Decided I wanted a break from Dawntrail this evening, so I decided to give Hypnospace Outlaw a go, since I’d always been curious and it was cheap in the GOG summer sale.
For the unfamiliar, Hypnospace Outlaw is an adventure game of sorts, but rather than controlling a character you’re manipulating a computer from a fictional 1999 as it navigates around the “Web” of sorts. Technically “Hypnospace” is a Web-equivalent that people browse in their sleep through a special headband, but so far that doesn’t seem to have mattered all that much.
The fact it’s set in 1999 does matter, however, because most of your interaction involves using a delightful parody of the early(ish) Web — a land of personal Geocities pages, primarily. Hypnospace is a managed service rather than a completely open free-for-all, and divides user pages into specific “Zones” according to their subject matter. As you progress through the game, you’re given access to more Zones and thus more pages to browse.
Honestly, just browsing through the wealth of information that has been composed for these fake Web pages is a lot of fun in itself. The world of Hypnospace Outlaw has clearly been thought about in great detail, and even though it is, by necessity, considerably smaller than the “real” Internet — even as it existed in 1999 — there’s a sense that you really are exploring a community, but through your computer screen, rather than on foot.
The actual “gameplay” part of Hypnospace Outlaw places you in the role of a volunteer “Enforcer” for Hypnospace’s manufacturer MerchantSoft. This affords you special privileges — among them the ability to wield a literal banhammer — but also effectively stops you from “existing” online for the duration of your contract. Your job as an Enforcer is to seek out violations of MerchantSoft’s “laws”, which include copyright infringement, harassment, illegal (disturbing or offensive) content, distribution of malicious software and commercial activities carried out via non-approved channels.
This starts pretty simple with you wielding your banhammer on some obviously copyright-infringing pages, though the game makes sure you’re aware of the consequences of your actions through the way the page’s owners update their sites as the game progresses. In subsequent cases you’ll have to track down cases of cyberbullying via “hidden” pages, only accessible via certain means, and infiltrate rebellious groups by effectively using social engineering techniques to glean sensitive security information.
So far — I estimate I’m about halfway through the game — no real “judgement” has been placed on the player character for the things they do, though only the most hard-hearted won’t respond to the anguished frustration expressed by those who feel they had the rules applied to them unfairly. It’s satisfying to find your way into what the creators of a page clearly thought was a safe, hidden inner sanctum and then effectively wreck it by blasting its most important components for rule violations — but it’s also hard not to feel a little uncomfortable about it. That, I suspect, is kind of the point.
I’m intrigued to see where the story ends up going, as it’s definitely been intriguing so far — even though it’s mostly been little threads you can tug at as much or as little as you want up until the point I’m at. I suspect some sort of “big plot” will reveal itself before the end, though, and I’m looking forward to investigating it further. I’ll post some more in-depth thoughts about it over on MoeGamer once I’ve finished it.
For now, then, a thumbs up, particularly if you lived through this era of the Web. While it’s very much a parody rather than a completely loving recreation, a lot of it is bang on for how things really were back then — and it blends this nicely with a thoroughly modern tale about controlling the flow of information, censorship and self-expression. Good stuff.
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