Hypnospace Outlaw invokes a time that I was not alive to experience outside of a few very early childhood memories. Despite this fact, the game enraptured me with its very impressive emulation of late 90s internet and its beautiful and tragic stories of the people who used it. The initial setup of the game has you tasked with responding to different forms of cases that need to be solved inside the fictional online world of Hypnospace. These cases range from extremely simple menu navigation to complicated puzzles that require your full knowledge of your tool set in order to uncover important information. The game uses a lot of variety within each of the cases in order to slowly make you accustomed to what is possible within Hypnospace. The biggest and most fascinating thing about this game for me is being a fly on the wall and just watching how the different users of Hypnospace interact with one another and change throughout the course of the game.
One thing we have seemingly lost with how streamlined internet use has become is the personalization and creativity found in the simple act of creating a home page. One of the best feelings I had while playing this game was going into a new zone, checking out the homepages there and slowly piece together the lives of each of the users and their relationships with one another. Witnessing the painful death of a music genre, the immature rivalry of prepubescents and the sad existence of users seeking to belong is what I loved most about my time with this game. The amount of stories to uncover is astounding with my playthrough ending with about 40% of the pages still needing to be visited. I think there is something so interesting about people trying to design a space for themselves and you being unable to unravel their lives through the navigation of said space. In terms of these features alone I think Hyponspace is worth checking out.
Outside of the page exploration the game slowly lost me with the increasing complexity of some of the cases. Some of the last few cases of the game require a lot of knowledge about searching for secret links and using different applications with each other. This side of the game didn't interest me nearly as much as just simply observing people. I ended up using a guide for the last few cases but I would imagine if you are really interested in detective work, these parts will scratch that itch.
It can’t be understated how impressive the game is from an artistic standpoint. The replication of all the cheesy and edginess that is associated with 90s internet culture is done so with a reverence for this period of time. As such it's definitely one worth checking out.
One thing we have seemingly lost with how streamlined internet use has become is the personalization and creativity found in the simple act of creating a home page. One of the best feelings I had while playing this game was going into a new zone, checking out the homepages there and slowly piece together the lives of each of the users and their relationships with one another. Witnessing the painful death of a music genre, the immature rivalry of prepubescents and the sad existence of users seeking to belong is what I loved most about my time with this game. The amount of stories to uncover is astounding with my playthrough ending with about 40% of the pages still needing to be visited. I think there is something so interesting about people trying to design a space for themselves and you being unable to unravel their lives through the navigation of said space. In terms of these features alone I think Hyponspace is worth checking out.
Outside of the page exploration the game slowly lost me with the increasing complexity of some of the cases. Some of the last few cases of the game require a lot of knowledge about searching for secret links and using different applications with each other. This side of the game didn't interest me nearly as much as just simply observing people. I ended up using a guide for the last few cases but I would imagine if you are really interested in detective work, these parts will scratch that itch.
It can’t be understated how impressive the game is from an artistic standpoint. The replication of all the cheesy and edginess that is associated with 90s internet culture is done so with a reverence for this period of time. As such it's definitely one worth checking out.