
English: 
Hypnospace Outlaw managed the unusual feat
of making me feel nostalgic for something
I didn’t personally experience. Second-hand
nostalgia, perhaps. Set in 1999, Hypnospace
Outlaw has you playing as a moderator for
what is clearly a knock-off of GeoCities.
Even though I was a teenager at the time,
I never used GeoCities and I was worried the
experience would be lost on me. It wasn’t.
Hypnospace Outlaw tugs at plenty of other
nostalgia strings for those of us who were
around in the nineties. There’s the faux
desktop, complete with chunky icons and hideous
moving imagery, the tinny sound effects, more
loading bars than a two-hour session of Anthem,
and even a trail as you move your mouse around

English: 
Hypnospace Outlaw managed the unusual feat
of making me feel nostalgic for something
I didn’t personally experience. Second-hand
nostalgia, perhaps. Set in 1999, Hypnospace
Outlaw has you playing as a moderator for
what is clearly a knock-off of GeoCities.
Even though I was a teenager at the time,
I never used GeoCities and I was worried the
experience would be lost on me. It wasn’t.
Hypnospace Outlaw tugs at plenty of other
nostalgia strings for those of us who were
around in the nineties. There’s the faux
desktop, complete with chunky icons and hideous
moving imagery, the tinny sound effects, more
loading bars than a two-hour session of Anthem,
and even a trail as you move your mouse around

English: 
the screen.
Nostalgia only gets you so far, but fortunately,
there’s a solid detective game underneath
the garish shell. Hypnospace Outlaw has moments
of sheer brilliance scattered throughout its
eight to ten-hour run-time. I finally understand
why being a moderator, or enforcer, to use
the in-game lingo, can make the power go to
your head. As a YouTuber, I should sympathize
with someone using copyrighted material, but
I didn’t hesitate to bring down the banhammer
like a rogue algorithm that’s been promised
a raise and a corner office. Anything to close
the case.
I’m giving Hypnospace Outlaw a four-star
rating and I highly recommend it if you have
any nostalgia for the period. Even if you
don’t, it’s probably still worth your
time. Detective games of this quality are
rare and Hypnospace Outlaw sits nicely alongside
Her Story and Return of the Obra Dinn as games
I wish I could wipe from my memory and play
again.
You interact with the game through a fake
operating system called hypno OS. For story
reasons, users of hypno OS are technically
connecting with it via headbands, an early
form of VR, but you use it like any old desktop.

English: 
the screen.
Nostalgia only gets you so far, but fortunately,
there’s a solid detective game underneath
the garish shell. Hypnospace Outlaw has moments
of sheer brilliance scattered throughout its
eight to ten-hour run-time. I finally understand
why being a moderator, or enforcer, to use
the in-game lingo, can make the power go to
your head. As a YouTuber, I should sympathize
with someone using copyrighted material, but
I didn’t hesitate to bring down the banhammer
like a rogue algorithm that’s been promised
a raise and a corner office. Anything to close
the case.
I’m giving Hypnospace Outlaw a four-star
rating and I highly recommend it if you have
any nostalgia for the period. Even if you
don’t, it’s probably still worth your
time. Detective games of this quality are
rare and Hypnospace Outlaw sits nicely alongside
Her Story and Return of the Obra Dinn as games
I wish I could wipe from my memory and play
again.
You interact with the game through a fake
operating system called hypno OS. For story
reasons, users of hypno OS are technically
connecting with it via headbands, an early
form of VR, but you use it like any old desktop.

English: 
Although Hypnospace Outlaw takes place in
1999, the vibe of the desktop, in particular,
is more mid-nineties, with a distinct Windows
3.1 vibe to it.
I initially assumed Hypno OS would just be
there as a hub for email and a browser, however,
it’s so much more than that, and is practically
a full operating system. You can download
files and pin images to your desktop, play
songs in a basic music player, and even install
new programs through executables which automatically
add a new icon to your desktop. The operating
system can get infected with viruses, and
if it does, you’ll need to buy, download,
install, and use anti-virus software. There
are even three different versions of the anti-virus
software with the more expensive ones having
extra features that all actually work in the
game. The true brilliance of Hypno OS hit
home when I realized I could download a virtual
pet that lived on the desktop and required
the odd bit of food and some attention every
now and again.
This sense of time-traveling awe and wonder
lasted for a good hour or so, but Hynospace
Outlaw doesn’t coast on nostalgia. As a

