For example, he’d originally wanted the directory to be set by the characters who created Hypnospace’s pages. You were sold this utopian vision, this Epcot thing, where people from Australia and everywhere were hanging out.”īut while much of Hynospace Outlaw is closely inspired by how the early internet worked, it’s still the product of many decisions. I was a little disappointed, because I was thinking the internet was Lawnmower Man and people flying around and conversing in 3D space. I was 12 in 1999, and that’s when we first got the internet at my house. “That whole era, those were my formative years. After all, Hypnospace Outlaw came out of his fascination for the nascent internet. “It had nothing to do with the game design, it just had to be in there,” says Tholen. Back before Google’s magical search opened the web up like a scalpel, you needed directories to find good stuff, so places like GeoCities had Neighborhoods, where you’d find science-fiction and fantasy pages in Area51, games in TimesSquare, and music on SunsetStrip. So how to help players get around? Tholen tells me that the first, and most obvious, thing to do was to create a homepage directory. ![]() But for Jay Tholen, the creative lead behind Hypnospace Outlaw, it’s critical that this internet feels real and fun to read. In other words, you surf an artificial internet where clues to finding the things you need could be anywhere. As the maker of a walled garden of websites called Hypnospace, MerchantSoft imposes a lot of terms and conditions on its users, and you’re one of its enforcers, policing its rules, from content infringement to profane activity. It’s 1999, the cusp of Y2K, and you work for a software corporation called MerchantSoft. How did did the three-strong team behind Hypnospace Outlaw make something so playable out of something so chaotic? The answer lay in looking at how the early internet worked. It’s funny, bizarre, poignant, and sometimes dumb, just like the early internet that it spoofs.īut it’s also a game, so its wild thickets of pages, all written by distinct personalities, are also navigable and carefully laced with puzzles to figure out. Hypnospace Outlaw is a game about surfing a fictional 1999 internet, a web of GeoCities-like pages made by a community of weirdo artists, rock stars, scammers, edgy teens, pastors, hackers and spiritualists. Took 0.01 seconds (db:0.00) and 2.00MB of RAM Used 107 files and 14 queries Sent 9 events 0 cache hits and 0 misses Shimmie version 2.6.This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the difficult journeys they’ve taken to make their games. ![]() NOEDIT: The crusty quality is intentional to make it kinda look like it's from Hypnospace, the text reads "PICTURED: Joel "Vargskelethor" and Zane "ZANE_ROCKS_14" Lofton getting wasted at a Seepage concert, circa Nov. BTW Zane has a spinoff throwback FPS game coming soon, as seen here:, you should play it when it comes out and when you beat Hypnospace Outlaw, plus a sequel to Hypnospace Outlaw got announced alongside it, so there's that too. ![]() I barely make fanart, however I am a huge fan of Hypnospace Outlaw and to see Joel finally playing it makes me happy, hence this crap I made.
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