Overall most helpful review

Posted on: March 14, 2019

slamdunk

Games: 417 Reviews: 51

Wierd Al - Baby Got Back.wav.exe

If you want to experience a bizarro version of the days before social media where everybody had a handmade HTML personal webpage, this game is for you. Just watch some gameplay footage, and you'll know right away what you're getting into. Essentially, it's the year 1999, and you're a volunteer moderator looking for content violations on a dreamworld version of an online service similar to America Online, CompuServe, Geocities, Angelfire. As others have said, you might not believe it, but it's all disturbingly realistic in its own weird hyperstylized way. The gameplay is basically doing adventure/puzzle detective work in an internet browser on a simulated desktop based on links and keywords, to bring down a literal banhammer on violating webpage elements. The game gets trickier and requires more investigation work as it progresses, but you'll also snoop into the personal lives of a wide cast of characters, some sad, some funny, some scary, some obnoxious, all just eager to spill their guts to nobody in particular in this simulated Web 1.0 world. Along the way, you can install shady programs, click dubious links, pirate songs, get spam, and witness religious mania, but don't forget to buy an anti-virus! Frying your poor computer is just part of the fun. The graphics are a Technicolor haze and the music is bizarre and wonderful, which really drives home that this is a world built on dreams and a janky California tech startup. Most of the time I don't think comedy games work, but in this case, it absolutely nails it for me. The satire of this long gone digital age is done with great care and affection for the source material, and has an insane attention to detail. I was there. This is exactly what it was like. Kinda. I don't think The Internet has gotten any better in the last 20 years. If anything, it's just gotten worse, but there's streaming media and faster downloads now, so I'm fine with it. Just remember: Squisherz are really cool. Squisherz are so much fun.

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Posted on: June 20, 2021

rob.liefeld

Verified owner

Games: 1345 Reviews: 78

Heartbreaking

An important notice: This isn't a game for everyone. If you were born after 1995, you may not enjoy it, you may not even care for it at all. That's not a pass of judgement on my behalf, more of a fair warning. If you're born before 1990 on the other hand... Get ready for a hard-hitting nostalgia-overload. The game supposedly takes place on a dream-web, called Hypnospace. A fictional internet-client people use in their sleep around 1999. It's meant to emulate the real-world golden-era internet of the late 90's (but made to look even more primitive). With chatrooms, webrings, tiled backgrounds, animated gifs, personalized homepages, webcomics - and the spirit of adventure and exploration. Back in the day, the Internet was a wild-west. There was a general sense of excitement, all kinds of information was suddenly available, people from around the world could be reached with the click of a button, and you felt like you can bump into hidden treasure on every corner. "surfing the web" opened up a whole new world: endless, colorful, densely populated, mysterious, wonderful, unpredictable and maybe a little dangerous. Mechanically, this is a puzzle game: there is something sinister behind Hypnospace, and you have to investigate. Your tool of choice is your desktop, and your mighty web browser - with some special administrative privileges. The story is interesting, but the main thing that keeps one captivated is Hypnospace itself. It absolutely captured how it felt to experience the golden age of the internet (at least how I remember it) - before the large corporations ate up and uniformised everything, before online "news" were the alternative and not the norm, before cybercrime became rampant, before you were getting more spam than actual emails, before social sites turned ugly. Call it nostalgia, but this game reminds me of more exciting, and more innocent times. Times that has passed, but can be glimpsed at through Hypnospace Outlaw.

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Posted on: March 15, 2019

Level99

Verified owner

Games: 999 Reviews: 5

Authentically Weird Alternate 90's Web

Hypnospace Outlaw is a game in some very loose senses, but also goes well beyond the usual fare of what a game is. It's similar to Kingsway in that it apes the visual aplomb of vintage operating systems and interfaces. It's similar to Emily is Away in how its gameplay emulates window management and "standard" web browsing. You get emails and tasks but the amount of attention to detail of the whole experience is so complete and genuine-feeling. You play as a new Hypnospace Enforcer, patrolling the Hypnospace pages using your Enforce Edition HypnOS to strike down infringing content across an internet-like world that is access by people dreaming. You get to download virtual pets, music, collectibles, images, themes, sound effects, and have access to email, interface customization, and more. The deeper you go, the weirder things get. You can search for web pages or just tumble down the rabbithole by clicking link after link to end up who-knows-where. Populated by amateurishly-designed pages with lots of annoying (on purpose) background music, spinning gifs, low-res videos, and blog entries, Hypnospace is enticing to those who remember the pioneer days of the web as well as those who enjoy lapooning popular culture. There is a lot of darkness lurking in the innocence of the Hynpospace, so be careful what you click on... I've enjoyed what amount I've played thus far, as it has proven hard to put down once you really get going. Highly recommended!

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Posted on: March 16, 2019

Huzoozoo

Verified owner

Games: 124 Reviews: 3

Dreaming of a lost internet

You play as a content monitor for an interesting mash of early internet communities before true social media. The premise that you are a voluntary monitor (think of yourself as a human adsense) directs you around the lovely crafted hypnospace even to communities that wouldn't interest you at first glance. The UI and graphics are simply stunning and thankfully lacking in popular memes which would take you out of the experience. You only need to know how to navigate a webpage to enjoy this game. Also "Hot Dad" lends his amusing musical talents for a couple tracks (playable in your own desktop version of RealPlayer/Winamp).

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Posted on: April 19, 2019

Wytchblade

Verified owner

Games: 482 Reviews: 9

Almost real

Yeah first off I'm old enough to actually remember a time when the internet looked pretty much like this, especially the edgy teens' sites on AngelFire and what have you. Other than that, best Susan Wojcicki simulator I can find. It's hard to call this an actual "game" and even harder to describe what it is but it's certainly an.. experience worth experiencing if (and only if) looking at the screenshots gives you some kind of nostalgic flashbacks. It's fun for a while to get lost in this simulated internet from days past, and contend with a crummy turn-of-the-millenium operating system. Also, Dylan Merchant reminds me a lot of Todd Howard (although that was probably not intended..) My gripe is that it.. falls JUST short of being truly great, because while browsing weird personal pages, reading silly blogs, catching viruses and all is fun, the actual "plotline" falls so woefully short. It all is very detailled and carefully made but the game "mechanics" reek of missed opportunities. I was expecting something at the scale of "Papers, Please" (although I kinda value that there is no time pressure or fail state) where you'd have to mix and match what you learn and get increasingly more difficult curveballs and actually consider the repercussions of your actions, but no, every kind of strike you can issue is only used for exactly one thing (such as only ONE certain character for ALL your copyright strikes and only ONE image (4 times) for ALL your strikes on "illicit action") and when you've gone through them all, you are pretty much at the ending/prologue. Although by that time I had made a weird emotional connection with characters I haven't seen or even conversed with, just solely based on their internet presence. Again it's difficult to explain what I mean but I still recommend this uh.. program.. and if mostly for the hope that the makers will expand on the concept somehow, I feel there's some serious potential in it. I'm giving this 8 Squisherz out of 10.

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