752/http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,50875,00.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20060314162213/http://www.classicgaming.com/pac-man/Pac-Games/PacManVR/pac.htm
https://www.geo-grafia.jp/product/
http://erogereport.blog.jp/archives/cat_87375.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20060515154050/http://users.stargate.net/~glshir/PLAY.HTM
https://dreamlogos.fandom.com/wiki/Dream_Logos_Wiki
https://web.archive.org/web/20150222012855/http://quitesoulless.com/story.htm
https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=Oi1qbcz2m2SnwUeztGYcnQ
https://web.archive.org/web/20030407094755/http://www.vernonjohns.org/snuffy1186/movies.html
http://www.poetpatriot.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20000229230522/http://symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/y2kgame.hoax.html
https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/camping-in-a-u-haul-they-are-cheeper-than-an-rv-and-better-than-a-tent.53919/
https://web.archive.org/web/20140803164736/http://theodor.lauppert.ws/games/
https://tss.asenheim.org/
https://jimedwardsnrx.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pepsi_gravitational_field.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20130812175052/http://csbruce.com/tv/clone_high/
https://xercesblau.com/
https://www.walgreens2.com/peach-ring/peach17.html?fbclid=IwAR0iWWPkq0qf2kkYIVmUgL2pPuE1023aImBPnYuwmQXAxtyXNiElOnSDlVs
http://www.secondlivestock.com/
https://origamisimulator.org/
https://web.archive.org/web/20180818104057/http://underlinestudio.com/linesbreakingnewspaper/
http://blueteethnovel.tilda.ws/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170207203428/http://pacificitysoundvisions.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20120915100800/http://meryn.ru/portfolia/
https://web.archive.org/web/20130415230745/http://www.reddit.com/
http://www.woodswoods.com/new-gallery-5
https://web.archive.org/web/20120807153003/http://weblog.liberatormagazine.com/2010/11/minstrel-show-visual-art.html
https://glasstire.com/2012/11/23/the-ten-list-walk-as-art/
https://news.ourontario.ca/page.asp?ID=2910113&po=6&n=1
https://www.orionsarm.com/xcms.php?r=oaeg-front
http://1x-upon.com/~despens/teletext/
http://www.teletextart.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20060411023755/http://www.gamengai.com/main.php
http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/
https://www.amusement-center.com/project/egg/
http://retroblues.sakura.ne.jp/regeokiba/index.htm
http://msx.jpn.org/tagoo/
https://fm-7.com/
https://www.gamepres.org/pc88/library/frame1.htm
http://p6ers.net/hashi/
http://furuiotoko.la.coocan.jp/
http://85data.world.coocan.jp/
http://ayachi0610.blog65.fc2.com/
https://datafruits.fm/
https://www.catsuka.com/player/binge/
http://myduckisdead.org/
https://historicfilms.com/search/?
https://www.fontsupply.com/fonts/
https://contactjuggling.org/
http://www.t0.or.at/scl/agents.htm
https://archive.org/details/TheVistaGroup-TheAndersenTiltWashWindowStory1990s
https://cursed-commercials.fandom.com/wiki/Square_Butts
https://www.yygarchive.org/
https://news.nestia.com/detail/%E4%B8%8D%E6%AD%A2%E6%9B%B9%E4%B8%95%EF%BC%9A%E8%BF%99%E6%98%AF%E4%B8%80%E6%AE%B5%E5%85%B3%E4%BA%8E%E6%97%A5%E5%BC%8F%E6%88%90%E4%BA%BA%E6%B8%B8%E6%88%8F%E7%9A%84%E7%AE%80%E5%8F%B2/6267619
https://www.jacketsjunction.com/product/wikipedia-editor-jacket/
https://opendirsearch.abifog.com/
https://vimeo.com/729784691
https://ubuweb.com/
https://discmaster.textfiles.com/browse/2902/3D%20Images.iso/bmp/a
http://web.archive.org/web/20040405155729/http://www.mbnet.fi:80/apaja/alueet/
https://carta.archive-it.org/
i had some mixed expectations going into this. on one hand it seemed not to my taste; i looked at the flashy geocities/angelfire era it was going for and was worried it would just feel like a kind of nostalgia pandering to me, seeming too over-the-top ironic with its cheesy autoplaying midis and brain-melting scrolls thru choppy 3d gifs. on the other hand i saw a great deal of sincerity and consideration in dropsy, a game jay tholen made before this, so i felt like i needed to look past my weird hangups towards its aesthetics, and a couple years later i felt like i could.
