Top 50 Favorites: #1

My favorite video game of all time, hands down. I fully understand the criticisms that many have with this being short, after all that's my only real 'issue' with it as well - if you had to pull my leg on it. Otherwise I find this to be a transcendent, drop-dead gorgeous, virtually flawless experience like none other I've ever played before - perfectly fine-tuned to 'me', the things I like, my own personal wavelength: Richard Hogg's divine art style combined with fluid controls that feel like a dream to handle and what I consider to be the #1 soundtrack in the annals of gaming history unite to form a feeling that never ceases to sweep me off my feet. I played this right at the genesis of a period of immeasurable positive change in my life, and I will never forget how this game made me feel - as if it were reaching into my own soul and showing me all that would be to come. Words cannot properly express how much I love it in all its dazzling, adorable, buoyant, snappy, completely and utterly original glory. If this isn't your cup of tea, I get it 100% - but for me this is straight-up euphoria.

Hohokum es un juego que empeora en la memoria. Esto no quiere decir que el pensamiento reposado haga mella en el valor general del conjunto, sino que ningún recuerdo hace justicia a su virtuosa inmediatez sensorial.

Con razón manejamos a una especie de gusano cuyo punto interactivo es un ojo que hace las veces de cabeza. Un ojo es la representación más intuitiva de los sentidos a través de los cuales nos relacionamos con el mundo, y Hohokum es esta interacción primaria en estado puro. Esa faceta de los videojuegos a la que solemos referirnos como tactilidad pero a la que se llega a través de la vista, el oído y el propio tacto, y con la cual Hohokum puebla cada uno de los rincones de sus ricos y diversos parajes.

En medio de un bache en mi relación con los videojuegos, algo así me reconcilia con lo que entiendo es la esencia del medio. Su infinita inspiración para guiar al jugador desde la curiosidad, el jugueteo y el simple placer estético pone de buen humor al más pintado.

To play Hohokum is to be reminded how little you understand any game, really.

You are a line, a minimal form, a sinuous path through. Your end, it lingers a moment behind. You trace shape and sound, you activate figure and ground, you bear witness to a generous, singular beauty. Each landscape is a world unto itself, built upon a logic to be unravelled, upon desires to be sussed out, upon a rigorous whimsy.

Hohokum never settles down. It refuses to establish conventions and then repeat them. It’s risky to test a player’s negative capability like this. But I’m grateful.

Bit of a trip, this game. You play as a flying eyeball with a tail? Like a one eye snake that flies around? I dunno. Change color when you change directions too. You can speed up and slow down and blink and that's about it. Touch pad also makes the body like glitch out almost and go static-y. It's neat to just fly around and watch colors change and make basic shapes with the trail of your snake body.

The actual game is pretty neat. You go to different areas/worlds/levels and interact with things their in the way the space dictates. One level has you swim through water and interact with fish, one has you in like a theme park where people ride you and you can put them in rides and make those work, hell one is even like a series of grids where you can only move in 90 degree angles and have to do various tasks in that way. Each area feels pretty unique in terms of looks or how you move or what goes on and it's always fun to see what the next one has in store.

The core point of this game too is to find 16 other one eye snake guys like you. Each one has their own level but not all levels have one I think? Anyway the whole game is like "the friends we made along the way" meme but real. Each snake friend is directly related to the world its in and it's really fun to find them after solving whatever problem the world throws at you. Each friend is also accompanied by a short motion comic type thing that shows how they ended up where you find them.

Hohokum is a charming feel good game to play. It's a bit weird at first but it quickly becomes just fun to roam around and find things out. There's a bunch of little extras to reward people who explore and play with thing just for the sake of it. Also each level has it's own banger song so the whole game is like playing a really good record. Definitely recommend to anyone. A short enjoyable trip with some light puzzle solving.

I love it. Contains the best joke about breaking pots in video games of all time. I want to frame it on my wall. I just might.

Hohokum is a game about the novelty of movement in the medium. It is what would happen if Mario made a WarioWare game - taking a gimmick so far as to invert it back into a bonafide mechanic. All you can do is move. Everything else is contextual. You can hold one button to move faster, and another to move slower, but the entire game can be easily finished without touching anything besides the joy stick.

While a lesser game might be content with the bare minimum, Hohokum has three different control styles. Press the shoulder buttons to turn the player snake relative to their heading. Drag your finger along the touchpad to move faster and sharper than sticks or buttons allow. Having options makes however you play feel like an active choice, even when you'll likely forget the less favored schemes even exist.

