Hypnospace Outlaw
Excellent!
Sites
Zane_rocks_14
This site has “edgy Hot Topic teenager” down to a science. It’s messy, full of cringe, and the author is full of himself. It’s just like me back in the day on tumblr. Hooray, I feel pain to admit that!
His chosen background music is from the imaginary band “Seepage,” a word that accurately describes what adults probably thought of the music I listened to back in the day.
Even Zane’s username hits me in a painful but nostalgic way: he was 14 when he built his account, so he appended it in the name. My first email address also has the year I signed up at the end. It’s hilarious how so many teens instinctively do that.
Granny Cream
An infectious jingle paired with the unfortunately-named “Granny Cream’s Hot Butter Ice Cream” makes for a hilarious page that I will think about for years to come.
Hypnospace’s crusty image compression doesn’t make things better when the site updates.
The Dumpster
I was greatly entertained by this cynical shoot-from-the-hip blogger. Their posts aim to laugh at weird or cringey media they discover (similar to how I enjoy following online gossip that I summarize as my “trash TV”).
A funny factoid about “The Dumpster” is that you’ll read people crying for the site to be shut down, but it can’t be found unless you explicitly search for it. It’s unlisted from all Zones (Hypnospace’s site hubs), and the author doesn’t appear to have life-ruining plans about the people they write about. Someone who at worst writes mean-spirited text gets free publicity and attention thanks to the “Internet police.”
The Observer
This site reminded me why I write for a little blog of my own. I have no idea how well-known The Observer is in Hypnospace. They could have 1,000 or 10 people that read their content, but they write reviews and share their experiences about video games anyways. Inspirational!
Beyond Twilight
Another site with a passionate artist who loves talking about anything horror-themed. The best areas are interactive scary stories built by DarkTwilightTiff and her friends, my favorite being a point-and-click adventure through a haunted mall. You can get your arm sliced off by sentient talking pants!
Music
Hypnospace Outlaw has an OST that slaps and is well worth the $10 on Steam.
Zared is seriously amazing to listen to. His album reminds me of the music I was raised on (namely Carlos Nakai and Patrick O’ Hearn - go listen to them while you’re at it!).
For me, Seepage brought back memories of Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory, an album I can still listen to today both ironically and unironically. Seepage encompasses all of nu metal and no one band, so nostalgia may vary.
Their first track, Nothing Left for Me, has so-bad-it’s-good lyrics such as:
Keep me in a graveyard (knee deep in the dead)
Do you want to feel what it feels when it feels that there is something?
Chowder Man is an entertaining parody of a rockstar who you could imagine saying “Yeah, I’m kind of a big deal.” His music is also corny, but has the same quality production values as Seepage.
SquisherZ
I had a huge grin on my face the minute my eyes graced this spoof on Pokémon. Rather than use capsule-like Pokeballs, the amorphous bodies of SquisherZ are stored in guns akin to the ones used in Slime Rancher. You can’t play the advertised game in Hypnospace, but there’s a little lore to get an idea of its features.
As a mockery of the classic “animal violence” fear mongering towards Pokémon in the ‘90s, SquisherZ is instead about talking to your opponent. You still have to worry about predator versus prey matchups, but it’s otherwise void of combat.
SquisherZ even covers the witchcraft hysteria from the same era. One Hypnospace page is devoted to pointing out all the Satanic imagery hidden in these inoffensive blob monsters.
And yes, there’s a SquisherZ Rap, rewarded to the player after hunting for all the images hiding in Teentopia.
Should I rank all 21 SquisherZ? You know what, why not? Check out this article about them!
Music player skins
Give me a second to talk like a back-in-my-day old lady about an obsolete and pointless but awesome feature from Windows XP. If the media player’s default UI is too boring for you, look no further than alternate skins that completely change its layout!
Hypnospace features parodies of 2 distinct skins that were packaged with XP: “Goo” and “Headspace.”
On a related note, I was too naive a kid to know that additional skins could be downloaded off the Net. I could have decked out my media player with Master Chief the whole time!!
AWFUL
Music
Everything behind the “Coolpunk” movement is… not that great to listen to. FRE3ZER’s tunes admittedly start off catchy, but my spine crawls when “Icy girrrrrrrl” scratches into my ears - which is ironic, because I can listen to Skrillex if I’m in the right mood.
Technically, the obnoxiousness is the joke, so at least it does its job well.
Also, shout out to the “Cool Joe” snowman mascot for reminding me of Nestea’s ad campaign in the 90’s, which terrified me as a child. Watching a snowman melt into a skeleton and drinking iced tea to regrow what is effectively his flesh was low key body horror to my tiny brain.
Plot point: the final puzzle (spoilers, obviously)
I’ll cut to the chase: I read a guide for this puzzle. I’m not sure how much was because I was dumb, or if it’s that obtuse to solve.
When Dylan is proven to have accidentally caused the Y2K “Mindcrash,” he sends a final email fessing up to the crime. There’s no dramatic cutscene for this grand finale, just a wall of text.
There’s a video just before the quest showing news coverage of the murders, but no cutscene exists here. Quite deflating, if you ask me.
Attached to this email is the game (later crime catalyst) that Dylan was obsessed with over the course of the story. “Outlaw” is a side-scrolling racing game with a goal along the lines of Chase H.Q. There’s a lawbreaker on the highway, and it’s your job to capture them.
By the story’s end, Dylan repurposes Outlaw to immortalize the people affected by the Mindcrash. Pursuing cars with their Hypnospace usernames causes them to ascend to heaven.
Symbolically, this is Dylan expressing a heartfelt apology. His obsession and mismanagement of his company clouded his vision, and his actions turned him into a criminal - an outlaw, if you will. He completed the project in their honor, ensuring that they didn’t die in vain.
Unfortunately, I found the execution of this plot point incredibly tacky. It’d be one thing if Dylan promised to package this game with every future OS update, but Hypnospace is dead at this point. Thanks for the eulogy, I guess? I’d rather this be mentioned in passing during a cutscene, with more emphasis on the apology, thanks.
Like I said, I still enjoyed my journey through Hypnospace, but Dylan? You let me down, down man.