turns out i was way wrong and it easily surpassed the positive expectations i had from his previous game. not only does hypnospace greatly amplify the subtle worldbuilding and christian faith of dropsy, it sets that up with a more critical take on irony poisoning seeping thru the cracks as not representative of the whole, and this allows its own sincerity to shine through even more strongly. truly affectionate depictions of the most innocent cringe are interspersed with people's real flaws and sins put on full display: children's digital growing pains causing them to express themselves violently and angelically in ways we all recognize, old people's sweet prayers and sorrowful mourning are taken with their absolute inability to take in what the net throws at them with any nuance, creatives both humble and full of themselves do their best against the corporate sanitization that threatens their spaces. tholen and co's love for people and how they interact with the virtual world, combined with a frankly staggering attention to detail with those numerous interactions among many characters, is really something to behold. they made a character out of hot dad and gave him pathos.
there's a lot said about this game as replicating 90s internet and yearning for a time of more wild and unrepressed expression, before more entrenched social stigma and algorithms, but what drew me in to hypnospace was the feeling of how little things changed at their core. it understands that pining for "the good old days" can be blinding, and goes to great pains to make clear that it wasn't all that pure in many ways; what's mourned is that its problems were only superficially cleaned up rather than compassionately solved most of the time. the cliquey conflicts and cruel mockery and cynical capitalist machinations in the background in hypnospace just felt like blunter versions of whats still here, well after 2000. yet there's some resemblances of naivete and sincerity and love that still exist in the net too, no matter how small it must feel, and the game wants you to understand your own self and others in the here and now through those moments. try to forgive the faults of all of us as individuals on the web if you find it in you, including yourself, because it's y2k that let us down.
turns out i was way wrong and it easily surpassed the positive expectations i had from his previous game. not only does hypnospace greatly amplify the subtle worldbuilding and christian faith of dropsy, it sets that up with a more critical take on irony poisoning seeping thru the cracks as not representative of the whole, and this allows its own sincerity to shine through even more strongly. truly affectionate depictions of the most innocent cringe are interspersed with people's real flaws and sins put on full display: children's digital growing pains causing them to express themselves violently and angelically in ways we all recognize, old people's sweet prayers and sorrowful mourning are taken with their absolute inability to take in what the net throws at them with any nuance, creatives both humble and full of themselves do their best against the corporate sanitization that threatens their spaces. tholen and co's love for people and how they interact with the virtual world, combined with a frankly staggering attention to detail with those numerous interactions among many characters, is really something to behold. they made a character out of hot dad and gave him pathos.
there's a lot said about this game as replicating 90s internet and yearning for a time of more wild and unrepressed expression, before more entrenched social stigma and algorithms, but what drew me in to hypnospace was the feeling of how little things changed at their core. it understands that pining for "the good old days" can be blinding, and goes to great pains to make clear that it wasn't all that pure in many ways; what's mourned is that its problems were only superficially cleaned up rather than compassionately solved most of the time. the cliquey conflicts and cruel mockery and cynical capitalist machinations in the background in hypnospace just felt like blunter versions of whats still here, well after 2000. yet there's some resemblances of naivete and sincerity and love that still exist in the net too, no matter how small it must feel, and the game wants you to understand your own self and others in the here and now through those moments. try to forgive the faults of all of us as individuals on the web if you find it in you, including yourself, because it's y2k that let us down.
if you handed this to a space alien, approximately none of the facts they would learn about the Y2K era would be accurate but they would have a complete and flawless impression of its vibe
I had a rough start with Hypnospace Outlaw. The opening hour led me to believe it was first and foremost anti-capitalist satire, and when the game resisted my actions made under this assumption, I was frustrated. The premise alone, sleep being commodified in the name of productivity, sounds dystopian. The tutorial introduces your role as an online moderator, which you perform by reporting violations such as copyright infringement and harassment. You’re told that, although you can submit a report once you meet the report quota, you can earn a cash prize for each violation reported beyond this quota. This immediately brought to mind a similar mechanic in Papers, Please, which incentivizes you to detain people whenever possible for a commission. Sure, in Hypnospace you’re only paid in hypnocoins which explicitly have no real-world value, and sure, there’s no backstory about how I have to feed and house my starving family, but come on! I went in expecting to have my morals pushed and was ready to wield (and abuse) my authority.