This near-invisible dedication is necessary, because minimalist graphic art styles only work with consistent careful thought put into them. Lose momentum for even a second, and the audience will quickly discern when restraint is being used as a mask for lack of ability. Goofy art styles are even trickier, because their strength is to make the aburd approachable and the familiar foreign. Fail in the balance of either, and you will be relegated to the junkyard of hacks.

It is then with great confidence that Hohokum barely explains its nonsense objectives. It trusts the player's curiosity to find the fun in the concepts the developers dreamed up. Sometimes a level can be an entire theme park. Sometimes a level can contain an entire theme park completely unrelated to anything you have to do to progress the level! Sometimes a transition screen consists of nothing more than dandelion puffs to puff. I respect when a game includes more without trying to overstate its importance.

Maybe all I did was wiggle a control stick around for a few hours, but that's not what I remember doing. I filled a constellation with stars, I poisoned an octopus until it turned into an anchor, I threw monkeys throwing bananas until an elephant kicked off a king's hat. Maybe growing eggplants felt like a total drag, and I was disappointed by the obligatory dark cave level, but overall I have great fondness for the love and silliness.

3 stars, B rank. I want more just like it. In an era where even indie games are suffering from feature creep and seek to emulate video game product bloat, it's nice to play something so dedicated to an experience so simple. Relaxing and quirky not because it was trying to be "cozy", but was trying to be fun.

Less a game and more of a piece of art experience such as the Radiohead art exhibition game.
Excellent soundtrack, excellent art-direction and very mesmerising. However, it’s a bit too strange and difficult so few people play it through, but I recommend doing by following any guide since all levels and art and music is cool. There are lots of small hidden details and bonuses for discovering it so I urge more to play this peace of art.
The developers have made another game with similar art called ”I’m Dead” which makes me curious.

"Colorful, Empty, And Flaccid"

From the description of this game you might think that it sounds a bit basic but let me assure you that it's somehow more boring. "Hohokum" is yet another colorful indie that popped up in the mid 2010's boasting a very simple aesthetic and gameplay combination, yet it tries to charm you with its whimsical nature and free-flowing loop. However, it lacks goals, ambition, and purpose amidst its colorful charm, and thus serves as yet another example of empty game design polluting the indie game market.

You indeed play as some weird worm thing, but your purpose, goals, intentions, anything that could direct you on what to do - it's all left up to this magical term called "interpretation". This means you'll dance around each level constantly trying to find a way to progress while interacting with barely comprehensible mechanics. There's no story and no characters, but I went into this expecting these things. However, I expected SOMETHING to happen at some point, yet I was approaching the half-hour mark (my game time is only what PlayStation recorded which tends to be undercounted) and wondering wat else I needed to do in order to progress. The vibe had long worn off, and I got sick of waiting for the game to get entertaining.

I just don't get it with these types of games. They boast no gameplay, no puzzles, no story/narrative, no worldbuilding, and only serve as a pseudo avant-garde art display. I personally just find these things dreadful and empty, and thus I ended my time with this game very fast. Definitely watch a gameplay video before you start and ask yourself if you actually want to play a video game or not, because this title will surely make you believe you aren't. I don't Recommend this one, that's for sure...

Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)

ok some of the artwork here reminds me a lot of the godawful and super-prevalent "corporate lineless minimalist cartoon" design style that pops up in pretend activist instagram infographics, autogenerated spotify playlist headers, predatory upwork commercials, and woke branding for gentrifying artsy lofts... but that's not Hohokum's fault!!! I actually really appreciate the style here instead of feeling a sinking sense of dread and patronization looking at it; it feels organic and playful and not sinister like usual!!! we need 2 liberate this art style from evil commerce bc there is some value here after all!!! Gorgeous and fun vector-art music video that reminds me a lot of early surreal flash browser games like VectorPark or Boohbah-Zone. Parts of the exuberant color design and psychedelic transitions have a Marcell Jankovics or Mary Blair-like quality--theres a lot of sophistication in the way the game morphs between the different moods and assemblages of color within each vignette. The stellar music pairs beautifully with the breezy sense of play and discovery; it's not a rhythm game, but almost feels like one at points because everything is integrated so harmoniously. I really appreciate the sense of whimsy and ease here. Thank GOD Hohokum doesn't insecurely wrap its innately valid fanciful sensibility and simple charm in2 some half-baked indie game metaphor about overcoming anxiety or something!