Hypnospace Outlaw 2019
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Days in Journal
1 day
Last played
June 6, 2021
Platforms Played
I can honestly say that Hypnospace Outlaw is absolutely like nothing I've ever played before. It is completely and utterly unique and manages to be incredibly special.
At first glance, it may come across as a typical "weirdcore" indie game. Hypnospace is a near flawless recreation of the early 90s Geocities internet, including all of the strangeness that accompanies it. However, once you dive into the bizarre world of Hypnospace, it's clear that it's not just a recreation, it's a love letter.
Hypnospace Outlaw puts you in the shoes of an "enforcer" (a glorified internet moderator) for Merchantsoft, the company behind this alternate universe internet. As you explore the various sites, boards, and blogs of Hypnospace, painstakingly hand crafted with hundreds of individual sites and countless text boxes, music, videos, and graphics, you'll see that the game perfectly balances the weird, the hilarious, the creepy, and sometimes even the genuinely touching. Most games that I've played struggle to successfully do comedy, let alone successfully explore all of these tones and feelings. The game features so many hidden easter eggs, downloads, and jokes that feel extremely rewarding when you go out of your way to find them.
Hypnospace feels alive with a ton of unique characters spread across the web, and while many are one-note jokes, several feel like real individuals. Characters like ZANE_ROCKS_14, AbbyWrites58, and The Chowder Man are people you'll come across and interact with throughout the main story, but if you dive deeper, you'll find there's so much more depth and lore to them and the hundreds of others on Hypnospace. Few games can manage to invest the player in reading thousands of lines of text just to immerse themselves fully into this world while also doing tasks as silly as hunting down copyrighted images of a 60s cartoon about a fish detective.
Later on the game, cases will also require some serious detective work, which can feel incredibly obtuse, but it never feels impossible, and the game does a wonderful job of making you WANT to delve deeper and look harder. It never feels like a chore, and often makes you feel like a genius for solving particularly difficult problems.
I really couldn't gush about this game enough. As I said at the beginning of this review, there truly isn't anything else like Hypnospace Outlaw and I believe that this is a very special game that has sadly gone under a lot of peoples' radars. I'll be watching the next project from Jay Tholen with great interest.
At first glance, it may come across as a typical "weirdcore" indie game. Hypnospace is a near flawless recreation of the early 90s Geocities internet, including all of the strangeness that accompanies it. However, once you dive into the bizarre world of Hypnospace, it's clear that it's not just a recreation, it's a love letter.
Hypnospace Outlaw puts you in the shoes of an "enforcer" (a glorified internet moderator) for Merchantsoft, the company behind this alternate universe internet. As you explore the various sites, boards, and blogs of Hypnospace, painstakingly hand crafted with hundreds of individual sites and countless text boxes, music, videos, and graphics, you'll see that the game perfectly balances the weird, the hilarious, the creepy, and sometimes even the genuinely touching. Most games that I've played struggle to successfully do comedy, let alone successfully explore all of these tones and feelings. The game features so many hidden easter eggs, downloads, and jokes that feel extremely rewarding when you go out of your way to find them.
Hypnospace feels alive with a ton of unique characters spread across the web, and while many are one-note jokes, several feel like real individuals. Characters like ZANE_ROCKS_14, AbbyWrites58, and The Chowder Man are people you'll come across and interact with throughout the main story, but if you dive deeper, you'll find there's so much more depth and lore to them and the hundreds of others on Hypnospace. Few games can manage to invest the player in reading thousands of lines of text just to immerse themselves fully into this world while also doing tasks as silly as hunting down copyrighted images of a 60s cartoon about a fish detective.
Later on the game, cases will also require some serious detective work, which can feel incredibly obtuse, but it never feels impossible, and the game does a wonderful job of making you WANT to delve deeper and look harder. It never feels like a chore, and often makes you feel like a genius for solving particularly difficult problems.
I really couldn't gush about this game enough. As I said at the beginning of this review, there truly isn't anything else like Hypnospace Outlaw and I believe that this is a very special game that has sadly gone under a lot of peoples' radars. I'll be watching the next project from Jay Tholen with great interest.