That’s not what Hypnospace Outlaw is.
While struggling to deal with the game’s second case, centering around harassment in the teen forum, I was forced to realize what Hypnospace Outlaw was actually trying to do. I’d found a lead about a site called “The Dumpster,” a mean-spirited blog making fun of lolcows. None of what was on that blog was outright harassment – reading between the lines it’s obviously meant to be demeaning and cruel, but the language is mild and inoffensive enough so that it’s following the letter but not the spirit of the law. That didn’t deter me, and I tried to report every single line of text on the site for harassment. But none of them actually stuck – I got told over and over again to stop sending false reports. “But how am I supposed to abuse my authority if the standards for what constitutes a violation are so high?” I thought. “It’s like I really am supposed to act like a regular moderator.”
After that point it stuck. I had been trying to shove square pegs into round holes, but once I realized my place in Hypnospace, I embraced it. I stopped looking at everything as a potential violation and started to lose myself in the different communities and subcultures found on the forums.
Hypnospace Outlaw is pure fun. It’s unrelentingly earnest and empathetic to the people inhabiting its fictional world, and my role as moderator is just a framing device to put me, the player, as a tourist into this world. It perfectly balances an absurd, almost cartoonist tone while still feeling entirely grounded. People are weird! When given complete freedom to express yourself in a judgement-free (or at least judgement-lite) zone, we’re all cringe and embarrassing!
In recent years I’ve been making an effort let myself enjoy things without shame. I’m only 20, so I wasn’t even alive when this game would have taken place, but it resonated with my journey with unrestricted internet access and how I portray myself online. I remember making a Tumblr account at 13 and over-decorating it to make it feel like my own space before feeling so ashamed at how “cringey” it all was that I deleted it before ever posting anything. Even today, I’m always terrified to post my own thoughts and opinions (like this review!) because putting it out into the world and having it be perceived, people forming ideas about me separate from how I view myself, is terrifying. Anything I put out into the world becomes a reflection of myself, and sincerity is terrifying! It’s so much easier to hide behind a veil of irony!
The people of Hypnospace, on the other hand, are so unabashedly themselves. Each and every person’s page is a sensory nightmare of conflicting colours, textures, sounds, and imagery. But it feels so personal and so earnest that I can’t help but smile anyway. That’s admirable, and something I want to work on myself.
It’s kind of funny then, how I went in expecting this to be mean-spirited and cynical, only for it to instead be a love letter to the internet and those that put a piece of themselves online. I don’t think I could have had this same conclusion if not for my faulty first impression of Hypnospace Outlaw.
That’s not what Hypnospace Outlaw is.
While struggling to deal with the game’s second case, centering around harassment in the teen forum, I was forced to realize what Hypnospace Outlaw was actually trying to do. I’d found a lead about a site called “The Dumpster,” a mean-spirited blog making fun of lolcows. None of what was on that blog was outright harassment – reading between the lines it’s obviously meant to be demeaning and cruel, but the language is mild and inoffensive enough so that it’s following the letter but not the spirit of the law. That didn’t deter me, and I tried to report every single line of text on the site for harassment. But none of them actually stuck – I got told over and over again to stop sending false reports. “But how am I supposed to abuse my authority if the standards for what constitutes a violation are so high?” I thought. “It’s like I really am supposed to act like a regular moderator.”
After that point it stuck. I had been trying to shove square pegs into round holes, but once I realized my place in Hypnospace, I embraced it. I stopped looking at everything as a potential violation and started to lose myself in the different communities and subcultures found on the forums.
Hypnospace Outlaw is pure fun. It’s unrelentingly earnest and empathetic to the people inhabiting its fictional world, and my role as moderator is just a framing device to put me, the player, as a tourist into this world. It perfectly balances an absurd, almost cartoonist tone while still feeling entirely grounded. People are weird! When given complete freedom to express yourself in a judgement-free (or at least judgement-lite) zone, we’re all cringe and embarrassing!
