It's impossible for me not to compare Neurocracy to a game like Hypnospace Outlaw without bias simply due to both games being "website browser simulators" and the latter being one of my favorite gaming experiences I've ever had for a multitude of reasons.
The key difference lies in the surface-level "game" aspect to it though. Hypnospace initially gives you a task of "look for rules being broken online" and then builds its world and narrative from that, alongside a tremendous amount of care in its presentation and aesthetics.
From the perspective of someone who only learned about it just now in the year 2023, Neurocracy effectively throws a website at you and says "read up, kiddo." And then it limits the amount of deep-diving you're actually allowed to do (when you hover over individual names, often it just gives you a short blurb about them without letting you view a detailed wiki-style article). While I feel like that's kind of the point given the context of "AI-written wikipedia articles with publishing approval clutched tightly by a select few elite," it's...not that fun?
To quote Cadensia's review, "the only reward the player will have is within themselves and nowhere else."
I don't love this. I don't think it's bad, but a project like this needs some kind of additional motivator for me to appreciate experiencing the world it tries to build.
I'd honestly rather just take an actual deep-dive into Wikipedia.
The key difference lies in the surface-level "game" aspect to it though. Hypnospace initially gives you a task of "look for rules being broken online" and then builds its world and narrative from that, alongside a tremendous amount of care in its presentation and aesthetics.
From the perspective of someone who only learned about it just now in the year 2023, Neurocracy effectively throws a website at you and says "read up, kiddo." And then it limits the amount of deep-diving you're actually allowed to do (when you hover over individual names, often it just gives you a short blurb about them without letting you view a detailed wiki-style article). While I feel like that's kind of the point given the context of "AI-written wikipedia articles with publishing approval clutched tightly by a select few elite," it's...not that fun?
To quote Cadensia's review, "the only reward the player will have is within themselves and nowhere else."
I don't love this. I don't think it's bad, but a project like this needs some kind of additional motivator for me to appreciate experiencing the world it tries to build.
I'd honestly rather just take an actual deep-dive into Wikipedia.