Long considered (somewhat unfairly) the most overpriced game in the Indie Games channel, “Hypno Vol. 1” has dropped from 400 Microsoft Points down to 80 points. That makes this experimental, innovative, and genuinely creepy game an absolute must buy.
The game suffered, particularly at its original price point, in the public eye due to its simplistic graphics. But look beneath them and the game gets absolutely fascinating, and fast. You play as a hypnotist who was experimented on, and has now escaped the asylum you were incarcerated in. You now seek revenge on the society that treated you like a lab rat, and you do so by going on a non-stop killing spree. But *how* you do this is the interesting part.
You insert thoughts into people’s brains to manipulate them for your nefarious ends. You manipulate people to either kill themselves, or to kill someone else, or to create a distraction so that another person you’re manipulating can perform a kill without any pesky guards getting in the way. The game starts things off very simply, and the difficulty curve is slow and perfect; play past the 8 minute trial and the permutations of pre-planning and strategy start to impressively build up. For example, one mission has you having to clear away guards, then kill two targets in succession across the city, and it gets more involved from there.
This game is not for the most squeamish amongst us, as you’re going to do some bloody and some not-so-nice things during your play through, but for everyone else it remains a bold experiment in gameplay and narrative and that is definitely worth 80 MSP.
Here’s what the developer (Andrew Gaubatz) has to say about the game:
“Take the role of a dangerously powerful hypnotist in this dark story-driven experience. Use your abilities to cut a bloody swath through the city by ripping the intentions from one person and branding them down on others. Wherever you go, the people around you are your weapons – use them through 17 varied missions of assassination, interrogation, and mayhem as you exact your revenge on the world.”
Writings of Mass Deduction 