In recent years I’ve been making an effort let myself enjoy things without shame. I’m only 20, so I wasn’t even alive when this game would have taken place, but it resonated with my journey with unrestricted internet access and how I portray myself online. I remember making a Tumblr account at 13 and over-decorating it to make it feel like my own space before feeling so ashamed at how “cringey” it all was that I deleted it before ever posting anything. Even today, I’m always terrified to post my own thoughts and opinions (like this review!) because putting it out into the world and having it be perceived, people forming ideas about me separate from how I view myself, is terrifying. Anything I put out into the world becomes a reflection of myself, and sincerity is terrifying! It’s so much easier to hide behind a veil of irony!
The people of Hypnospace, on the other hand, are so unabashedly themselves. Each and every person’s page is a sensory nightmare of conflicting colours, textures, sounds, and imagery. But it feels so personal and so earnest that I can’t help but smile anyway. That’s admirable, and something I want to work on myself.
It’s kind of funny then, how I went in expecting this to be mean-spirited and cynical, only for it to instead be a love letter to the internet and those that put a piece of themselves online. I don’t think I could have had this same conclusion if not for my faulty first impression of Hypnospace Outlaw.
Nostalgia is an object of fixation for a lot of corporations. Capitalizing on our past, no matter how inaccurately, will always be a profitable venture. This is pretty transparently clear in the gaming sphere: games are frequently re-released and "remastered" in unloving, shallow ways simply to make some quick money.
As much as it pains me to say it, the Live A Live remake comes to mind here. Visually indistinct, as if it has another game grafted onto it, where the original was full of unique style. Individual menus and user interfaces have been completely cast aside, which was one of the most fun and unique parts of that original experience. The new lighting engine completely cuts the tension in one of the chapters - it's just a complete mess. While it's fundamentally still Live A Live, it's not really Live A Live.
What these companies are far less willing to admit is the dark side of this nostalgia. These eras are not without their issues, of course, and as corporations they don't want you to remember those issues actively. To remind you is to potentially lose a sale, to be transparent is a failure.
Hypnospace Outlaw is unique in this regard. While initially it seems like a simple but effective love letter to Web 1.0, recreating its user interfaces and operating systems with a loving attention to detail, it eventually pulls back the veil to reveal that there's something more going on here. Hypnospace Outlaw isn't just worship and praise for the times of Web 1.0 through imagery that portrays it as an idyllic and more earnest time of internet culture; it also reveals that there was never truly a time of internet freedom.
In the game, you take on the role of a "Hypnospace Enforcer", and have free reign to ban users for some pretty minor offenses. A version of the internet where you can scout out people who are sharing MP3 files and ban them from ever using it again is horrifying. In our current day and age, the internet is practically a necessity to survive. It's how people connect and contact with each other, it's how jobs keep people up to date with their schedules, how people book and plan things. To be able to remove someone from that permanently for something as commonplace as piracy is dystopian. Even the founder of the company who hired you to ban pirates is, himself, sharing MP3s. The cognitive dissonance is staggering, and it's what gets you temporarily fired.
Toward the end of the game, you find out that the company behind Hypnospace knew about the dangers that it posed and caused the deaths that stemmed from it. Though I do resent how it ends with an apology from the CEO in a futile attempt to humanize him, the game makes something clear: there was never truly any internet freedom.
The internet has always been commodified, it has always been controlled by capital, and it has never been truly free. Though individuality has been lost in the "streamlining" of it, our nostalgic and idyllic understanding of the past is incomplete.
The only thing that's changed is how they've improved at corralling us together to observe us.
As much as it pains me to say it, the Live A Live remake comes to mind here. Visually indistinct, as if it has another game grafted onto it, where the original was full of unique style. Individual menus and user interfaces have been completely cast aside, which was one of the most fun and unique parts of that original experience. The new lighting engine completely cuts the tension in one of the chapters - it's just a complete mess. While it's fundamentally still Live A Live, it's not really Live A Live.
What these companies are far less willing to admit is the dark side of this nostalgia. These eras are not without their issues, of course, and as corporations they don't want you to remember those issues actively. To remind you is to potentially lose a sale, to be transparent is a failure.