English: 
Although Hypnospace Outlaw takes place in
1999, the vibe of the desktop, in particular,
is more mid-nineties, with a distinct Windows
3.1 vibe to it.
I initially assumed Hypno OS would just be
there as a hub for email and a browser, however,
it’s so much more than that, and is practically
a full operating system. You can download
files and pin images to your desktop, play
songs in a basic music player, and even install
new programs through executables which automatically
add a new icon to your desktop. The operating
system can get infected with viruses, and
if it does, you’ll need to buy, download,
install, and use anti-virus software. There
are even three different versions of the anti-virus
software with the more expensive ones having
extra features that all actually work in the
game. The true brilliance of Hypno OS hit
home when I realized I could download a virtual
pet that lived on the desktop and required
the odd bit of food and some attention every
now and again.
This sense of time-traveling awe and wonder
lasted for a good hour or so, but Hynospace
Outlaw doesn’t coast on nostalgia. As a

English: 
new voluntary enforcer for Merchantsoft, the
owner of Hypno OS, your job is to solve cases
involving content infringement, malicious
software, harassment, illegal content, and
financial transactions. For example, an early
case asks you to crack down on people publishing
copyrighted images of a cartoon character
called Gumshoe Gooper. A simple search of
the name reveals a few incriminating pages,
so you report the images and close off the
case. Other cases have you hunting down illegal
software, deleting obscene images, and dealing
with people acting like dicks on the internet.
Thank God we got rid of that problem in the
nineties.
One of Hypnospace Outlaw’s best features
is that the pages don’t remain static. The
content changes as we move forward in time
and people react to your previous actions.
The woman you reported for posting images
of Gumshoe Gooper gets angry and complains
about pathetic 20-year-olds with too much
time on their hands, and she even starts a
little protest group which gains some traction.

English: 
new voluntary enforcer for Merchantsoft, the
owner of Hypno OS, your job is to solve cases
involving content infringement, malicious
software, harassment, illegal content, and
financial transactions. For example, an early
case asks you to crack down on people publishing
copyrighted images of a cartoon character
called Gumshoe Gooper. A simple search of
the name reveals a few incriminating pages,
so you report the images and close off the
case. Other cases have you hunting down illegal
software, deleting obscene images, and dealing
with people acting like dicks on the internet.
Thank God we got rid of that problem in the
nineties.
One of Hypnospace Outlaw’s best features
is that the pages don’t remain static. The
content changes as we move forward in time
and people react to your previous actions.
The woman you reported for posting images
of Gumshoe Gooper gets angry and complains
about pathetic 20-year-olds with too much
time on their hands, and she even starts a
little protest group which gains some traction.

English: 
Early on, I found a page warning me that using
Hypno OS causes beefbrain. It was framed in
much the same way we used to panic about mobile
phones causing brain cancer. Fast forward
a few weeks, and some webpages have a special
beefbrain shield that supposedly protects
against the disease. And of course, there
are people claiming beefbrain is a hoax.
My major gripe with the cases is that they
aren’t consistent in their quality. I loved
about half of them. I’ll keep things vague
for spoiler reasons, but personal highlights
included figuring out how to access an encrypted
file and exploring a separate region devoted
to banned sites. The encrypted file, in particular,
was so incredibly satisfying, requiring you
to follow some clues and interact with a few
different programs in a way that brought the
whole operating system to life.
And then there were the cases that didn’t
work, such as the one where I had to find
four illegal images and went in circles for
an hour before finding them due to sheer luck.
Hypnospace Outlaw is, at heart, a puzzle game,
so there’s always going to be those parts
you don’t get and other people do. This
doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad puzzle.
However, I decided to check out other playthroughs

English: 
Early on, I found a page warning me that using
Hypno OS causes beefbrain. It was framed in
much the same way we used to panic about mobile
phones causing brain cancer. Fast forward
a few weeks, and some webpages have a special
beefbrain shield that supposedly protects
against the disease. And of course, there
are people claiming beefbrain is a hoax.
My major gripe with the cases is that they
aren’t consistent in their quality. I loved
about half of them. I’ll keep things vague
for spoiler reasons, but personal highlights
included figuring out how to access an encrypted
file and exploring a separate region devoted
to banned sites. The encrypted file, in particular,
was so incredibly satisfying, requiring you
to follow some clues and interact with a few
different programs in a way that brought the
whole operating system to life.
And then there were the cases that didn’t
work, such as the one where I had to find
four illegal images and went in circles for
an hour before finding them due to sheer luck.
Hypnospace Outlaw is, at heart, a puzzle game,
so there’s always going to be those parts
you don’t get and other people do. This
doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad puzzle.
However, I decided to check out other playthroughs

