izigame.me

Heads up, this game does contain rapidly flashing colors in the ending sequence so be aware of that if you are photosensitive.
What's the Gameplay?
You play as a new user joining into NATEM, an alternate version of early 90's Internet filled with vaporware and chatroom tropes. Your goal is to explore the NATEM which can be done by ranking up in status and gaining as many likes as possible. If I had to simplify the gameplay, it would be "collect-a-thon"-focused as you need to collect likes and rank up in order to progress to new servers. These likes are accumulated through walking into "thumbs-up" emojis in the world, liking pop-up ads in each server, shopping items, taking pictures, and completing sidequests.
There is extra emphasis on player exploration since secret spots and paths exist in some areas that players can stumble upon by accident. Players are given tools to access new paths and solve puzzles standing in the player's way. Some of these include a Hyperlinker which allows you to grapple onto specific grapple points, a Bookmarker which allows you to teleport back to a marked location, and a Camera that may or may not let you see things hidden in the world. Expect to be walking around and exploring as much as you can for the majority of your playtime and the rest is spent on puzzles and sidequests.
How About the Aesthetics & Vibes?
If you couldn't tell from the store page, the game's style is based on vaporware, which can be described as the aesthetic for the online webscape in the 1990's to early 2000's. It is a cultural mix of Internet nostalgia, technicolor, retro 80's stuff, and a hint of psychedelics. The music is perhaps the best part of this style as you listen to vaporware music while exploring the NATEM.
Since the game is based on vaporware and the early Internet, it's not a surprise that nearly everything in the game is a nod to the old computer days. As I mentioned earlier, each area/server is like a chatroom where players and NPCs walk around and chatting each other up. There are pop-up ads and even malware appearing everywhere for you to interact with in the online world. The user interface, menu, and the toolbar feel deeply inspired by how Windows 3 looked.
What to Watch Out For?
A major nitpick I have is how annoying it is to quit the game. For the first part, I am irritated with how the Quit setup is with the Nah button being right in the center while the Yeah button is at the bottom right after selecting Quit. It is funny the first time, I will admit. The second part is how even the confirmation to Quit won't work and you'll be stuck on the prompt to Quit screen until you force-close the game.
Another major nitpick is the lack of a Sprint and Fast Travel system. I wasn't lying when I say that a majority of the time will be spent walking as you walk between servers and explore. A sprint feature would have made exploration much more bearable, especially true for some platforming sections. There is a lot of backtracking involved too to access areas and secrets you couldn't before unlocking some upgrades.
An issue of geniune concern is the risk of softlocking yourself. In one of the sections, you are required to gather at least 1 million credits to access an upgrade for your camera. One of the sidequests that gives you a decent sum of money to help with this can be softlocked. I could not finish it but luckily the game gives you enough leeway to get the money from other sidequests and hidden areas.
Recommended?
Of course I'd still recommend the game despite my complaints. The aesthetics, vibe, and exploration-focused gameplay outweight the cons that I found in my playthrough. I highly recommend it for the vaporware and retro vibes if you're into that, or if you're into adventure games that let you explore on your own for the most part.

I was about to buy Hypnospace Outlaw when I noticed there was a bundle that included this game. Taking a quick peek at the store page, I was interested and decided to buy the bundle. Hypnospace was great. I put 8 hours into it and then decided to try this game.
The main problem is the sensitivity when playing on mouse and keyboard OR a controller is insanely high and there is absolutely no way to change it. No settings menu, nothing in the Unity config pop up when starting the game, not even a config file. I looked around online and the only fix I found was a MOD to change the sensitivity. I shouldn't have to download a mod to change something so basic. And that's not to mention the narrow FOV that will gives people like me headaches.
I found a thread in the community section where other people were asking how to fix the sensitivity and the FOV back when the game first released, and the developer actually responded saying that adding those options were on their to do list. That's great! Except the game released five years ago and they've been radio silent about addressing these issues. That's annoying, but what's worse is the developer is working on a whole new sequel. So while they're working on a new game, they either are unable to add basic settings to their original title or don't care enough to do so.
A lack of such basic options that I know Unity can provide is something I can let slide on a free game, or even something that costs maybe two dollars. But this costs FIFTEEN. Granted, this game has a playable demo but I didn't realize that before purchasing, otherwise I would've known to avoid buying this. And since I sunk 8 hours into Hypnospace Outlaw, refunding this game wasn't an option since I got them bundled together.
The lesson here is look for a playable demo before buying a game.
And to add the most basic settings to your fifteen dollar game.

I don't wish to spoil too much. However, if you loved titles like Jazzpunk and Hypnospace Outlaw, you're gonna have the time of your life with this one.
Right from the moment you're dropped into the first level, the game's style becomes clear. You are thrust into a computer-generated world that resembles tropes and aesthetics of what feels like 90's to early 2000's internet. In a somewhat metroidvanian fashion, you have to explore a few levels within a hub world, interact with strange characters, overcome challenges, and collect powerups and "likes" scattered and floating around the environments in a very old-school manner, in order to level up and progress further. The first couple of hours, I was not only hooked but addicted. The graphics, old-school design, nostalgic feels, things to discover etc just made me want to keep playing and find out more. Each level is packed with unique detail and various fun tasks. The shipping cruise is probably my favourite (something about that one feels the most nostalgic to me for some reason), and the kitchen/dining chacha music is just one of many tracks that I can't get out of my head.
Unfortunately, once you reach the final "innernet" level, that's when the game's quality takes a nosedive. It's not that the level is terrible, but it's quite unbalanced and frustrating in parts, and just largely lacks the nostalgia and charming worldly feel that the other hub levels are drenched with. That said, I still forced my way through it just once to get the full story in order to see how it ends (and it is a very trippy ending indeed). As of now, much as I like replaying this game, I almost no longer bother continuing through the innernet level. Whenever I reach that point, I just prefer to relive the game's earlier magic and simply tend to boot up a new game again every time.
While the last 20% of the game leaves much to be desired, I'd still argue the first 80% of the journey is well worth the experience. Few games leave such a breath of fresh air for their uniqueness. Bring on the sequel!!
85/100 (95 if you don't include the innernet)