Hypnospace Outlaw is unique in this regard. While initially it seems like a simple but effective love letter to Web 1.0, recreating its user interfaces and operating systems with a loving attention to detail, it eventually pulls back the veil to reveal that there's something more going on here. Hypnospace Outlaw isn't just worship and praise for the times of Web 1.0 through imagery that portrays it as an idyllic and more earnest time of internet culture; it also reveals that there was never truly a time of internet freedom.
In the game, you take on the role of a "Hypnospace Enforcer", and have free reign to ban users for some pretty minor offenses. A version of the internet where you can scout out people who are sharing MP3 files and ban them from ever using it again is horrifying. In our current day and age, the internet is practically a necessity to survive. It's how people connect and contact with each other, it's how jobs keep people up to date with their schedules, how people book and plan things. To be able to remove someone from that permanently for something as commonplace as piracy is dystopian. Even the founder of the company who hired you to ban pirates is, himself, sharing MP3s. The cognitive dissonance is staggering, and it's what gets you temporarily fired.
Toward the end of the game, you find out that the company behind Hypnospace knew about the dangers that it posed and caused the deaths that stemmed from it. Though I do resent how it ends with an apology from the CEO in a futile attempt to humanize him, the game makes something clear: there was never truly any internet freedom.
The internet has always been commodified, it has always been controlled by capital, and it has never been truly free. Though individuality has been lost in the "streamlining" of it, our nostalgic and idyllic understanding of the past is incomplete.
The only thing that's changed is how they've improved at corralling us together to observe us.
This review contains spoilers
This isn’t “a parody of 90s internet.” It IS the 90s internet.
Every character in this game you have seen before if you've ever laughed at someone vicariously through somethingawful.com or The F Plus: boomers who can’t figure out how to use the platform they’re on, who get outraged over the tiniest slights toward their entitlement and turn them into ridiculous crusades for free speech, and who fall for dumb hoaxes that are obviously false on their face (don’t those banners “protecting” them from “beef brain” remind you of your aunt back in Wyoming posting “I DO NOT consent to Facebook using my information! I hope it’s not true but if it is I’m posting here, better to be safe than sorry”). Edgy fifteen year old dorks who write angry livejournals about Steve who isn’t even their real dad, make embarrassing wish fulfillment webcomics where they kill zombies with uzis and tell mom to shut the fuck up, and of course harass girls until they tell them to stop, to which they reply whatever, ur ugly anyway. Fantasy and sci-fi enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists, and a whole slew of lonely dorks realizing they finally have an outlet to express themselves and figuring out on the fly how to do so appropriately on what, at that time, was a wholly new technology. And of course, the tech bros controlling it all, giving off a facade of friendliness an camaraderie but underneath caring only about “innovating” and “pushing boundaries” while being wholly unequipped to provide its users with even basic safety measures, (let alone protect them from a whole disaster that kills five people from an imploded subm- I mean mindcrash glitch), and piss and moan when someone reports them for breaking their own rules which, damn, apply to me too?! Everyone has either met people like this for real, or else has definitely encountered them online, even well after the 90s. They’re all here, baby.
The difference here, aside from maybe the fact that the posts here are if anything actually toned down compared to the really out there forums irl, is that I actually gave a shit about almost all of them. Even Abbywrites, and to be sure Abbywrites definitely sucks. I have to admit, I was laughing at Zane’s stupidass hot or not posts even as I was getting paid to report them for harassment. I was heartbroken that I could have reported him for just one more violation to get him banned, and save his life later on, but I missed just one 😔, which also means in the timeline of my playthrough he never gets to make Slayers X. Remember that boomer who couldn’t figure out how to make her page work? She gets some help from her friends and makes a nice functional little page right before her trial period ends, and now she can’t wait to spend New Year’s Eve with those new friends of hers! Seeing her new page after the fact, when she becomes one of the mindcrash victims, and reading the eulogies for all of them with this song playing, it nearly fucked me up. I couldn’t believe I laughed at her before. She was just an old lady who wanted to go online! What is wrong with me?