English: 
online and I’m definitely not the only person
who had the same problem with this one and
others solved it through luck as well.
At one point a couple of hours into the game,
you’re left to your own devices and told
to just find problems and deal with them.
There’s a minor story reason behind it,
but I much preferred having actual cases to
solve and it could easily have been more structured
without causing any problems. As it was, I
kept clicking on pages until I found what
the game clearly wanted me to stumble upon
and things finally progressed.
That was a minor inconvenience a few hours
in, but a similar problem popped up near the
end and it could cause much bigger issues.
Given that I’m talking about the ending
here, I can’t keep it 100% spoiler free,
however, I won’t show anything on screen
and will keep it vague. I think the potential
benefit of discussing my experience is worth
the drawback of hearing minor spoilers.
You see, I thought I’d finished Hypnospace
Outlaw after about five hours. The story came
to a surprisingly dark conclusion and I was
left in what felt like an end-game state or
epilogue. I was satisfied with how things
had ended and had enjoyed the game a lot.
You’re given a few optional tasks you can
undertake if you like but they aren’t cases

English: 
online and I’m definitely not the only person
who had the same problem with this one and
others solved it through luck as well.
At one point a couple of hours into the game,
you’re left to your own devices and told
to just find problems and deal with them.
There’s a minor story reason behind it,
but I much preferred having actual cases to
solve and it could easily have been more structured
without causing any problems. As it was, I
kept clicking on pages until I found what
the game clearly wanted me to stumble upon
and things finally progressed.
That was a minor inconvenience a few hours
in, but a similar problem popped up near the
end and it could cause much bigger issues.
Given that I’m talking about the ending
here, I can’t keep it 100% spoiler free,
however, I won’t show anything on screen
and will keep it vague. I think the potential
benefit of discussing my experience is worth
the drawback of hearing minor spoilers.
You see, I thought I’d finished Hypnospace
Outlaw after about five hours. The story came
to a surprisingly dark conclusion and I was
left in what felt like an end-game state or
epilogue. I was satisfied with how things
had ended and had enjoyed the game a lot.
You’re given a few optional tasks you can
undertake if you like but they aren’t cases

English: 
and there’s no sense of urgency. Had I not
been reviewing the game, I would probably
have stopped here and not realized how much
I was missing. Fortunately, I was curious
to see if you could solve cases in different
ways. There was a piece of software I’d
downloaded but hardly used and I wanted to
see if the case I’d just solved could have
been done a different way. It seemed like
an important point to make in the review,
and indeed, you can solve cases multiple ways.
I messed around for a while and helped with
those optional tasks. At one point, I even
uncovered what looked like a big conspiracy
but it turned out to be nothing. I was about
ready to give up when I stumbled across a
puzzle that I hadn’t been able to solve
earlier on. Curiosity got the better of me,
so I kept going and came up with a solution.
The only problem was, testing the solution
cost money. I didn’t have enough and there
was no obvious way to earn more. I’d hit
a brick wall and, worst of all, I didn’t
know if there was anything on the other side
of that wall worth reaching.
Then eventually, and I really do mean eventually,
I stumbled on a way to make the money I needed
and completed that puzzle. This set in motion

English: 
and there’s no sense of urgency. Had I not
been reviewing the game, I would probably
have stopped here and not realized how much
I was missing. Fortunately, I was curious
to see if you could solve cases in different
ways. There was a piece of software I’d
downloaded but hardly used and I wanted to
see if the case I’d just solved could have
been done a different way. It seemed like
an important point to make in the review,
and indeed, you can solve cases multiple ways.
I messed around for a while and helped with
those optional tasks. At one point, I even
uncovered what looked like a big conspiracy
but it turned out to be nothing. I was about
ready to give up when I stumbled across a
puzzle that I hadn’t been able to solve
earlier on. Curiosity got the better of me,
so I kept going and came up with a solution.
The only problem was, testing the solution
cost money. I didn’t have enough and there
was no obvious way to earn more. I’d hit
a brick wall and, worst of all, I didn’t
know if there was anything on the other side
of that wall worth reaching.
Then eventually, and I really do mean eventually,
I stumbled on a way to make the money I needed
and completed that puzzle. This set in motion

