Hypnospace Outlaw (2019)

I beat Hypnospace Outlaw a long time ago but it landed on my consciousness again after the sequel and boomer shooter spinoff were unveiled. I've been listening to its music lately and it's got some hilarious stuff. One of the most memorable characters in the game has got to be the Chowder Man, the washed-out 80s hard rocker who is making ad jingles for money and is trying desperately to make a comeback. The attention to detail the game gives to these characters via their online presence and biographies is just impeccable. For example, after his initial success with more commercial songs, The Chowder Man released a prog rock song called Ready to Shave. The song didn't do too well at the time but even it has its fans online in Hypnospace.

The song itself is glorious. It's a very 80s sounding prog rock song about shaving your beard. The lyrics depict the act of shaving in the most epic way possible.

I hope we see more of the Chowder Man's career trajectory in the sequel.

One of the first things you do is DMCA a bunch of kids’ drawings of a copyrighted character on the website of a grieving elementary school teacher. Investigating her, leads you to more pages about grief and religion. That very personal, awkward and "homemade" mourning severely impacted me. I never realized how much the idea of mourning affects me, even more than the actual though of death or simulated murder. But I suspect this wasn’t the game’s intention, going more for the “you are doing something needlessly cruel to someone who has been through a lot” route. That “someone” could’ve been anyone from a number of vulnerable groups, a mourning parent was just where the dart landed I suppose.

Then again I’m inferring a lot from the developer and the game, without actually playing. I’m arguing with myself if I should keep playing this or not. Early internet seems like a special type of hell for someone like me, who’s never experienced it firsthand.

Man, that was a neat game. Really enjoyed the 90s nostalgia. The art, music, and writing were all on point. I have fond-ish memories of geocities and xanga and the like, and it was fun to explore a well-done and humorous recreation of that period.

Unfortunately, in only 6.5 hours, it managed to be both frustrating and monotonous. Most of the first handful of cases felt more tedious than engaging (looking through dozens of pages for "shocker" images in particular), and the final case was just a bit too esoteric for my liking. I only missed one little thing (a link that showed up temporarily on a flashing page) and ended up spiraling off, despite knowing the general type of thing I needed to find. I ended up using a guide to figure out that bit since I'd hit my frustration point. Oh well.

Still, it worked really well as an interactive art gallery with a bit of a story to it. Definitely worth the time if you have any amount of 90s nostalgia or just enjoy the particular stylings of the period. Just don't torture yourself for hours on the last case like I did haha.

I gave this game a shot, spent about two hours with it and completely bounced off it. At the end I resorted to using a walkthrough but found the whole process very boring.

I think what rubbed me the wrong way is how the game is presented. It's way too open in the beginning and there isn't much direction other than the emails and case files you receive. There are a ton of webpages that feel like filler and have nothing to do with completing the game. The content of the pages were funny at first, but then it starts to get tedious and annoying when the game piles on more webpages for you to surf.

Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You does the whole Internet cop thing better. I'm not exactly gaga for Orwell either, but I just think it has a better focus and direction.