I would be remiss not to mention the slew of made up music genres, celebrity figures, video games, and mediums of storytelling is dizzying; I thought chowder man was a little too unrealistic at first, but I gotta say, his eight minute eighties synth-prog song about shaving, it grows on you. There is also a GENUINELY GOOD sludge/noise rock band with a full album that you can download and listen to while you play.
This is by far the best written story out of any game I’ve played this year, and it’s the silly dumbass point and click internet game. Do better, other game writers
Every character in this game you have seen before if you've ever laughed at someone vicariously through somethingawful.com or The F Plus: boomers who can’t figure out how to use the platform they’re on, who get outraged over the tiniest slights toward their entitlement and turn them into ridiculous crusades for free speech, and who fall for dumb hoaxes that are obviously false on their face (don’t those banners “protecting” them from “beef brain” remind you of your aunt back in Wyoming posting “I DO NOT consent to Facebook using my information! I hope it’s not true but if it is I’m posting here, better to be safe than sorry”). Edgy fifteen year old dorks who write angry livejournals about Steve who isn’t even their real dad, make embarrassing wish fulfillment webcomics where they kill zombies with uzis and tell mom to shut the fuck up, and of course harass girls until they tell them to stop, to which they reply whatever, ur ugly anyway. Fantasy and sci-fi enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists, and a whole slew of lonely dorks realizing they finally have an outlet to express themselves and figuring out on the fly how to do so appropriately on what, at that time, was a wholly new technology. And of course, the tech bros controlling it all, giving off a facade of friendliness an camaraderie but underneath caring only about “innovating” and “pushing boundaries” while being wholly unequipped to provide its users with even basic safety measures, (let alone protect them from a whole disaster that kills five people from an imploded subm- I mean mindcrash glitch), and piss and moan when someone reports them for breaking their own rules which, damn, apply to me too?! Everyone has either met people like this for real, or else has definitely encountered them online, even well after the 90s. They’re all here, baby.
The difference here, aside from maybe the fact that the posts here are if anything actually toned down compared to the really out there forums irl, is that I actually gave a shit about almost all of them. Even Abbywrites, and to be sure Abbywrites definitely sucks. I have to admit, I was laughing at Zane’s stupidass hot or not posts even as I was getting paid to report them for harassment. I was heartbroken that I could have reported him for just one more violation to get him banned, and save his life later on, but I missed just one 😔, which also means in the timeline of my playthrough he never gets to make Slayers X. Remember that boomer who couldn’t figure out how to make her page work? She gets some help from her friends and makes a nice functional little page right before her trial period ends, and now she can’t wait to spend New Year’s Eve with those new friends of hers! Seeing her new page after the fact, when she becomes one of the mindcrash victims, and reading the eulogies for all of them with this song playing, it nearly fucked me up. I couldn’t believe I laughed at her before. She was just an old lady who wanted to go online! What is wrong with me?
I would be remiss not to mention the slew of made up music genres, celebrity figures, video games, and mediums of storytelling is dizzying; I thought chowder man was a little too unrealistic at first, but I gotta say, his eight minute eighties synth-prog song about shaving, it grows on you. There is also a GENUINELY GOOD sludge/noise rock band with a full album that you can download and listen to while you play.
This is by far the best written story out of any game I’ve played this year, and it’s the silly dumbass point and click internet game. Do better, other game writers
a detective noir that has been blown out, artifacted, and compressed and saved over and over again that eventually tumbles into your mailbox in the form of a Free AOL disc
Hypnospace Outlaw is one of the best games I've ever played. I wasn't using the internet in the 90's, but aside from a few specific references, Hypnospace Outlaw isn't a game that rides off of the coattails of 90s Nostalgia; It takes what stuck out about that era and uses it as a blueprint for it's own dense world.
Every word of text, every troll page, every crappy drawing serves to characterize HypnOS and its users in a way that makes exploring its many secrets extremely satisfying. I doubt I'll be bored at all returning to this one; I'd be surprised if I ever found everything Hypnospace Outlaw has in store. It's a game that shows the industry does have somewhere else to go besides up: out. Out into incredible experiences not sold by the size of the map, and but by creators trying to make something unique and beautiful.
Play it.
