Posted on: January 18, 2024

astrav1

Games: 362 Reviews: 12

More than just nostalgia

While this game does a great job at emulating the Internet back when it was as fun as it was cursed, it also does have value beyond the nostalgia. Putting aside the massive amount of work this probably was; be it giving each page it's own believeable yet still entertaining personality, a bunch of customizable bits, and more music than is even reasonable for being in this game (some of which are genuinly fantastic in their own quirky way)--all done despite a player maybe not even seeing the majority of it if they are rushing through--there is a great detective element to it. I loved having to use my head and the knowledge presented to me to get to the bottom of something, I also loved that in a small way, the game let me be the kind of Janny I wanted to be, and reacted accordingly. All of this is in service of not only a cozy and fun experience, there is also a genuine and heartfelt story--both mainline and with various characters--as long as you are paying attention. Toss in a couple other simple distractions and you got yourself a great experience. My advice to those who a vacilating: it is more than worth it on sale and I would have been happy at full price. Get it, settle down with something tasty, and just take your time taking it in. I'm looking forward to Dream Settler.

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Edited on: July 9, 2025

Posted on: July 5, 2025

ssling

Verified owner

Games: 730 Reviews: 23

Give it a shot

At first I was close to disregard HO as yet another overrated hipster indie trash and uninstall it after a few minutes. Like, what the hell is it? Am I really supposed to comb through all those horribly looking and poorly written blogs by some old boomers and kids? God, why there are so many of them?! At the beginning I was just impatiently skimming through available pages, looking for what they wanted me to. But that's not the way to enjoy it. I'm not sure when that moment came exactly, but at one point I found myself much more invested in reading some randos musings about some random topics, checking for updates on known pages and discovering new ones than completing the tasks I was assigned. Randos became the names I recognize, either because I was already familiar with them or I read about them somewhere else. Initially annoying songs and jingles became irresistible earworms. Pointless at first glance drivel became captivating read when I started noticing all the more or less evident connections between various parties and overlapping themes. The illusion of authentic, living social network in an alternative version of the world they created is really quite impressive, and the experience of exploring its vast and widely varied contents (there is a TON of content, a big part of which entirely optional and/or hidden) surprisingly rewarding for those who decide to take a deep dive and immerse themselves in it. There is a storyline that kicks in later on. Gameplay reminds a bit the "Orwell" games. Basically doing a detective job by piecing together clues found across websites. Early tasks are rather simple and obvious, but down the line they can become quite devious when figuring out passwords or accessing nonpublic parts of the network comes into play. Hints can be subtle and scattered in random places, so being thorough while browsing, paying attention, bookmarking conspicuous pages beforehand, and having a good memory for details can help immensely.

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Posted on: July 1, 2022

Frmwrk

Verified owner

Games: 15 Reviews: 13

Browse the old net, plus some puzzles

Hypnospace Outlaw is about moderating the internet of the late 90's for people breaking the rules and reporting them. Exploring personal webpages is its main focus, and the game did a great job of recreating the look and feel of the old internet when everyone had their own html page, customized to hell and back, sometimes to obnoxious degrees, but always with a charming touch of creativity. You'll find edgy teens, cranky old people, corporations, scammers, religious extremists and everything in between. If you grew up on the internet and remember and the mess it was in its infancy, when people were still figuring it out and creating things just for the fun of creating them, you'll defintely enjoy this game. You might even feel sad for some of the people you meet there, even though the only interaction you ever had with them was reading their stuff online, not having ever seen their face. The devs even made an old-looking website for the game (hypnospace.net), and I'm surprised isn't listed here. While it recreates the old net beautifully and faithfully, the moderation itself could have been done better. You have to hunt down the violations assigned to you in puzzle-y manner, and sometimes the tips aren't very helpful, which could lead to frustration due to being unable to progress, especially later in the game as the cases get harder to figure out. If some puzzles had better tips on what to do, I'd have no complains. Overall, it's a good game and I had fun. If you like the aesthetics of the early internet and don't mind some slightly hard puzzles, I think you'll have fun as well. Though I'd personally wait to get this on a promotion. Also, it worked great on linux for me, which is always good to see. However, I did see people saying that the TTS fucntionality had problems on linux. I didn't use it, but do to keep that in mind if you intend on using it. Maybe this guide will help you. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2813025897

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Posted on: June 5, 2025

BananaTrimmer7504

Verified owner

Games: 49 Reviews: 1

The asthetics of this game are awsome.

Absolutely love the 90's vibes and the quirkiness of the websites.

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Posted on: June 23, 2025

asifandwhen

Games: 223 Reviews: 14

An incredible experience

Phenomenal. A more real-than-reality look at the culture of late '90s internet, dominated by Geocities, webrings, MySpace and the like. The utter earnestness of the characters is delightful and the satirical jabs at this period of 'net fan culture are spot-on. Great for those who like your-player-character-is-sitting-in-front-of-a-computer-and-solving-puzzles-by-sifting-through-data games like Spycraft or Her Story. It does go off on a bit of a wild tangent in the final act.

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