There is nothing like this game. Ok technically it’s a pretty basic acrobatic platforming game that is based solely on super mario style gameplay quite unabashedly, but what this game is makes me so happy.

It’s one guy’s ocs based on his old flash animations running through worlds based entirely off of games and media that fall into such heavy obscurity that finding something you recognize is kind of amazing. This is a game where the penultimate world is called Video World and is based on youtube videos one of the devs likes.

The game is free and they don’t care about copyright, they can just have whatever they want in there, it’s a hand drawn pixel art game but it is authentically kitbashed feeling, and that extends to the soundtrack, which is one of the best sets of plunderphonic jams i have ever heard.

The appeal of this game is hard to put into words to be honest, have you ever wanted to have a boss fight against a massive jpeg of that one bootleg MJ Thriller guy? which is in turn a reference to a weird flash game? or have you ever wanted to have a level based entirely off of a creepy pasta that nobody has ever heard of? what about a Stick Figures on Crack level based on specifically a rip off by someone else, or what about a bonus level based on Moppa Wars! (look it up you will find nothing)

Worth mentioning is that this game is dickhead level difficult, as someone who loves tough as nails videogames (not as a hardcore get gud gamer but as a total masochist), this walks the line of what i consider fun and frustrating. But the esthetic, music, quasi nostalgic vibes, and just generally how this game handles itself make me very happy and willing to jump through hoops just to see what else gets this game has hidden in it, i have been on board this game was about Obama dressed as Mario, and i can’t tell you how happy i am this game turned out just as insane as i was wishing.

You can tell this is a Slavic game because the devs made sure every speaking role character just says “Breh” as their text box voice bark.

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.