Hypnospace Outlaw

''Hypnospace Outlaw'' is a 2019 simulation video game developed by Tendershoot and published by No More Robots. Set in an alternate history 1999, the game takes place inside a parody of the early Internet and its culture that users visit in their sleep called Hypnospace. The player assumes the role of an "Enforcer" for the fictional company Merchantsoft—creator of Hypnospace—and seeks to police illegal content, copyright violations, viruses, and cyberbullying by users on the service. In the process, the player engages in detective work and puzzle-solving. It was released for Windows, macOS, and Linux in March 2019 and for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in August 2020.

Gameplay

''Hypnospace Outlaw'' utilizes an interface based on that of a typical graphical interface for a desktop operating system, similar to the likes of Windows 9x, with the player using a fictional in-game "web browser" called Hypnospace Explorer, akin to the massively popular Internet Explorer. The mission is to discover and report objectionable content they have been assigned to investigate by Hypnospace staff. Many aspects of the story can be accessed in a non-linear fashion, and others are completely optional. Investigation of cases requires exploration of web pages and searching, aided by hints given by the content of the pages. HypnoCoin, the game's main currency is earned by reporting and closing assigned cases. This currency is exchanged for various downloadable programs, virtual pets, wallpapers, themes, and content that advance the story. It also features musical pastiches of popular bands of the era, with much of the soundtrack originating from in-game bands such as "Seepage", "Fre3zer", and the "Chowder Man".

Plot

The game takes place in an alternate history version of 1999. Hypnospace is a technology created by the in-universe company Merchantsoft, that allows users to browse an intranet while they sleep by using a HypnOS headband. The player is a Hypnospace Enforcer, a moderator of the online community of Hypnospace. The player, as an enforcer, is blocked from directly communicating with other users, and initially only has access to a limited portion of the themed "zones" (much like GeoCities's neighborhoods), though more are accessible later. The user can choose when to take action on some of the game's optional reports, though some are mandatory for the game to progress.

The player must solve a variety of cases, initially given only vague information on what the violation is. Early cases include a copyright violation case over a teacher uploading her students' drawings of an old cartoon, users harassing each other, and reporting pages that were hacked to show disturbing content.

After several cases are completed, the lead developer of Hypnospace, Dylan Merchant, gives all enforcers a copy of a game he's been working on, ''Outlaw'', and asks them to test it. The game involves capturing other players in Hypnospace (represented by cars). After the player boots it up, HypnOS crashes due to the game's buggy code, and the player's headband is damaged. The game starts up again, three weeks later, after the player gets a new headband.

The player returns to moderating and must deal with the fact that certain sections of Hypnospace are in open revolt over the player's actions. Other issues stem from the actions of Merchantsoft's management: all the "geeky" zones were merged into one, leading the furious users to make their own zone. Hypnospace is also preparing for the oncoming "Year 2000" update. The player is then assigned to deal with copyright violations on a secret file sharing network called FLIST, which cannot be accessed through normal means. After finding and reporting Dylan Merchant's FLIST, Dylan bans the player.

The game opens up again weeks later to the Hypnospace 2000 update on New Year's Eve. The "Teentopia" zone main page has been hacked to show a warning for the "Year 2000 Mindcrash" with a password input. Finding the password reveals that the supposed Mindcrash virus does not actually do anything, and it is simply a ploy by Tim, a teenage hacker, to get Tiffany, a girl who he has a crush on, to talk to him again. After the "virus" is stopped, a new version of ''Outlaw'' begins to download with no input from the player. HypnOS crashes, and the player wakes up in the real world. News coverage shows that the Mindcrash had indeed killed 3-6 people (the number of people killed varies depending on the player's actions: some of the users killed by the Mindcrash can be banned prior and so will not be present for the crash) including Tiffany, and injured over a thousand others, with the news blaming it on Tim. Tim goes to jail for six years for causing the Mindcrash.

In the present day, Tim, as well as several other former Hypnospace users, are part of a project dedicated to archiving Hypnospace, which has just brought the player on. The Enforcer headband has enough onboard memory to store all of Hypnospace several times over, so all of the former pages which the player had viewed can be accessed in archival form. The members of the project request pages they remember to be located by the player. As the user takes requests for archival pages, a member of the project, a former employee of Merchantsoft, messages the player, stating that Dylan Merchant rushed a software patch inserting last minute changes into HypnOS's Year 2000 update that caused the crash, and allowed Tim to take the fall. She asks the player to find proof and privately submit it to her. Soon after, Merchant joins the archival project.

Using hidden search functionality, the player can find pages by a member of a hacker group called m1nx, who obtained logs between Dylan Merchant and his brother showing that Merchantsoft had privately commissioned a study researching the effects of this sleep technology on sleep quality, with bad results: the users of Hypnospace barely get any restful sleep at all, which is covered up by Merchantsoft. The logs also reveal that many supposed accidents in Hypnospace, such as the zone merging, were purposeful decisions by the Merchant brothers, and that Merchant was warned over ''Outlaw'''s stability but included it in the Year 2000 update anyway. Due to m1nx's penchant for hoaxes (including the hoax that had made Merchantsoft conduct the studies), the fake Mindcrash virus overshadowed the real warning, and the page warning users that Hypnospace could kill them was taken down by Merchantsoft.

The player reports this to the former employee, and Dylan confesses that he is responsible for the Mindcrash. Dylan sends the player a final 1.0 version of ''Outlaw'', where the only players present are those killed in the Mindcrash, who "ascend" after the player captures them. Capturing them also gives the player text files containing personalized apologies from Merchant for each individual killed by the crash, until the only one left to capture is him. After the player captures his car, a message appears saying that he will not resist arrest.

Development

''Hypnospace Outlaw'' was designed by Jay Tholen, creator of the earlier game ''Dropsy''. The new game was funded via a successful Kickstarter campaign, and was a finalist for the Independent Game Festival's 2019 Seumas McNally Grand Prize and "Excellence in Audio". It was released for Windows, macOS, and Linux on March 12, 2019, and for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on August 27, 2020. A free content update was released for the PC versions alongside the console releases.

Reception

The game received "generally positive reviews" according to review aggregator Metacritic. It was nominated for the Tin Pan Alley Award for Best Music in a Game, the Statue of Liberty Award for Best World, and the Herman Melville Award for Best Writing at the New York Game Awards. According to ''PC Gamer'', the game is reminiscent of when the internet was more like a cool underground club than a widespread hell from which there is no escape. Both ''The Gamer'' and ''Eurogamer'' mention the sense of nostalgia that the game brings.

Sequels

A sequel, ''Dreamsettler'', and a spinoff first-person shooter, , were both announced in 2022.

''Slayers X'' was released on June 1, 2023, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox Series X and S.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.hypnospace.net/

2019 video games
Alternate history video games
Internet-based works
Detective video games
Kickstarter-funded video games
Linux games
MacOS games
Mass media about Internet culture
Nintendo Switch games
No More Robots games
Parody video games
PlayStation 4 games
Point-and-click adventure games
Retro-style video games
Single-player video games
Video games about dreams
Video games about virtual reality
Video games developed in the United States
Video games set in 1999
Windows games
Xbox Cloud Gaming games
Xbox One games
Indie games