Hypnospace Outlaw

[plasticseaslug]

OMG, I love HypnOSpace!! It's totally an appropriate game to see talked about on here.

[foxmosis]

I don't often find myself playing games for hours and hours and end anymore but I pretty much played through the whole thing a single sitting I was sooooo engaged.  I didn't play it until 2023 but it's definitely in my Top 10 games of the 2010's.  Such a fresh game.

Suuuuuuuper looking forward to the sequel, besides being more of this type of game, it'll be mimicking the era of internet I grew up with a bit more.  GeoCities wasn't foreign to me, there was this one Sonic Adventure 2 site for Chao that I frequented, but I was too young to really appreciate what was going on at the time.  It's an era I gained a fondness for over time for sure but I imagine that Dreamsettler will hit a certain nostalgic funny bone in me.

[Cobra!]

I’m necroposting this thread to say I got this recently on a sale on GOG. I had issues getting to work on Linux. It turns out GOG only lets you download the 32-bit installer for Linux, which is incompatible with 64-bit variants, which I have.
The developer tried to look into it, and no matter what they did, the 64 bit version wouldn’t show for me, so they DMed me and gave me an Itch key so I can play it on 64-bit Linux, which was awfully nice of them!

They also showed me how to play it in 4:3 mode using a hidden debug mode, which is perfect for my CRT monitor! It’s very experimental and breaks some things, but it’s still really cool!

The game is great! It somehow recreates the feel of the old web feel perfectly without actually recreating the old web!
I love that there’s a toolkit to make your own spaces on it, even if it’s currently Windows only.
A physical big box edition would be nice, but I’ll take what I can get.

[Charbomber]

The developer tried to look into it, and no matter what they did, the 64 bit version wouldn’t show for me, so they DMed me and gave my an Itch key so I can play it on 64-bit Linux, which was awfully nice of them!

Hey wait, I saw this conversation on the Discord lol. I didn't notice that was you, hiiii from the discord!

[Cobra!]

Hey wait, I saw this conversation on the Discord lol. I didn't notice that was you, hiiii from the discord!

Hey there!

The developer ended up fixing the issue with GOG, so I feel bad for taking a key to get a copy elsewhere, but what can I do about it now?

I’ve been playing it some more and I’m totally in love with it! I’m totally immersed in the universe, and it really feels like I’m in 1999 again, but in an alternative universe where everything feels fresh again. The developer did a fantastic job!
I heard they’re making a sequel that takes place in the early 2000s, so I’m curious to see how that turns out!

[Charbomber]

Yeah, every time I play or watch somebody else play I feel like they discover a new page or secret I never seen before. It's pretty crazy.

[Dazhak]

I reeeaaally want to play it!! I think I'll make my brother download it, he's the one with a proper stationary computer. I think I could get him interested in it even, he's also a personal website enjoyer.

[candycanearter07]

Hey wait, I saw this conversation on the Discord lol. I didn't notice that was you, hiiii from the discord!

Hey wait, there's a discord? How big is it?

[Charbomber]

Hey wait, there's a discord? How big is it?

It's ~1000 members but pretty inactive right now though. But, apparently, it'l "start to pick up when they start announcing things in December" according to Jay Tholen.

[candycanearter07]

It's ~1000 members but pretty inactive right now though. But, apparently, it'l "start to pick up when they start announcing things in December" according to Jay Tholen.

Oh great, can you send an invite in direct msgs? I just really don't like big servers.

[cindy]

Wowww, small world!  
I also saw that conversation in that Discord, and that Discord is where I met candycane, who told me about this place~
It's kind of neat to go back and discover the sequence of events that lead to me being here. Feels almost like reading a thread in Hypnospace Outlaw itself! 

Anyway yes, Hypnospace Outlaw is incredible. It'd been sitting in my library untouched for far too long, but I finally gave it a try a couple weeks ago and couldn't believe I slept on it for so long. It's easily in my top 5 favorite games of all time now, maybe even top 3. 

And like many others expressed here, it kicked up my interest in exploring yesterweb and neocities websites more. I was vaguely aware of them, even had a blank neocities page that I hadn't decided what to do with, but my drive was really ignited after playing Hypnospace Outlaw. If anything else, I just needed more of that, and the Web 1.0 revival is the genuine article. I've already beaten Hynospace Outlaw multiple times, finished the HAP, got all the achievements, checked out all the secret pages, installed mods that expanded the cases in the game and did all those too... Sooo I'm fresh out of stuff to do in Hypnospace. I could try to make my own Hypnospace pages, but I feel like that time is better sent making real HTML webpages on Nekoweb instead. 

Anyway, truly a delightful game. I played it to scratch my itch for a computer interface style game, and came away with so much more. The music was definitely the unexpected star of the show too— I've basically been listening to a playlist of it since I finished the game.   

PS: I still find myself waggling my mouse around out of muscle memory when I'm waiting on my computer doing something. 

[candycanearter07]

Yeah, I do the mouse waggle too occasionally :D even if it's not doing anything, its just fun!!
Hypnospace is kinda what got me into trying to make my website more appealing and thats how I stumbled into this forum. It's really nice how the music is just raw mp3 files in the games files too, makes it a lot easier to add it to my library :D

[Cobra!]

I found out recently that there was a CD run made with beta copies sent out to streamers before the game’s release.

I even found an image that suggested they did another limited run on Steam and Twitter, but haven’t found any other info about it.

Makes me want the game to get a physical release even more!

[candycanearter07]

Makes me want the game to get a physical release even more!

You couuulld burn your own CD-ROM and cheaply write on it with a marker for that true 90's experience (idk if this is a 90s thing or not)

[Cobra!]

Yeah, those were a thing back then, but there’s nothing like an official released, on pressed discs and cool artwork!