English: 
some huge reveals and, seemingly at random,
I triggered more content and the true ending
was finally in sight. I must have done things
in the wrong order because I’d effectively
already solved the cases and just had to submit
the info to complete them.
Anyway, I mention this because the full ending
is even better than what I thought the ending
was and I highly recommend you keep playing
until you experience it. Again, I double checked
to make sure it wasn’t just me who had this
issue, and heard a couple of people reference
this final part as the end game and clearly
thought of it as optional. It’s not.
If you do get stuck, there’s a built-in
hint system that I didn’t find it until
it was too late. It would be ironic if I missed
a hint for how to find the hint system. Anyway,
there are loads of clues in there, all categorized
by how helpful they are so you can take a
minimal hint or an extreme hint or somewhere
in between. You risk getting minor spoilers
doing this of course, but it’s better than
getting completely stuck and, as of the time
of writing, there aren’t any guides online.
I also want to give special mention to the
music because this probably triggered my nostalgia
more than anything else. There’s something

English: 
some huge reveals and, seemingly at random,
I triggered more content and the true ending
was finally in sight. I must have done things
in the wrong order because I’d effectively
already solved the cases and just had to submit
the info to complete them.
Anyway, I mention this because the full ending
is even better than what I thought the ending
was and I highly recommend you keep playing
until you experience it. Again, I double checked
to make sure it wasn’t just me who had this
issue, and heard a couple of people reference
this final part as the end game and clearly
thought of it as optional. It’s not.
If you do get stuck, there’s a built-in
hint system that I didn’t find it until
it was too late. It would be ironic if I missed
a hint for how to find the hint system. Anyway,
there are loads of clues in there, all categorized
by how helpful they are so you can take a
minimal hint or an extreme hint or somewhere
in between. You risk getting minor spoilers
doing this of course, but it’s better than
getting completely stuck and, as of the time
of writing, there aren’t any guides online.
I also want to give special mention to the
music because this probably triggered my nostalgia
more than anything else. There’s something

English: 
so quintessentially nineties and early internet,
about the heavily compressed light rock music
that often plays automatically when you open
up a user’s home page. It’s music that
you know isn’t actually good and you wouldn’t
listen to it in your free time, but for some
reason, because it’s being automatically
played over a browser window with incredibly
poor sound quality, it becomes the best thing
you’ve ever heard, and I say that as someone
who has two Taylor Swift albums.
I’ve referenced my own nostalgia a lot during
this review, however, I firmly believe you
don’t need to have been online during the
nineties to appreciate Hypnospace Outlaw.
A passing interest in the early internet should

English: 
so quintessentially nineties and early internet,
about the heavily compressed light rock music
that often plays automatically when you open
up a user’s home page. It’s music that
you know isn’t actually good and you wouldn’t
listen to it in your free time, but for some
reason, because it’s being automatically
played over a browser window with incredibly
poor sound quality, it becomes the best thing
you’ve ever heard, and I say that as someone
who has two Taylor Swift albums.
I’ve referenced my own nostalgia a lot during
this review, however, I firmly believe you
don’t need to have been online during the
nineties to appreciate Hypnospace Outlaw.
A passing interest in the early internet should

English: 
be more than enough to appreciate this excellent
detective game. The nostalgia isn’t necessary,
but it doesn’t hurt.
Okay, thank you for watching. Please like,
share, and subscribe if you enjoyed the video
and let me know what you thought in the comments.
I have a Patreon if you’d like to support
the channel financially. You can get your
name in the credits and a patreon role in
my discord server for a dollar a month.
The next review should be Baba Is You and
I also plan to cover one or more of Devil
May Cry 5, The Division 2, Satisfactory, and
Sekiro, although I doubt I’ll get to all
of them this month. The long critique video
for April will be on Metro Exodus.
Okay, until next time. Cheers.

English: 
be more than enough to appreciate this excellent
detective game. The nostalgia isn’t necessary,
but it doesn’t hurt.
Okay, thank you for watching. Please like,
share, and subscribe if you enjoyed the video
and let me know what you thought in the comments.
I have a Patreon if you’d like to support
the channel financially. You can get your
name in the credits and a patreon role in
my discord server for a dollar a month.
The next review should be Baba Is You and
I also plan to cover one or more of Devil
May Cry 5, The Division 2, Satisfactory, and
Sekiro, although I doubt I’ll get to all
of them this month. The long critique video
for April will be on Metro Exodus.
Okay, until next time. Cheers.