Every word of text, every troll page, every crappy drawing serves to characterize HypnOS and its users in a way that makes exploring its many secrets extremely satisfying. I doubt I'll be bored at all returning to this one; I'd be surprised if I ever found everything Hypnospace Outlaw has in store. It's a game that shows the industry does have somewhere else to go besides up: out. Out into incredible experiences not sold by the size of the map, and but by creators trying to make something unique and beautiful.
Play it.
1. This era of the internet missed me by about 5-8 years, yet it still evokes an uncanny sense of... not nostalgia... just... memory? My era of the internet, was, to an extent still haunted by the echoes of 90s internet. Anything that in the 00s delved into the recent past, would inevitably bring up the aesthetics and mechanics of that early popularization of the medium. So I guess it was a memory then, and now it's a memory of a memory.
I dunno, I coincidentally played this at the same time as I started listening to That One Homestuck podcast, which is another dive into a similar yet different internet that I've ever only been tangentially and indirectly aware of, and I just have a lot of unstructured thoughts about the ghosts of past internets that hang over our current experience of the web. Mostly the feeling that, for all their faults, these past internets seemed, at least to an extent, to promote and enable community and human-ness, rather than merely exploit it, as the current late-social-media era internet does.
I miss blogs and I miss forums. They were 75% terrible, but honestly, I'll take toxic forum culture every day over the relentless and pervasive clout chasing of social media. Past internet was filled with assholes, cause people are assholes sometimes, and it sucked, but at least it was honest. There's nothing honest about any of the culture of late-era influencer-driven social media. It's an uncanny perversion of social mechanics, that just spins its wheels forever, tiring us out, and draining any meaning from the words we write. It commodifies aesthetics and rhetorics rather than exalting them. It slowly kills our sense of belonging as it tries to convince us that just one more like will make us happy.
There's this one page, that appears around December in the game, featuring this song about how "Zones" (the in-game communities) are "places for people to feel the same" and "places for people to feel different". I like that song. I wish I could still think of the internet in that way.
2. So, like, the idea of, basically a wiki-hole game is great. And like, props to everyone involved in the development cause the logistics of actually making something like this sound like a huge pain.
This is fun. For the most part, I love the mechanics. They're cleverly designed to tap into the innate pleasure of "internet research", making the player feel like they're cleverly digging through data and making mental connections, while at the same time guiding them through the content. It's so cool!
I wish this game... dwelled more on itself though. A key part of the experience of the old web, was logging in every day, looking at all your favourite websites to check if there was any new update, or if someone had replied to that one thread you liked on that discussion board. It was truly a "place", in many ways.
Hypnospace Outlaw, while it does feature some mild time-skipping mechanics, never quite manages to fully convey that, almost Animal Crossing-like, feeling of Being in a place that moves at its own, asynchronous, pace. You're always hunting for the next clue, solving the next puzzle, in an environment that's mostly static. It's very much a snapshot.
On the other hand, I understand that to make a game that actually focuses on that feeling of Place, would require a ridiculous amount of content. So like, I get why it doesn't. It's an imperfection in the retelling of those experiences, but a necessary one. In a way, it gives it its own, vaguely ahistorical, but inherently fascinating vibe.
Game's still great. I had fun with it. The first game in a long time where I actually wished it was a bit longer.
I dunno, I coincidentally played this at the same time as I started listening to That One Homestuck podcast, which is another dive into a similar yet different internet that I've ever only been tangentially and indirectly aware of, and I just have a lot of unstructured thoughts about the ghosts of past internets that hang over our current experience of the web. Mostly the feeling that, for all their faults, these past internets seemed, at least to an extent, to promote and enable community and human-ness, rather than merely exploit it, as the current late-social-media era internet does.
I miss blogs and I miss forums. They were 75% terrible, but honestly, I'll take toxic forum culture every day over the relentless and pervasive clout chasing of social media. Past internet was filled with assholes, cause people are assholes sometimes, and it sucked, but at least it was honest. There's nothing honest about any of the culture of late-era influencer-driven social media. It's an uncanny perversion of social mechanics, that just spins its wheels forever, tiring us out, and draining any meaning from the words we write. It commodifies aesthetics and rhetorics rather than exalting them. It slowly kills our sense of belonging as it tries to convince us that just one more like will make us happy.
