This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the difficult journeys they ve taken to make their games. This time, Hypnospace Outlaw [official site].
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. It s funny, bizarre, poignant, and sometimes dumb, just like the early internet that it spoofs.
But 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. 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. (more…)