Hypnospace Outlaw (2019)

I feel like a lot of people found out about Hypnospace Outlaw through random clips on the internet, myself included. Stuff like the Granny Cream song, or the Zane Rocks page is very react-able and fun to watch, but it definitely gives the wrong impression about this game. I purchased Hypnospace Outlaw hoping for a short comedy game about 90s web pages. Instead, I ended up finding a masterfully written tragedy about art, obsession, and the dangers of the internet. This is probably the most real game I've ever played, and I loved every second of it

Set in an alternate universe's 1999, a company called Merchantsoft discovered a way for people to use the internet while they sleep. By wearing a special headband while you're asleep, you can now connect to Merchantsoft's Hypnospace network, replacing your dreams with the projection of a screen and allowing you to surf the web even while you're resting. Turns out that this is not the safest for people to be in, though, so to ensure the network is as family-friendly as possible, and to stop users from doing illegal stuff while connected, the company starts taking volunteers to help moderate their entire network. That's where you come in!

You play as a member of the Hypnospace Patrol Department, and your goal is to take the cases assigned to you by headquarters and shut down any illicit activity happening in Hypnospace. To do this you'll have to browse a huge fictional internet, scouting the pages made by the users and flagging all suspicious activity. Unfortunately, trying to keep everyone else safe involves taking a few risks yourself, so throughout your journey you'll have to solve multiple puzzles, download viruses into your system, and even search the underbelly of the network for hidden files.

While the game's technically a point-and-click adventure game, I've seen people describe it as a simulation game. And I don't blame them, Hypnospace Outlaw takes its 90s internet inspiration and goes so hard on it that you can't help but feel immersed in this world. It makes you want to browse all the zones, find new sites to visit, and see what everyone's page looks like.

Hypnospace Outlaw presents you with a very nostalgic take on what the internet used to look like 25 years ago, and it does a damn good job at it. Internet culture has evolved to a point where the same aesthetics are still used in an ironic fashion, so browsing these pages and seeing people using them sincerely is a lot of fun. Everything is just as terrible and cringe as you remember it, and you'll love looking back on it.

And that's how they get you!!! Because while the game may seem like a funny simulator where you get to make fun of old 3D gifs at first, the story slowly becomes more and more personal as you play. And sure, you have to browse the web to find the infractions, that's literally your job. But doing so will make you learn about the characters behind the screen, whether you want it or not.

Tendershoot's biggest accomplishment in this game was creating a living and breathing network of people. Dozens upon dozens of characters populate this space, and they all feel real. You get to know what they like and what their hobbies are. You get to learn about their personal life, what they believe in, and who their friends are. You see them help each other online, or even harass the people they don't like. You see them grow up and mature, or refuse to change their ways. Everyone is different, and you can truly get to know each one of them.

And then, in exchange for all that

The game gets to break your heart.

I guess it's because I've interacted with the internet all my life, in one way or another, but I think this is the most real game I've ever played. Not in a oh this happened to my buddy eric last week kinda way, but more like every single part of Hypnospace feels familiar to me. Of course I didn't live through Y2K wearing a retro-futuristic brainwave device everytime I went to bed, but seeing these characters, their webpages, and how they all parallel real life... It kinda feels like I did.

I absolutely love the themes of obsession in this game, and the lengths people will go to just to get some recognition. Dylan wants to leave Merchantsoft to pursue his own art. Erick wants to go back to his glory days when everyone liked him. Tim just wants Tiffany to pay attention to him. And in the end, the credits roll, and you're left in there wondering what happened to everyone. If anyone will get to have a happy ending.

Social media has made everyone believe they're the main character of the universe, and Hypnospace Outlaw does an incredible job at showing this same phenomenon in a 90s setting. You've seen these stories over and over again in your social media feed. You already know how it's all going to end. But you get so attached to these characters that, when it finally happens... it's heartbreaking. I cried a lot while playing.

Finally, I'd like to talk about the presentation because it's amazing as well. The game perfectly mimics the whole spectrum of what 90s webpages looked like, from serious pages like Bill Aldrin's "House of Sound" magazine, to the wackier caricatures of what people post online like BurninRubber50's homepage. The developers put so much effort not only in replicating this aesthetic, but also in making sure each page felt unique and true to what their editor really is like.

The game also has over 4 hours of music, which is absolutely insane for a game that takes around 10 hours to complete. So many artists came together to explore lots of fictional music genres, and the fact that almost every page has their own song playing in the background adds so much to the feeling of realism.