There's this one page, that appears around December in the game, featuring this song about how "Zones" (the in-game communities) are "places for people to feel the same" and "places for people to feel different". I like that song. I wish I could still think of the internet in that way.
2. So, like, the idea of, basically a wiki-hole game is great. And like, props to everyone involved in the development cause the logistics of actually making something like this sound like a huge pain.
This is fun. For the most part, I love the mechanics. They're cleverly designed to tap into the innate pleasure of "internet research", making the player feel like they're cleverly digging through data and making mental connections, while at the same time guiding them through the content. It's so cool!
I wish this game... dwelled more on itself though. A key part of the experience of the old web, was logging in every day, looking at all your favourite websites to check if there was any new update, or if someone had replied to that one thread you liked on that discussion board. It was truly a "place", in many ways.
Hypnospace Outlaw, while it does feature some mild time-skipping mechanics, never quite manages to fully convey that, almost Animal Crossing-like, feeling of Being in a place that moves at its own, asynchronous, pace. You're always hunting for the next clue, solving the next puzzle, in an environment that's mostly static. It's very much a snapshot.
On the other hand, I understand that to make a game that actually focuses on that feeling of Place, would require a ridiculous amount of content. So like, I get why it doesn't. It's an imperfection in the retelling of those experiences, but a necessary one. In a way, it gives it its own, vaguely ahistorical, but inherently fascinating vibe.
Game's still great. I had fun with it. The first game in a long time where I actually wished it was a bit longer.
The greatest Point-and-click I've ever played.
Hypnospace is a alternate history 90s internet simulator, that has you searching what is essentially people's geocity pages in order to find rule violations. I promise you that it is way more interesting then it sounds. A large part of the enjoyment of this game is just exploring the pages and learning about the users and their world. Only around 10% of the pages are actually required in order to beat the game, but the fun is searching for them while also enjoying the other 90%. It is so easy to go down rabbit holes, like when you discover that certain users have a long standing feud that goes as far as them making hate clubs about each other.
Hypnospace Outlaw is a charming and calming game that perfectly captures the essence of the now lost early internet. I love it so much and I really wish more people talked about it.
Hypnospace is a alternate history 90s internet simulator, that has you searching what is essentially people's geocity pages in order to find rule violations. I promise you that it is way more interesting then it sounds. A large part of the enjoyment of this game is just exploring the pages and learning about the users and their world. Only around 10% of the pages are actually required in order to beat the game, but the fun is searching for them while also enjoying the other 90%. It is so easy to go down rabbit holes, like when you discover that certain users have a long standing feud that goes as far as them making hate clubs about each other.
Hypnospace Outlaw is a charming and calming game that perfectly captures the essence of the now lost early internet. I love it so much and I really wish more people talked about it.
One of the most creative and insane games I've ever played. It takes several mechanics based off of computers and builds on them in a satisfying way, somehow creating an adventure-puzzle game out of navigating a pc. It's insane to me that I played a game where installing an antivirus is a game mechanic. How the game stretches depth and satisfying puzzle solving out of it's setup is incredibly impressive to me. Not only that, but the game ended up being much deeper and more heartfelt than I had expected. Combining that with it's incredibly varied and excellent soundtrack and the insane and wonderfully done visuals, you've got something really special here. I do wonder if the game comes across well to those who don't have PC experience. For those who do, it's amazing.
finally, a game that proves what we all have known to be true: internet moderation is serious business and literally saves lives
This review contains spoilers
nice car game idiot
i feel so god damn miserable
This review contains spoilers
Shows dedication to exploring different internet scenes and their real-life contextualizations for why their users participate, but has no conclusion that ties all of the work together to lead to something meaningful for me. The Goodtime Valley zone on its own is remarkable for its understanding of senior isolation and how much its users desire to leave some mark of their life online, even if messily formatted. But there's never something that feels like a satisfying conclusion for the issues that each zone's users face, instead substituted by an ending that has little to no follow-up on themes hinted at earlier such as landlord exploitation of internet communities that leave artists little to no avenue to establish a career path or how cyber bullying is directed to establish any sense of masculine identity. I'm probably running against the developer's initial goal to just make a game that satires corporate domination of the internet, but I see so much strength in its individual elements that I wonder what would happened if they had been focused on more without keeping up a conspiratorial story at the same time.