And just like everyone else who played Hypnospace, I gotta shoutout Hot Dad for playing the role of Erick Helman and writing all of his music. The role of a washed up 80s rockstar fits Hot Dad's style perfectly and he's literally the reason I found this game to begin with. Long live The Chowder Man.

Also Neil Cicierega did a couple sound effects for the game? Apparently? That's fun.

In conclusion:

I love Hypnospace Outlaw.

It has a premise that's very close to my heart, and does an incredible job at developing this idea further than I expected, in a way that only a video game can. It manages to perfectly walk the line between being sad and funny, and knows exactly when and how to deliver its message. The writers made an amazing job at making every single character feel human. You want to see them grow up and get better... and it hurts when you aren't able to.

Simply put, this is one of the best games I've ever played. 10/10

...

Anyway I can't believe they put grouvee in hypnospace that's so crazy?!?!?!?

First half of this game is the best, the simple role you have of being like a mod on a power trip is pretty amusing, and the game puts you in these almost papers-please like situations at different points. All of this is window dressing for a narrative though, which is interesting and feeds into it's puzzle dynamic... But after the first half of this, i got a little tired of it (and the puzzle solving stuff gets way more cryptic and i couldnt do it without a guide for the most part)

IT really is a strange little gem, and it's overall well made too. It felt like a hacking game because you do not have these linear puzzles but most of them make you think it over and figure it out using a small internet, to 'adventure about' in to help.

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.

Originally I presumed that the devs were using the idea of being a cyber-cop in 1999 as a way to observe how the internet was back then through a humorous and exaggerated light, as a parody of sorts, but it turns out I was wrong. It’s actually a very earnest look into how awkward, honest and heartfelt it used to be, with an emphasis in the awkward. I should clarify that I started using the internet around 2007, so I can only assume that things were indeed like this back then.

As expected, technology back then was very clunky, something which is reflected in the gameplay. Your job of finding TOS violations becomes a lot harder when you lack basic stuff like the ability to quickly change between windows, to see your desktop without closing everything first, a more compressible bookmark system, browsing history, etc. All of this makes the game a lot more tedious than it needs to be. Yes, it is a reflection of what technology was like back then, but, at the same time, we are using a sci-fi headband mind-pc, so they could have ignored realism in favor of a better gameplay flow.

Along the game design, the puzzle design also gave me problems, but your mileage may vary. The game expects you to be somewhat lost and to explore this vast cyber-space, which it is pretty enjoyable on its own, but when you are trying to advance the plot, you might just ignore everything that isn’t immediately useful for you. I started to enjoy the game immensely more after using a hints guide, so I had a general idea of where to look, and to know when I’m going on a tangent on purpose. It also turns out that the game has its own hint system, you just need to search for the word “hint”. I didn’t find that out until after I finished. Fun.

Getting lost is an important part of the experience, since the game packs just so much content to see: personal pages, even more personal hidden pages, stores, religious pages, games, videos, music, comedy, tragedy. There’s a lot to see, and it can be overwhelming at times. Especially after playing long sessions, the loud colors and repetitive music will start to annoy you. That said, the music on its own it pretty good, and you can tell everything was put in place with a lot of care by someone who knew what they were doing.

Lastly, my only other complaint, after the intended clunkiness, would be the ending. Without going into spoilers, it feels incomplete, the game just ends, almost like it’s missing an epilogue. After spying on these users, you form a sort of one-sided friendship with them, and I was always interested in the next step of their lives. A “where are they now?” segment would have been great. More time exploring the “main bad guy” would have been nice too, or the many mysterious hackers that roam the Hypnospace.

That said, I really do enjoy the stuff that there is. The ending did leave me depressed and empty, but that might be just me and not a reaction the developers were looking for.

Overall it’s a great experience, attached to a not-as-great game, with an insane amount of content, most of it optional. I feel like this is one of those games I’m gonna have to replay eventually to form a final opinion, but right now I’m between 3 and 4 stars, leaning more to 4.

Hypnospace Outlaw mimics an alternate universe OS, with comedy, horror, and tragedy that makes this a truly memorable and immersive experience.

The player is an Enforcer of illegal content on an early version of the Internet called "Hypnospace" and is tasked with policing anything that violates five specific laws. Some of these range from the easy to spot (searching for a cartoon character's likeness and flagging content) to the obscenely difficult (uncovering a secret file sharing network, solving mysteries in unauthorized pages, etc). The game is much more robust than the Papers, Please style of heartlessly stamping down on users though, with the option to scroll pages, install applications (and virtual pets), and participate in a very demented game prototype.

As for the culture of Hypnospace, it seeks to be as close to 1999 Internet as you'd expect, with a "Coolpunk" music movement, extremely edgy or extremely saccharine pages, uncomfortably Christian or boomer-esque pages, and plenty of nerdiness abound. The game starts with a biting satire on your own conduct as an enforcer but morphs into something much more serious down the line (can't spoil it!) and while it's easy to laugh on the surface, there's honest and heartfelt tales at the core of all this kitschy presentation.

Graphically this game SHINES - with an extremely unique presentation the graphical effects definitely wow the player while seeming as garish as possible. The music can range to all sorts of MIDI-induced horrors, along with some insanely catchy bits (The Chowder Man). The writing is also top notch, involving genuinely naive/innocent depictions of characters as a source of comedy but also a sincerity that keeps it from being too tongue-in-cheek.

The only thing I would call a downside would be the sheer difficulty of some of these puzzles - with deliberately obtuse layouts and the game urging the player to blindly explore in some places it can be super easy to get lost. Thankfully there's a hint system handy for that purpose along with some other helpful bits here and there. If you don't mind a challenge (that would be best shared with friends), Hypnospace is a trip into a world you might never have lived but will definitely miss.

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.

I wanted to love Hypnospace Outlaw so much. I'm a pretty big fan of detective and mystery games, especially ones with emergent problem-solving. It's surprising how slow detective games have taken to evolve, but I'm happy to see this generation is finally pushing into this area more. Hypnospace Outlaw is no exception.

Most of the gameplay for Hypnospace Outlaw is you searching through various portals to find relevant information or violations to progress things. And that's fine, I just don't think I am as nostalgic for the 90s as most people are now days. That's really the driving force in the game.

From my understanding there is some deeper level stuff going on, but I never really connected with it. I played the game for 5 hours and I think after that point I want to cut ties with it.

IF detective games and 90s ascetic is your jam, give Hypnospace Outlaw a chance, you might love it even if I didn't.

Boy it'd be great if achievements simply popped instead of being locked behind an arbitrary and non-essential game play mechanic that requires the work to be done either way...

Beyond that, this game is pretty neat, the investigations are fun and the fake Geocities websites are hilarious. It's well worth checking out but if you care about achievements I would definitely consider using an achievement guide as there is a "point of no return" where, if you don't do one arbitrary thing, you will miss out on a pile of story achievements that will require a replay to collect.

... I've been singing about hot butter ice cream for days now and I'm worried people will think I'm insane...

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.

Like Emily Is Away Too, Hypnospace Outlaw appeals greatly to my affection for the late 90s internet: Unpolished, compressed, inconsistently skeuomorphic, half of it feeling like a corporate PowerPoint and the other like a zine made in MS Paint. The overall narrative is equal parts humorous and unsettling, and it continued to occupy my thoughts between play sessions.

The game's pace didn't completely gel with me: Most of the cases seemed very easy, but two felt way more difficult and time-consuming. Without more "medium" difficulty cases in between, I sometimes assumed I must be barking up the wrong tree... only to later discover my instincts were correct.

That said, I spent far more time in Hypnospace Outlaw feeling captivated than frustrated. I'd recommend it to point-and-click adventure fans old enough to remember Y2K.

PROS

• Mechanically and structurally innovates within the adventure genre
• Works flawlessly as a creative piece of interactive fiction
• Exceptional and satisfying puzzle solutions
• Convincing aesthetic and character writing immerses you in its game world
• Lack of hand-holding is thematically evocative and forces you to put in the necessary effort to advance the plot

CONS

• Could have benefited from more robust early game tutorials
• A few more ways to spice up the experience of clicking around and reading heaps of text would've been welcome

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.

If you were a fan of 90's puzzle adventure games, I'd highly recommend this game to you. It actually doesn't play anything like one of those old school Sierra games, but it scratched the same itch for me. It has two things going for it...

1. An interesting story that unfolds through solving puzzles. There won't be much hand holding, you'll just have to explore and try things until the game starts making more sense and you get that reward of feeling like a genius for figuring out something obscure yet logical. 2 . If you grew up playing 90's adventures, you probably also grew up surfing the 90's web! What an iconic time for websites. This game perfectly captures how I remember the web being back then without the slowly loading pages and frames, etc.

Definitely pick this up if you like figuring out puzzles and don't immediately run for walk throughs.